Currently Active Users

[rhorstkoetter]

Forums team,

I'd suggest to enable vBulletin's (to my knowledge) builtin functionality to show the "Currently Active Users" along with the "Forums Statistics" at the very bottom of the page. I've seen this in numerous vBulletin boards already and I'm wondering why it's disabled at the openSUSE forums. Could you give me some insight here please?

Thanks!

[hcvv]

I am a bit sceptic about these sort of features. What is an 'active user'? Is he/she loged in? Sits he/she looking at the monitor with keyboard/mouse at hand or is she/he gone to the bathroom. Is the openSUSE Forums window active or iconised?

I am loged in for part of the day, but I only look for new threads at the RSS feeds in Kontact from time to time. For threads I am subscribed to, I do get e-mails when new posts arive, so I look to my Kmail applet from every now and then. Do you rate this as an active user?

In other words, I do not see any use for it, but As it would not irritate me, I will not object against it.

And IMHO you should come with stronger Pro arguments, then that you have seen it elsewhere. I have seen a lot of things elsewhere that I never would like to have myself .

lots of it on this page http://forums.opensuse.org/

--
goldie

[rhorstkoetter]

I am a bit sceptic about these sort of features. What is an 'active user'? Is he/she loged in? Sits he/she looking at the monitor with keyboard/mouse at hand or is she/he gone to the bathroom. Is the openSUSE Forums window active or iconised?

I am loged in for part of the day, but I only look for new threads at the RSS feeds in Kontact from time to time. For threads I am subscribed to, I do get e-mails when new posts arive, so I look to my Kmail applet from every now and then. Do you rate this as an active user?

I clearly see where you're coming from. Seeing it from your perspective it certainly provides not that much of an advantage, but I think your specific behaviour doesn't apply to the common user. Does it? In general one would have a better understanding who's online currently and who's not (at least with a delay of, let's say, 5 minutes or so)

And IMHO you should come with stronger Pro arguments, then that you have seen it elsewhere. I have seen a lot of things elsewhere that I never would like to have myself

Aligned :-) What about the opportunity to have a faster overview if my buddy oldcpu is sitting in front of his desk or not? Does this count as an argument? Btw, just out of curiousity: Do you have any arguments against the availability of the "Currently Active Users" view?

[Prexy]

I'd REALLY like to have an easier login procedure; much more than a currently active list.

I hate not having the login persistent. I'd even settle for having the login always autofill from my home pc.

[FeatherMonkey]

This has been had out before here was the answer I was given.

Demon Typers - openSUSE Forums

You have quick links, but like you I liked the in forum view as if one of the demon typers was involved I would leave it alone, rather than duplicating a response.

[hcvv]

Originally Posted by rhorstkoetter

I clearly see where you're coming from. Seeing it from your perspective it certainly provides not that much of an advantage, but I think your specific behaviour doesn't apply to the common user. Does it? In general one would have a better understanding who's online currently and who's not (at least with a delay of, let's say, 5 minutes or so)

Aligned :-) What about the opportunity to have a faster overview if my buddy oldcpu is sitting in front of his desk or not? Does this count as an argument? Btw, just out of curiousity: Do you have any arguments against the availability of the "Currently Active Users" view?

Starting with your last questin. I thought I answered that already in my post (the part that you did not quote, but I hope you read it) where it says " but As it would not irritate me, I will not object against it". In other words, when it does not realy clutter the view of the posts, I do not mind, have no arguments gainst it.

As you saw, I did try to explain as good as possible how I work with the forums (no idea how big the percentage of users is who do about the same) because in the back of my mind I already had the idea that you do different. But you did not explain how and I think that is a big part of why you want the feature.

I was simply curious because, first out of lack of imagination, I could not understand what an 'active user' is. And then, in a jump, I saw a lot of defintions about such a person. As I never looked at such a feature in 'other forums that have it', I tried to get info from you about:
a) what you think an active person is;
b) what the technical solutions are used by those other forums to make a list of those.
Now as you talk about "if my buddy oldcpu is sitting in front of his desk or not", that needs at least a webcam IMHO (and knowledge about his facial features).

And do not let my stupid questions spoil you quest for this feaure.

[rhorstkoetter]

I already had the idea that you do different. But you did not explain how and I think that is a big part of why you want the feature.

Pretty simple actually. I login to the forums, use them and then I logout.

a) what you think an active person is;
b) what the technical solutions are used by those other forums to make a list of those.

From my perspective an active user is a currently logged in user. That might count YOU out due to your specific behaviour, but I guess it applies to the majority of users (obviously I'm unable to prove it). Technical solutions? My understanding is that the forums software (in our case vBulletin) keeps track of the login status of a specific user and updates that information every 5 minutes or so.

[hcvv]

So for this purpose an active user is one that is loged in (so why not call it "logged in users"?). Thanks for the answer

rhorstkoetter wrote:
>> I am a bit sceptic about these sort of features. What is an 'active
>> user'? Is he/she loged in? Sits he/she looking at the monitor with
>> keyboard/mouse at hand or is she/he gone to the bathroom. Is the
>> openSUSE Forums window active or iconised?
>>
>> I am loged in for part of the day, but I only look for new threads at
>> the RSS feeds in Kontact from time to time. For threads I am subscribed
>> to, I do get e-mails when new posts arive, so I look to my Kmail applet
>> from every now and then. Do you rate this as an active user?
> I clearly see where you're coming from. Seeing it from your perspective
> it certainly provides not that much of an advantage, but I think your
> specific behaviour doesn't apply to the common user. Does it? In general
> one would have a better understanding who's online currently and who's
> not (at least with a delay of, let's say, 5 minutes or so)
>> And IMHO you should come with stronger Pro arguments, then that you have
>> seen it elsewhere. I have seen a lot of things elsewhere that I never
>> would like to have myself
> Aligned :-) What about the opportunity to have a faster overview if my
> buddy oldcpu is sitting in front of his desk or not? Does this count as
> an argument? Btw, just out of curiousity: Do you have any arguments
> against the availability of the "Currently Active Users" view?
>
>
Those statistics would be skewed though because there are users
reading/writing via NNTP which the forum software would not see as being
logged in. I would agree with you more if there was no NNTP option but
with it I'm not sure how much it would help.