What exactly is the purpose of Who's Online?

[Grover]

Hi,

Someone wrote:

Its not that they are stalking, its that people get paranoid about it. Its an easy feature and I think would increase peoples trust in the boards if people could only see where they are if they explicitly give them permission via their buddy list.

He does have a point actually.

Maybe I'm completely missing something here (I guess so?)... but what exactly is the purpose of the Who's Online feature? I can understand the fact that it is handy for an Administrator to see what members/guests are doing and to view their IP's in one go.

But, by default EVERYONE can view Who's Online. With everyone I mean....even 'normal' registered members can view what other members are doing by default! Maybe I'm not understanding something here, but what is the point of looking at what some other member is doing??!! As an Administator it might by handy I guess...but as a normal registered member I don't not see the purpose of looking at the activities of fellow-members............

I mean....it's not that you can actually DO something if you see in Who's Online that a fellow-member is viewing some thread or writing a message..... it's not that you can reach them by Instant Messasing or something like that at the moment you see they are doing something on the board. Because VB doesn't provide an IM function.

For example:
Some have an integrated chat-function. On their mainpage (most of the time) you can see how many people are in the chat. Like: 'There are currently 6 members in the chat: userA, userB, userC....etc ' So, sort of a 'Who's online in the chat'-function. Looking at this statistics...you can actually DO something. You can decide to go into the chat, cause you have already seen how many and which people are actually in it. It has a purpose.
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But..... what can a normal 'registered' member actually DO with the information provided by the current 'Who's Online' function?

Hope somebody can wake me up, cause I just can't see it. :cool:

Grover.

[Wayne Luke]

Actually as the administrator you have the right to restrict who sees the Who's Online by setting permissions on the various usergroups.

As a user they have the right to show up in the list or not by selecting the "Invisible" option.

[Grover]

Hi WLuke,

Yes, I know that. I already have set the permission for 'registered members' to NO. And I know that users can alter their profile so that they do not show up.

But....that doesn't really answer my question: what is the actual purpose of the Who's Online feature for simple registered users i.e. not administrators?

I really don't see it.

Grover.

[Scott MacVicar]

The who's online is just to show people one which members are online at that moment in time, you may want to post many replies to a thread if you know one of your friends is online at that moment in time and will read them and reply etc.

The fact it shows location is again to allow you to see what your friends are reading or doing at that moment in time.

I let registered users view whos online and ban guests, they don't need to if they don't know anyone.

[Grover]

Originally posted by PPN
The who's online is just to show people one which members are online at that moment in time, you may want to post many replies to a thread if you know one of your friends is online at that moment in time and will read them and reply etc.
Aha. That makes a little more sense.

Hmmm....does this really happen actually? I mean.....I always thought a discussion-board was there to discuss things with each other at a moment in time that suits each individual best. People do not have to be online at the same moment. Instead of a Chat......where people do HAVE to be there at the exact same moment really.

I find it fascinating that people will look at this Who's Online feature and immediately go to the thread their friend is at and start reacting to each other there. I mean........this is not really convenient, is it? It seems to me that this is not really the purpose of a board. It's more an IM or Chat thing if you want to react to eachother instantly, isn't it?

I wonder how many registered members do use the Who's Online feature the way you describe it here. If there was an INSTANT MESSASING-feature linked to the Who's Online: that would be a complete different story, really. Unfortunately, VBulletin doesn't support an integrated IM or Chat.

Grover.

[Scott MacVicar]

Well if your friend started a thread, and you've got 5 or 6 windows open and you know your friend is online, youll reply to that one first because he is probably waiting for a reply from you.

[TWTCommish]

The Who's Online? page is pretty popular on my boards.

Here's an example of its usefulness: without it, you could think someone's online when in reality they've signed off...you won't know until maybe 15 minutes later that they're gone. With this feature, however, you can see, down to the minute, when their last activity was. If they haven't been active in 5 minutes, you can assume that they might be away altogether.

Anyway, I dig it.

[Nam]

IMO, who's online is the greatest feature on the forum, don't ask me why.

Seeing many users online encourage me to post, that's what who is is all about :).

[Fusion]

Originally posted by Grover
I wonder how many registered members do use the Who's Online feature the way you describe it here. If there was an INSTANT MESSASING-feature linked to the Who's Online: that would be a complete different story, really. Unfortunately, VBulletin doesn't support an integrated IM or Chat.

Grover. Maybe it's an idea to make some sort of statistics that show just how much Who's Online is used? That'd give you an idea.

[Anime-loo]

WOL is awsome, ive been using it scence my ubb 5 days, it was a big WOW! when borg released it over at ubbdev for the frist time, i cant live without it, i love knowing where others are, :)