Social Network Marketing Tycoon

**Mike** · 08-18-2006, 01:52 PM

Not sure about all the types of forum software, but vBulletin now allows you to hide the amount of members online to visitors, or everyone.

Do you recommend hiding this, or would you rather show it?

Does the size of the forum factor into your decision?

**BamaStangGuy** · 08-18-2006, 02:04 PM

I do it. At first I did it for performance as I made the frontpage of netscape.com and wanted to make sure the server survived it. Now I do it because it looks cleaner

**NBF** · 08-18-2006, 06:43 PM

Our new design will have just the number of people online without the guest/member breakdown. So it will say, "1,000 Users Online." I like having the count there because it gives a little bit of information for new visitors and certainly gives us some added credibility, but having all the extra stuff really wasn't necessary. (oh, and this will be in the upper right corner of the page rather than the standard vB placement)

Laura

**rex_b** · 08-18-2006, 07:44 PM

I like having it for guests and for members.

**Icheb** · 08-19-2006, 01:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NBF

Our new design will have just the number of people online without the guest/member breakdown. So it will say, "1,000 Users Online." I like having the count there because it gives a little bit of information for new visitors and certainly gives us some added credibility, but having all the extra stuff really wasn't necessary. (oh, and this will be in the upper right corner of the page rather than the standard vB placement)

Laura

That is a very nice approach. I will definitely use this on my site as well. :thumbup:

**BamaStangGuy** · 08-19-2006, 01:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NBF

Our new design will have just the number of people online without the guest/member breakdown. So it will say, "1,000 Users Online." I like having the count there because it gives a little bit of information for new visitors and certainly gives us some added credibility, but having all the extra stuff really wasn't necessary. (oh, and this will be in the upper right corner of the page rather than the standard vB placement)

Laura

How can others just show the number?

**NBF** · 08-19-2006, 01:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BamaStangGuy

How can others just show the number?

Do you mean, what do you do to make it just show the number? I have no idea, really. Shaun (our programmer) has hacked up vB like you have never seen before... Acutally, hacked isn't a good word - more like modified. It will be hard to tell that vB is running the site, acutally...

If you need technical help, I can see if Shaun can help you.

Laura

**BamaStangGuy** · 08-19-2006, 01:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NBF

Do you mean, what do you do to make it just show the number? I have no idea, really. Shaun (our programmer) has hacked up vB like you have never seen before... Acutally, hacked isn't a good word - more like modified. It will be hard to tell that vB is running the site, acutally...

If you need technical help, I can see if Shaun can help you.

Laura

I was just interested in how he did it or if there was a hack on vb.org for it. I would love to just show the number online in the top area for guests to see.

**Mike** · 08-19-2006, 04:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BamaStangGuy

I was just interested in how he did it or if there was a hack on vb.org for it. I would love to just show the number online in the top area for guests to see.

I think I have done this once before, now if I could just remember how.

**Mike** · 08-19-2006, 04:43 PM

I have opted to hide this from guests for now. It's not that I want to keep visitors from seeing it, I am just removing as much code as possible from spider view. Not sure if I will keep it that way or not.

**RYANNNNN** · 08-19-2006, 04:49 PM

I think on a smaller forum community I would hide it and on a bigger community show it to encourage users to sign up because the forum is active.

**netdesignz** · 08-19-2006, 06:59 PM

I like having my members see who's online. I like having a breakdown of all the names of the members...incase someone wants to PM someone, etc.