While perusing Chit Chat, I noticed a thread that got me thinking about a new set of stats for the site. How does total logged-in time sound? With the current framework of the site, I don't think it would be that hard to add in a counter to increment for every minute that the system thinks that a user is online. The online user detection is already built in - just look at the front page. Just add in that counter, a non-editable field to the user profiles for displaying that information, and add a separate line under general statistics to display the top x most-online users and their online times. You could even add the percentage of a day that the users are online!

Sound cool? I think so!

-bigginal

4/18/2002 8:04:32 AM

the thing is that after you get off of TWW, you are still listed on the "who's online" list for around 10 minutes afterwards. No good.

4/18/2002 10:37:48 AM

^^^ doesn't want to admit all the time he's spent looking on here without actually having anything to say

4/18/2002 10:50:56 AM

Quote :

"the thing is that after you get off of TWW, you are still listed on the "who's online" list for around 10 minutes afterwards. No good. "

just make the code subtract 10mins from every instance you are logged in.

4/18/2002 11:05:59 AM

yeah then we get to know who all the online stalkers are

just felt like using the (but Jake, maybe we could replace the vamp w/ the ajjan head? it does get used a lot more)

4/18/2002 11:06:01 AM

Quote :

"^^^ doesn't want to admit all the time he's spent looking on here without actually having anything to say "

I only talk on things i have opinions on. A lot of the times I don't say anything because I will be bitched at for saying it because it isn't the popular opinion of TWW. Yeah I know it is a messageboard and no one really cares, but why waste the energy when you know you will be slammed for it.

Also I have gone to class before and left TWW up because I was rushing trying to get ready for class, and left without closing IE.

4/18/2002 11:14:44 AM

Well nobody said the system is perfect. The saving grace of the point you point out is that the 10 minutes are added to everybody's online time. So there would really be no bias towards or against users; it would mean that the times are slightly artificially inflated. But when you spend as much time online as some of us do, then 10 minutes quickly turns into nothing.

Or you could do what Frito91 suggested and subtract whatever amount of minutes for each session. It really wouldn't be too hard to do once you got the rest of the timing subsystem working correctly.

I'm not entirely sure how the connections to TWW are set up, but in most cases, IE (and Netscape and Opera and Lynx and [just about every other web browser out there]) does not maintain persistent connections. This means that once you view a page on TWW, then the 10 minute timeout counter begins, and if you don't make another page request in that 10 minutes, it sets you offline. TWW could be a special case to this point, but I haven't seen anything to that effect yet. (Jake, clarification please? )

-bigginal

[Edited on April 18, 2002 at 11:35 AM. Reason : Persistent Connections]

4/18/2002 11:31:59 AM

well i was a dummy for a second. If you don't request a page in 10 minutes, then you are dropped so it doesn't matter if you leave TWW up all day.

4/18/2002 11:36:10 AM

No hard feelings...we all have moments like that.

-bigginal

4/18/2002 11:38:49 AM

That's not really true. Let's say someone stays on the wolf web for an hour. They get the 20 minutes added on to their time (I'm pretty sure it's 20 minutes after your last view, not 10). Someone else pops in and out randomly. Every time they leave it still adds 20 minutes on to their time. I don't think it would be a very accurate counter at all. When I'm doing homework or something, I tend to take breaks maybe every 30 minutes or so (I cannot concentrate on homework for that long ). The counter would say that I was pretty much on here almost the entire time I'm doing my homework/breaking...which is very inaccurate. I would actually be here for ten minutes or so...homeworking it for 30 minutes or so...etc. But it would say I was here for 30 minutes each time.

4/18/2002 12:44:58 PM

Not that I like this idea or support it... But here is a way to implement it.

Have a time counter and a time/date field.

page load
check the current time vs the time last logged.
if > 1 minute {
add one minute to time counter
update time/date field to current time.
} else {do nothing} // do not update last time logged because that will not work or be effective.
// ie tracking minutes page views. The down fall to this is if someone
// views a page for > a minute. But this downfall is outweighed by the fact
// that you can assume that users will not look at a page on average more
// than one minute... Just a thought...

I would like this implemented becuase I think it would be cool to see the users last login on the users page. This is cool becuase we would know how long it had been since the user was last logged in. IE. I wonder why so and so has not responded to this topic, look at his page, wow he has not been to tww in a week. etc...

4/18/2002 2:44:08 PM

This seems a bit creepy to me.

4/18/2002 3:21:38 PM

there is no real need for this. it would serve no purpose except for people to point out such things as "well at least i don't spend 3 hours everyday on the wolf web, get a life!"

4/18/2002 7:30:58 PM

lots would cause it to be inaccurate. just because one is logged in doesn't mean they're active.

for example: if one were to wake up, check email, news, tww, etc and leave the windows open when they went to class, then their time would be very great, but meaningless really.

4/18/2002 8:08:14 PM

i'm pretty sure you get logged out after a certain amount of inactiveness.

4/18/2002 8:44:57 PM

nope if your browser is open you are logged in even if you aren't still on tww. if you visit tww you are logged in until your browser closes

4/18/2002 9:57:53 PM

You remain active on tww for 20 minutes after your last view.

Quote :

"there is no real need for this. it would serve no purpose except for people to point out such things as "well at least i don't spend 3 hours everyday on the wolf web, get a life!""

exactly.

4/18/2002 10:03:39 PM