Floris
11-12-2005, 03:59 PM
Yep, you can cheat, nobody's harmed ..
Usually a community (like vB) software has a cookie timeout setting which gives your members some time to write a post and not be logged out after they spend 5 minutes writing one. The default for vBulletin is 900 seconds.
This has a downside, well, the downside is the upside too. Uhm, let me explain.
Downside, at the moment you are looking at your statistics you will notice there are 50 users online. But, actually, this means in the last 900 seconds these sessions were stored. So in the last 15 minutes there are 50 users online. Right now, perhaps just 3 or 12 or 49.
Upside, because it looks like there are 50 users online it appears as a more active forum, which provokes users to stick around.
Cheat, boost that timeout setting, give your members even more time to write up bigger posts. How does 30 minutes sound, heck.. set it to 1 hour. Set the value to 3600 (seconds) and your online users statistics will not show 50, but certainly a larger number. Giving the impression the forum is more active. Resulting in actually more members online who want to stick around. Actually resulting in more new members and more new posts too.
Is this even allowed, or isn't this lame?
In my eyes, this depends on how you look at this. I believe this is ok for new sites with just a few new members and little content. Bigger sites with 500+ online users can reset this to 900 again if they want.
Is there a limit in seconds?
Yes, use just what is reasonable.
:bd2: :pink:
Usually a community (like vB) software has a cookie timeout setting which gives your members some time to write a post and not be logged out after they spend 5 minutes writing one. The default for vBulletin is 900 seconds.
This has a downside, well, the downside is the upside too. Uhm, let me explain.
Downside, at the moment you are looking at your statistics you will notice there are 50 users online. But, actually, this means in the last 900 seconds these sessions were stored. So in the last 15 minutes there are 50 users online. Right now, perhaps just 3 or 12 or 49.
Upside, because it looks like there are 50 users online it appears as a more active forum, which provokes users to stick around.
Cheat, boost that timeout setting, give your members even more time to write up bigger posts. How does 30 minutes sound, heck.. set it to 1 hour. Set the value to 3600 (seconds) and your online users statistics will not show 50, but certainly a larger number. Giving the impression the forum is more active. Resulting in actually more members online who want to stick around. Actually resulting in more new members and more new posts too.
Is this even allowed, or isn't this lame?
In my eyes, this depends on how you look at this. I believe this is ok for new sites with just a few new members and little content. Bigger sites with 500+ online users can reset this to 900 again if they want.
Is there a limit in seconds?
Yes, use just what is reasonable.
:bd2: :pink: