Full Version: Curious about online user section
Why does 'online user' often display an interest by guests in the same topic multiple times, often involving a topic that is long gone? In a recent case the topic was current but involved 21 guests looking at the same topic, a topic that had fallen off in posting interest recently.
No big deal but I was curious whether maybe some machine controlled automatic dialing was going on that might replicate existing guest choices.
Any thoughts?
No big deal but I was curious whether maybe some machine controlled automatic dialing was going on that might replicate existing guest choices.
Any thoughts?
My guess would be a class assignment at a school(s) has generated a few students hitting this site at the same time about a particular subject.
I've not noticed this, but then I'm usually on early in the morning. I have noticed that Google ranks 
high when a subject is used for the search string. Besides classroom projects, we may be watched by journalists to gauge what regular people think about what's going on. I sometimes wonder what comes first, the chicken (op-eds and news reports) or the egg (we who have OCD).
high when a subject is used for the search string. Besides classroom projects, we may be watched by journalists to gauge what regular people think about what's going on. I sometimes wonder what comes first, the chicken (op-eds and news reports) or the egg (we who have OCD).
QUOTE(Dingo @ Aug 29 2011, 10:39 PM) 
Why does 'online user' often display an interest by guests in the same topic multiple times, often involving a topic that is long gone? In a recent case the topic was current but involved 21 guests looking at the same topic, a topic that had fallen off in posting interest recently.
No big deal but I was curious whether maybe some machine controlled automatic dialing was going on that might replicate existing guest choices.
Any thoughts?
No big deal but I was curious whether maybe some machine controlled automatic dialing was going on that might replicate existing guest choices.
Any thoughts?
Several informative points here.
1. The online list covers the last 15 minutes.
2. Some spiders are not recognized by the forum software, and therefore are registered as guests. Some spiders suck down huge numbers of topics at one time, inflating our totals. Some spiders change their IP address with every request, and request the same page over and over (I had to organize a battle against Yahoo! regarding this several years ago when their spider was functioning as a simultaneous DoS attack against hundreds of forums).
3. Some people use proxy servers, which may cause requests to appear to come from a different location.
Beyond that...
1. There is no monkey business going on. We aren't really concerned with how many people are on the site at any given time. If someone is pumping up our stats, it's not us.
2. We're behind on software updates, and the online list functionality may have been improved.
3. We do still get massive amounts of educational traffic. I wonder how many posts here have been parts of research papers.
Mike
If you were to look at the online list right now, you would see that we are currently setting the record for traffic for the site... ever.
It appears as though one of our older topics has been posted to Reddit, and is on their second page.
The most ever count of 1004 is accurate, and the 900+ current online users is accurate as well.
Cool!
Mike
It appears as though one of our older topics has been posted to Reddit, and is on their second page.
The most ever count of 1004 is accurate, and the 900+ current online users is accurate as well.
Cool!
Mike
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