Posted by axlq on 07/16/07 17:44

In article <ctydne8X1IgZuAXbnZ2dnUVZ_gOdnZ2d@comcast.com>,
Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> wrote:
>axlq wrote:
>> It is reasonable to assume that for a site like a forum, if a user
>> logs in, that user will probably still be looking at the forum a
>> minute after the user's most recent activity. It should be easy to
>> keep a running database of users whose recent activity is less than,
>> say, 5 minutes ago. The list could be displayed alphabetically or
>> sorted by timestamp.
>
>No, that is not a reasonable assumption. Some people may stay 10
>second, others 10 hours.

Yes, it is a reasonable assumption - in some cases. For a
heavily-visited forum, statistics can be gathered about the
likelihood of a user staying on the site after the most recent
activity. Using these statistics, a site can get a fairly good
idea of the approximate number of users online at any given moment,
and could even get a good idea of the identity of the ones who are
likely to be still logged in.

>Any other figure is a pure crap shoot.

Not if you have measurements and a lot of traffic. It's far from a crap
shoot, but it isn't precise either.

-A

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