Iβm not gonna be active that much for one week (including the weekends) because Iβm going to California for travels π (I can finally see my friend though hell yeah Iβm excited)
I know another community that shut down its forums because bots kept attacking it. The typical count is usually no more than a few, so a few thousand visitors in the past 5 minutes is definitely suspicious.
Also, I think the views hack thing isnβt limited to this forum, Iβve seen this other forum have about 3 thousand users online (average peak is only a dozen at most).