There is something really weird behind all these issues.

[cj cake]

I agree that there seems to be no rhyme or reason behind the inconsistency with this site. But I noticed that the numbers of users seems weird to me when I am able to login.

There are currently 3230 users online. 108 members and 3122 guests.

Why is there only 100 users and 3100 guests? Are there really 3100 people on here right now that are viewing the forum, but not signed in?
And these numbers seem really low compared to the all time high, so why is it still not working the way it should?

Most users ever online was 65,177 at 8:20 PM on 09-21-2024.

[cj cake]

There are currently 3230 users online. 108 members and 3122 guests.
Members: 3.35%
Guests: 96.65%

---

There are currently 4800 users online. 152 members and 4648 guests.
Members: 3.17%
Guests: 96.83%

---

There are currently 5609 users online. 155 members and 5454 guests.
Members: 2.76%
Guests: 97.24%

[rsrocket1]

Probably hacks being generated to overload the site and slow/shut it down.

[saudadeii]

These numbers are posted in other threads as well. A few days ago, there were less than 100 users and over 54,000 (yes, thousand) guests. Oddly, the site ran well.

Right now it's: There are currently 4259 users online. 50 members and 4209 guests.

[MountainLion]

This topic has been discussed ad nauseam. This has been true for a very long time, and has nothing to do with a conspiracy theory that someone out there is trying to shut the site down. It simply shows that (a) the calculation of active users is done very sloppily, and (b) this is is not well protected against robots and scrapers.

[C.G.]

These numbers are posted in other threads as well. A few days ago, there were less than 100 users and over 54,000 (yes, thousand) guests. Oddly, the site ran well.

Right now it's: There are currently 4259 users online. 50 members and 4209 guests.

Agents Smiths from CA DOJ.

[cj cake]

This topic has been discussed ad nauseam. This has been true for a very long time, and has nothing to do with a conspiracy theory that someone out there is trying to shut the site down. It simply shows that (a) the calculation of active users is done very sloppily, and (b) this is is not well protected against robots and scrapers.

I imagine this has been discussed ad nauseam, but since I cannot seem to get on this site very often, or stay connected for much more than a few minutes at a time, I never have a chance to see those discussions. I think your (b) option, robots and scrapers, is probably right.

"100 users and over 54,000 (yes, thousand) guests. Oddly, the site ran well." That is surprising and it is counter to what I thought might be going on. I was guessing that too much "junk /spam" traffic might be causing some of the issues.

[Sgt Raven]

I wonder what would happen if you had to be a member to access the forums for the site?
A small forum I'm on is set that way. Not just to post, but even to lurk.

[calif 15-22]

I wonder what would happen if you had to be a member to access the forums for the site?
A small forum I'm on is set that way. Not just to post, but even to lurk.

I like that idea.

[cj cake]

The site has 354,731 members. But over 160,890 of them have never posted a single time. Eliminate those and you are down to 193,841.
In the last ten years, only 175,000 members have visited this site. I say eliminate anyone who has never posted or has not visited in the last ten years.

And I have no idea what this has to do with anything....

[BucDan]

My first post in maybe 6 months, they gotta park this site behind Cloudflare at minimum.

[MountainLion]

I wonder what would happen if you had to be a member to access the forums for the site?

That's the way the Off Topic subform here is set up. It is invisible, unless one is a member and logged in. It does not get scraped by spiders / robots.

[C.G.]

My first post in maybe 6 months, they gotta park this site behind Cloudflare at minimum.

LOL, Cloudflare had its own set of issues couple of weeks ago.