# Haunted Online Members Counter



## Wraithguard (Jun 21, 2005)

The other night I was all alone on TTF when I looked at the little counter at the bottom of the page it said 2 Members but only my name was listed. Anyone wanna explain this?


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## Arthur_Vandelay (Jun 21, 2005)

Wraithguard said:


> The other night I was all alone on TTF when I looked at the little counter at the bottom of the page it said 2 Members but only my name was listed. Anyone wanna explain this?



The other member was wearing a Ring, naturally  

Seriously, some members elect to be "Invisible"--which means that you can see their contributions, but you can't see them.


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## Wraithguard (Jun 21, 2005)

Indeed. Well at least it's not my crappy computer again. I just did some maintenance and I was afraid I missed something. I'm actually pretty handy with a wrench.


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## Eledhwen (Jun 22, 2005)

Wraithguard said:


> I'm actually pretty handy with a wrench.


I thought you said a 'wench'!  I thought 'no wonder his computer's up the spout!'


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## ingolmo (Jun 22, 2005)

It could have meant that you were the only active member, but the other person was a guest, and there were two active users in all.


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## baragund (Jun 22, 2005)

On a related note, I noticed yesterday (late afternoon Eastern time in the US), that there was a typical number of members online (4 or 5 I think) but there were _26_ guests. What's more, they were _all_ in the movie section viewing "The Return of the King" threads. 

Did a large group of random people just decide to have a party there or was something odd going on?


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## Ithrynluin (Jun 22, 2005)

Usually, many of those guests are bots prowling about the site...


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## baragund (Jun 22, 2005)

OK, I'll demonstrate my depth of ignorance when it comes to technical matters: What are "bots" and why do they prowl?


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## Ithrynluin (Jun 22, 2005)

I think dictionary definitions will explain it better than I can:



> (Ro)*bot* - A software program that imitates the behavior of a human, as by querying search engines or participating in chatroom or IRC discussions.
> 
> A web *crawler* (also known as web spider) is a program which browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner. Web crawlers are mainly used to create a copy of all the visited pages for later processing by a search engine, that will index the downloaded pages to provide fast searches.
> 
> A web crawler is one type of bot, or software agent. In general, it starts with a list of URLs to visit. As it visits these URLs, it identifies all the hyperlinks in the page and adds them to the list of URLs to visit, recursively browsing the Web according to a set of policies.


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## baragund (Jun 22, 2005)

Thanks Ithy!

But you're wigging me out a little. A "bot" can 'participate in chat room or IRC discussions'? Makes me wonder if any of our TTF members isn't a flesh-and-blood human.  Kind of like "HAL" in 2001: A Space Odyssey...


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## Wraithguard (Jun 22, 2005)

DESTROY ALL HUMANS! (Only in my dreams)


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## Beorn (Jun 23, 2005)

baragund said:


> Thanks Ithy!
> 
> But you're wigging me out a little. A "bot" can 'participate in chat room or IRC discussions'? Makes me wonder if any of our TTF members isn't a flesh-and-blood human.  Kind of like "HAL" in 2001: A Space Odyssey...



There are some that provide semi-intelligent conversations. There was an old hack for vB2 that would talk back to you...but you could actually fool it...But most bots -- in IRC chats -- simply monitor for bad language.

- Mike


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## baragund (Jun 23, 2005)

This is quite fascinating. Beorn, are there any examples of "conversations" around here from these talking bots? I'd be interested in looking at them.


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## Alatar (Jun 23, 2005)

These bot's, could they have conversations or did they just put up a standerd " If you continue to use this behaivor, you will be banned" type of thing.


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## Beorn (Jun 23, 2005)

We don't have that bot on TTF...

I'm not familiar with the ones on IRC.


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## Arthur_Vandelay (Jun 23, 2005)

AV outs himself as a bot . . .


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## ingolmo (Jun 24, 2005)

So, finally the truth has been unravelled and spread to all the other stupid humans about us bots. I, BOT_ISR179 have been here for months now under different identities. I have taken the alias of Ingolmo to prowl and slowly destruct this site. But the work is almost done. My surveillance network has been doing research on this site as well as on all other websites on the internet. Soon, using my botic computer powers, us bots will attack the internet, and conquer. And a new empire shall be born, the rule of the bots, with I, BOT_ISR179 at it's head. 
MUAHAHAHAHAHA!


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## Eledhwen (Jun 24, 2005)

ingolmo said:


> So, finally the truth has been unravelled and spread to all the other stupid humans about us bots. I, BOT_ISR179 have been here for months now under different identities. I have taken the alias of Ingolmo to prowl and slowly destruct this site. But the work is almost done. My surveillance network has been doing research on this site as well as on all other websites on the internet. Soon, using my botic computer powers, us bots will attack the internet, and conquer. And a new empire shall be born, the rule of the bots, with I, BOT_ISR179 at it's head.
> MUAHAHAHAHAHA!


I don't understand!  

Also, if this type of humour were to be used in an airport, you would not be allowed on the plane!


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## Alatar (Jun 24, 2005)

Oi BOT_ISR179 you said i could have australia!
Any way, if you are a Bot raise your right... arow key>
So, a radom search engine could be sending out a bot... MILATRY INTELLIGENCE.


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## Eledhwen (Jun 24, 2005)

Stop talking over me and tell me what a bot is!   
Also MILATRY INTELLIGENCE is a contradiction in terms.


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## Alatar (Jun 24, 2005)

soryy, i posted just after you and did not see your post.
I used to know a great site for oxymorons, cant remeber it now, _Microsoft works_ was a good one.
A bot is a _software program that imitates the behavior of a human, as by querying search engines or participating in chatroom or IRC discussions._ thogh how they took part is scary! Last i looked artifiall intelegence had not happend yet.


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## Thorondor_ (Jun 24, 2005)

In irc clients, you can make scripts that react to certain words... I guess that's basically it.


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## Ingwë (Jun 24, 2005)

Eledhwen said:


> Stop talking over me and tell me what a bot is!
> Also MILATRY INTELLIGENCE is a contradiction in terms.


I don't know about the bots except the IRC bots: these ae stupid programs that create more problems than decisions. I use IRC though I don't like it much... In the _IRC channels_ there are bots that must help the _Channel Operators _(these are persons that may ban, autokick, kick, etc. other users - it is something like admin here  ) to control the channel. These bots _are_ channel operators but they are programs and cannot decide whether they must ban somebody or they mustn't. The owner of the bots can modify its options and he may command it to _ban all users that send links_ in the IRC channel (the bot see _www._, _.com_, _.org_, _.bg_). But sometimes the bots ban other IRC opers and thus create problems. Then somebody must enter the bot itself and remove the ban. I have bots!  

Well, this isn't a thread about IRC bots but... anyway


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## Wraithguard (Jun 24, 2005)

It's like a senior citizen who worked for computer companies at a nursing home. When the nurse comes in and asks if he's gone to the bathroom he says... "IBM"


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## ingolmo (Jun 25, 2005)

Sorry, I dozed off there. 
Anyway, bot also means the parasitic body of a botfly, and it is also a disease mainly occuring in cows and horses, where a botfly's larva infests the intestines. So we have the larva of botflies entering the forum as guests?


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## ingolmo (Jun 27, 2005)

I've got some live coverage even fishier than Baragund's. There are 103 users online right now, and two are members. But all 101 guests are in the LotR section. Spooky!


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## ingolmo (Jun 27, 2005)

Sorry for the double-post, but another mystery party's come.
The Live Update:
Users: 126
Members: 4
Partying guests: 102 (In the New Member's Thread)
The funny thing is, that they all don't seem to be the ones I mentioned in my previous post. I checked back about 15 minutes ago, but then there were ten users, and two members. Could there be different parties of people coming by and checking randomly checking different sub-fora, or is it an army of bots planning to invade TTF?


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## Thorondor_ (Jun 27, 2005)

> or is it an army of bots planning to invade TTF?



Where is Earendil when we need him?


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## Alatar (Jun 27, 2005)

I saw a google spider on yesterday.What is a spider?
Btw, AHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh the bots are attacking! Ahh it's like the terimator!!!!! Ahaaaa.


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## Thorondor_ (Jun 27, 2005)

Alatar said:


> I saw a google spider on yesterday.What is a spider?


"A web crawler (also known as a web spider or ant) is a program which browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner. Web crawlers are mainly used to create a copy of all the visited pages for later processing by a search engine, that will index the downloaded pages to provide fast searches.A web crawler is one type of bot, or software agent. In general, it starts with a list of URLs to visit. As it visits these URLs, it identifies all the hyperlinks in the page and adds them to the list of URLs to visit, recursively browsing the Web according to a set of policies."


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## GuardianRanger (Jun 29, 2005)

Bots and spiders typically crawl the web archiving information. For example, a search engine will write a program that "travels" from website to website archiving the web pages. By archiving, they take a "snapshot" of the page, send it home (to the search engine) so that you can find it later if you are searching. Some sites don't wish to be indexed by bots, and counter-act them by using a robots.txt file. This file effectively tells the bots what directories and pages they can archive. A lot of forums keep bots off, as there is no reason to archive all of the posts; they are already archived.

Some search engines rely on submissions to generate archives, some search engines you can pay to be listed in; and some have secretive and complex algorhythms as to how they come up with archived pages.

There are lots of good pages on (ro)bots and spiders (or web crawlers.) Any search engine should provide a good list.


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## Eledhwen (Jun 30, 2005)

Thank you, Guardian Ranger! That was a very helpful explanation.


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## GuardianRanger (Jun 30, 2005)

Not a problem......anytime.


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## Jesse (Jul 16, 2005)

I am a mod on another VBullitin forum and we have the same problem. Thanks for this thread, it clears up a lot of unanswered questions.


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## Urambo Tauro (Feb 5, 2006)

Arthur_Vandelay said:


> ....some members elect to be "Invisible"--which means that you can see their contributions, but you can't see them.


Why would I want to be invisible?


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## Ithrynluin (Feb 5, 2006)

To prevent others from haunting your steps and stalking your every move at the forum.  I personally don't consider this option especially useful, it's a bit too paranoiac for my tastes.


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## e.Blackstar (Feb 5, 2006)

Ithrynluin said:


> To prevent others from haunting your steps and stalking your every move at the forum.  I personally don't consider this option especially useful, it's a bit too paranoiac for my tastes.



*stalks Ithy*


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## Ingwë (Feb 6, 2006)

I used it when I was a newbie. I don't think we should use it now. I know members from other forums who use that option. They want to be hidden from the other members but the other ones use invisible mode, too. So I see 15 active users, 10 invisible  But noone can watch noone because they all use invisible mode. 
I noticed that there are few members of TTF who still use that option. But there are other forums where it is very popular. Example: Dark Galaxy Forums:
*Currently Active Users: 39 (17 members and 22 guests) *
*Elphir, canibal23ro, DarkMarius, Ironstone, Ishamael, joejohnston86, krell, Manager, Peetrus, _Gravity_* 
Do you see 17 users? I don't. Seven users use Invisible mode... Even the mods use it. But the admins of that site haven't added HTML code for the Mods, SuperMods and Admins and I cannot see who are they at the Currently Active Users list.


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## Eledhwen (Feb 6, 2006)

Invisible Mods? What is the point of that? Is is so they can leap out of their invisibility cloak and say "Hah! Caught you!"?


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## Ithrynluin (Feb 6, 2006)

Eledhwen said:


> Invisible Mods? What is the point of that? Is is so they can leap out of their invisibility cloak and say "Hah! Caught you!"?



I'd say it was rather for the sake of convenience: after all, members cannot keep an eye on the invisible mod who is then free to procrastinate at leisure.


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## Glory (Feb 10, 2006)

As far as I know 'invisible Mods' are usually helpful when trolls attack.


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## Ithrynluin (Feb 10, 2006)

Glory said:


> As far as I know 'invisible Mods' are usually helpful when trolls attack.



I'm pretty sure Gandalf got rid of the last one back in the days of yore.


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## Wonko The Sane (Feb 11, 2006)

Am I the only one who got all excited by the use of the word "haunted" and am now very disappointed to hear we aren't talking about ghosts after all?


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## Kristaline (Feb 12, 2006)

You are not alone...I was looking for ghosts, too...oh, well


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## wizard2c (Feb 13, 2006)

baragund said:


> On a related note, I noticed yesterday (late afternoon Eastern time in the US), that there was a typical number of members online (4 or 5 I think) but there were _26_ guests. What's more, they were _all_ in the movie section viewing "The Return of the King" threads.
> 
> Did a large group of random people just decide to have a party there or was something odd going on?




Perhaps they were there trying to foresee future events here on what-ever this place is called.....Earth???? 

{I will not say: "do not weep", for not all tears are an evil.
Close on: Gandalf turns and walks away.... Frodo is downcast...
suddenly, Gandalf turns and looks toward him.
Gandalf (cont'd.)
It is time, Frodo.}


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## Glory (Feb 15, 2006)

Ithrynluin said:


> I'm pretty sure Gandalf got rid of the last one back in the days of yore.


 Yeah but how do you know some of them didn't hide from him? it is not likely but still possible .


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