Currently Active Users: 1415 (120 members and 1295 guests)

[Guest]

Quick snapshot less than a minute ago. how many of the guests are "lazy" members just dropping in? Or would the guests like to join soon? Al

[Heelster]

I always log in - - - -

[jmc]

Well, a couple of observations: 1) Some time ago, Tech adjusted the session delay time which keeps your session "open" longer between site accesses. (The site only "knows" you are there when you access data from the server. It then counts time after your last access -- if that timer counts down to zero, your session is considered ended. If you access data before the timer counts to zero, the timer resets.) This adjustment tends to keep users in the counts longer. 2). As of a couple of months ago, we were the target of a rather intense spam attack. Most of these were spam "bots" that are programmed to create multiple users on forums so they can drop links to other sites, advertising and the like. Not to "toot my horn" but I am one of the guards at the front gate so I saw the ones that made it through the registration screens -- there were probably a great many more that didn't make it that far. Once again, Tech to the rescue -- he installed another little mathematical hurdle into the registration process. (Turns out these 'bots flunked elementary arithmetic! -- at least for now.) I have no reason to believe the number of attempts has lessened, even though I no longer see so many get through registration. This is all the long way around saying it is likely that a large number of the "guests" in the active user count are spam-bots pinging the site -- not getting in but seeing that it is here and perhaps trying to get in.

[jo]

Not sure, but some of those "visitors" might be Google, Bing, et al, indexing the pages of the site. On some forums, each "page" they visit is counted as a new visitor because the forum cannot track their accesses from page to page in the same way it can track a normal web-browser. It is also influenced by how long people are here for, and the total is all people seen over a short period of time not all in one instant. -- jmc types more quickly.

[roniheels]

Well, a couple of observations:

1) Some time ago, Tech adjusted the session delay time which keeps your session "open" longer between site accesses. (The site only "knows" you are there when you access data from the server. It then counts time after your last access -- if that timer counts down to zero, your session is considered ended. If you access data before the timer counts to zero, the timer resets.) This adjustment tends to keep users in the counts longer.

2). As of a couple of months ago, we were the target of a rather intense spam attack. Most of these were spam "bots" that are programmed to create multiple users on forums so they can drop links to other sites, advertising and the like. Not to "toot my horn" but I am one of the guards at the front gate so I saw the ones that made it through the registration screens -- there were probably a great many more that didn't make it that far. Once again, Tech to the rescue -- he installed another little mathematical hurdle into the registration process. (Turns out these 'bots flunked elementary arithmetic! -- at least for now.) I have no reason to believe the number of attempts has lessened, even though I no longer see so many get through registration. This is all the long way around saying it is likely that a large number of the "guests" in the active user count are spam-bots pinging the site -- not getting in but seeing that it is here and perhaps trying to get in.

I mean this sincerely ... thank you to Tech and all of the website team members. This is a great site and thank you all for trying to keep it "clean."

[Guest]

Wonderful.

Thanks for the answer JMC (and well done Tech).

It just seemed an incredible high count of visitors that I'd never seen on other forums, again it highlights the background work the siteteam.

To that I would like to acknowledge my thanks which I hope gets echoed from the membership.

Thank You HH WebTeam

Al

[legs777777]

Just to add I think this is a great site and I always log in.

[Tech]

The session time is set at 15 minutes... Fanks for the thanks guys, thats much appreciated by all of us

[UpBy5]

The session time is set at 15 minutes... Fanks for the thanks guys, thats much appreciated by all of us

Question: What sort of time frame does "currently active" span? Day, week, 12 hours....

Again, thanks Tech! I'm sure no one has any idea of the time you must spend keeping us up & running. It doesn't just "happen".

UpBy5

[jo]

Question: What sort of time frame does "currently active" span? Day, week, 12 hours....

As it says in the bit you quoted: 15 minutes.