[Opinion] A Numbers Game

I like to think that something of that trained observer still exists in my everyday busy life. One day when I logged-in, I decided to pay attention to the data in the upper right hand Members online box. Over time I've noticed that the number of avatars doesn't always match the number of members actually logged in! All that this really means is that there are some members that don't want to be noticed while browsing around looking for something interesting, often I'm one of those.

However, before I decided to become a member I'd often "lurk in the Outer (Ether) Darkness" and marvel at all the stuff inside, main difference being you can't react to anything. That said, I eventually took the plunge and the rest is forever immortalized in bits on some server somewhere in the "Cloud"! Now we're beginning to get somewhere? Who are those Other members, typically 1-4 or more, whose avatars don't show up? Always wondered about that. I know what I sense and feel, after all, I am a Magical Being! And last but Not Least, we also get a nice synopsis of the (of which I was one) unwashed masses Lurking in the Outer Darkness (Ether), who are taking all this in! This metric really interests me. I've often seen 500 ++ at any given time, pretty amazing, huh? Any Thoughts?

An interesting observation. I have noticed something similar.

Some 10 minutes ago 514 (members: 8, guests: 506) (8 avatars including mine). 506 guests.
Now showing 9 members but only 8 avatars show up.

What if the avatars/members numbers not adding up, is caused by the server & forum lag/delay/some factors like that? It might not update right away. I can definitely remember something like this elsewhere, members & avatars, some other live statistics. The information got delayed 5-10 minutes due to some factors. It was supposed to be accurate but it wasn't. Right now I can't remember where/what it was,. Possibly it was about game servers, statistics of players, logged in users, trackers, live lists. I dealt a bit with some game servers around a decade or so ago.

The number of guests looks decent, all the time 500+

You can choose to hide your online status (or maybe that's only for benefactors). Don't really see the point in it though.

Yazata said:

You can choose to hide your online status (or maybe that's only for benefactors). Don't really see the point in it though.

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I don't think there is a real "point" that may interest everyone. Some people aren't interested in interacting with others, maybe only researching something for themselves for example. That said, not everyone wants the world tracking their progress. I've noticed that there's only a "core" of folks that chat with any regularity, though that appears to be increasing lately. The only reason I brought it up is that I have a strange penchant for details and sometimes numbers. There are as many reasons for doing anything as there are people doing them?

Amadeus said:

An interesting observation. I have noticed something similar.

Some 10 minutes ago 514 (members: 8, guests: 506) (8 avatars including mine). 506 guests.
Now showing 9 members but only 8 avatars show up.

What if the avatars/members numbers not adding up, is caused by the server & forum lag/delay/some factors like that? It might not update right away. I can definitely remember something like this elsewhere, members & avatars, some other live statistics. The information got delayed 5-10 minutes due to some factors. It was supposed to be accurate but it wasn't. Right now I can't remember where/what it was,. Possibly it was about game servers, statistics of players, logged in users, trackers, live lists. I dealt a bit with some game servers around a decade or so ago.

The number of guests looks decent, all the time 500+

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Lots of good points here! I've noticed a bit of lag here and there also at various times. I have a "fat pipe" connection to the net, but I can rarely connect to a server that gives me anywhere near 100mbs out of a Gig of theoretical bandwidth. It would make sense that at Least one staff member was online much of the time, which I personally think is / would be a Good Thing for obvious reasons. Maybe some folks just sit in the background and watch for the hell of it. Merely curious thoughts. The hardware and the forum software running on it is being hit pretty hard sometimes, but does a great job!

i keep my status hidden cause i have a strange way of thinking. i am always logged in cause ive wf on a pinned tab and it came to me that it might be possible that others might start thinking im quirky. i was also so stupid to put the voices in my head on dutch and now i dont know whos who and i actualy like it when a voice is nice and helps with writing out inner questions/answers.

ive done this for years now and i also had the question if this is a normal treat to have and according to the aliens i met its a human thing. i found it scary and am very happy others seem to have a similar nac. fake news ok, but its nice to know that when i sense someone to put a name to it. the online name should make that safe enough and wf being occult and esoteric should make it wise.

what i often wonder is how deep does a mod mod, cause when i feel yazata an other dutch man i immediately think what the fuck are you doing in my home piss off. did i do something wrong online? do i invade your space? is he a nice guy?

most of all, i think when do i finally dont hold 2 opposing thoughts about anything and everything and be just spontaneous. but nah im an introvert.

nice to meet you, @Asteriskos, im Lou.

8Lou1 said:

yazata an other dutch man i immediately think what the fuck are you doing in my home piss off

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Your home would be the last place I'd ever want to go to. But if that's how you think about me okay.

Same here! It would surprise me if a mod wasn't lurking in the background Most of the time, just kinda makes sense when a pissing contest starts up. That's actually a good thing. I can feel lots of things here as well, that's one of the things Magick does for you, it allows you to use "egregores" as tools in your everyday life. Rock On Lou!

lol @Yazata, if i recall well i find nice people scary and i have told you that. you freaking freak.
anyways a golem is a jewish version of an egregore and is made of clay. now can we blow some souls into being and make them appear or what?

Every so often (when I remember to do it) I look at the online count up there in the right hand corner. I was impressed a while back that the total count was some 500+ members and lurkers (guests) in the outer darkness combined. Wow, just a few minutes ago I looked and the "guests" lurkers was an astounding (to me) 1,622! That seems pretty impressive to me, guess I impress easily, huh? What if they All joined at once?

1800+ Lurkers per the timestamp here! The numbers just get better and better! What's happening here to explain this apparent increase?
Just curious.

Maybe people are looking for forums to get away from the quicksand of social media. To a firm strata of various insightful material that can be referred and added to without getting completely buried and needing to start subjects over again.

Having spent a fair amount of time adding carefully selected posts with others to the music thread to raise a vortex of power for general use I've noticed the views for it have increased. But, thought it was likely incidental as there hasn't been much of an increase in participation or reactions.

Kepler said:

Maybe people are looking for forums to get away from the quicksand of social media. To a firm strata of various insightful material that can be referred and added to without getting completely buried and needing to start subjects over again.

Having spent a fair amount of time adding carefully selected posts with others to the music thread to raise a vortex of power for general use I've noticed the views for it have increased. But, thought it was likely incidental as there hasn't been much of an increase in participation or reactions.

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Good observations, I find the numbers interesting. The ambient lurker metric especially seems to have increased a lot. When I saw 1800+ there was a slight bit of a slow down, but no great performance loss. People wanting to get away from social media, sure wouldn't be surprised a that.
Interesting to see how others interpret the numbers, as well as any experimental factors like yours.

Forgot to add the number of registered users online has grown intermittently with around 30 or so at times. Some of those don't have visible avatars (about 5-6) sometimes. The bulk of the increase of registered uses seems to be new people with a few extra "old hands" too.
Just a casually observed metric but interesting.

Udate at this timestamp: 2,059 total users, 2,029 Lurkers! Never personally noticed it go over 2K, pretty impressive! (guess I'm easy to please)

Wonder what would you think about 11 logged in, 22 guess, 33 total. The gate is annoying me, but makes me wonder about Ai and crawlers traffic.

The cloudflare gate "should" take a lot of strain off the server hardware and software, but I'm getting some real annoying "lag times" when changing forums, or other "minor" things, sometimes the whole damn thing will just "time out". Real Annoying!

Asteriskos said:

The cloudflare gate "should" take a lot of strain off the server hardware and software, but I'm getting some real annoying "lag times" when changing forums, or other "minor" things, sometimes the whole damn thing will just "time out". Real Annoying!

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Oh... I need extra web-browser, as my main one cannot pass CloudFlare gate. (hope the devs will fix that for me in next update.)

But you are right. I watch for last like 4 hours and there were barely more than 20 people online at a time.

Looks like things are stabilizing pretty well now. The awful "time lags" every time you click on Anything seem to have been terminated with Prejudice (my favorite) method!

Since things smoothed out after the disruption the site seems snappier than it did before. Mercury making a big post-shadow exit here.

Kepler said:

Since things smoothed out after the disruption the site seems snappier than it did before. Mercury making a big post-shadow exit here.

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I was gone for a while and when I came back it appears that the "cloudflare gate" was discontinued, and now a lot of the former 'load" seems to be back? I've noticed some longer lag times while some stuff updates. One example was when I changed a detail or two in my profile. At this timestamp there are about 600+ magical beings? online. Just an observation.