Thread: Who's Online

Looking at the who's online box to the left of the main window, always shows a huge number of guests compared to members. At the moment there are 606 guests, and 39 members. It would be interesting to know just how many of these guests are folks who are just afraid to sign up and post. And how many are obl trolls.

Not really that important honestly, but it's amazing how the number of guests is usually way over the member numbers. So I was curious and thought I would ask.

I can't back this up, but I think that some of the guests may be "bots" who go to websites to do whatever it is that they do. A friend in the computer field told me once that when you have a counter to check the number of people visiting a website, that perhaps as many as 25% of the hits are actually from bots and aren't legitimate human beings. Again, can't back up this information, but there may be something to it.

Ostrich

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Looking at the who's online box to the left of the main window, always shows a huge number of guests compared to members.

Some people only log in to post. Why log in to read posts?

The majority of those "guests" are spy bots. They're on other websites too. They're not actually people, or so I've been told by computer geeks.

There are two indicators showing guests and members.

One is at the bottom of the main forum index and that shows the approximate number of people that have been through the Discussion Groups area in the last five minutes.

The box in the lower left column has higher numbers and shows the number of guests and members on the entire site.

For the members to be counted, they must be logged in.

The vast majority of ALIPAC supporters do not have accounts on the site, but they come here and read or to activate.

Some have accounts, but they are simply not logged in each time they visit.

Yes, about 1/3 of our web traffic, reflected in the visitors count, are bots from search engines.

W

Oh, and I just have to say Who is on first.

W

What's on second

Here you go W. One of my favorite Abbott and Costello skits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sShMA85pv8M&NR=1

I do not log on all the time only when I want to post and then only after I let the mad go because I am afraid I will post in a state of mad and that would not be good ..