h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Creachy said this:

>>also, lots of reference to the size of the online list in comparison to how busy hootoo is... and much confusion i sense it has been pointed out two pages ago but not fully understood by many i see. all BBCi sites have been amalgamated(joined together) by the Single Sign On system, you remember all that palava
so, when you clickon the Who's Online button,you see how many in total are online on ALL BBCi sites.
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F19585?thread=358703&show=20&skip=60&lpcr=3

Is this true? That all the people on the Who's Online list are from ALL the bbci sites?


And if it is true, is it possible any more to see how busy h2g2 actually is? (I know the Who's Online list has always been a blunt instrument for this)


thanks,
kea.

I have certainly looked at a few "new this week" researchers, only to find that they are Get Writing researchers and not h2g2.

AFAIK its just those using DNA software sites that appear on the <./>online</.> screen, as opposed to the whole of BBCi.

I agree - since the SSO, there has been other sitessers appearing on the online list, such as collective and GW. But as you say only DNA related sites. In fact at the moment the only ones I have come across recently have been GW

"sitessers" = site users

The list has always showed all of DNA.

has it really? Perhaps with the increase in DNA sites then that is why it has become more noticeable then

It isn't something I have come across until recently but that doesnt mean it didnt happen before of course.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/info

is a good page if you are trying to see how busy h2g2 is

That would explain why the Aces are always getting 'reminded' not to welcome users from other sites. Many researchers see who is new, and drop by to say hello, from the online list.

My - with increasing DNA sites it seems silly for the online list to reflect DNA users as opposed to site specific users, particularly when the sites are as diverse as WW2 and h2g2.
But hey, what do I know...

I think it's one of the reasons they don't use it on the other sites.

That makes sense.

Is there some reason you don't like <./>NewUsers</.>? That can be site specific after all.

<./>Info</.> seems always to be site specific. Of course it doesn't show you new users per se but new pages (and not all of those).

That makes sense that it's the DNA sites (I seem to remember that).

Although if other DNA sites don't use the Who's Online function what is the point of having it show users from those sites?


I use both info and new users pages too. All three give different perspectives on business

It shows users from all sites because we don't track which sites people are using (currently). Just because you originally registered with h2g2 doesn't mean you might be currently in Get Writing.

This will probably change at some time in the future, but it's not on our immediate to-do list.

I don't think that's what some of the people here want to do with <./>online</.>.

To track which site you are currently using/viewing seems more like BBCi Connector. Of course some people might have windows open on lots of sites and it would only be the window to which connector was attached or from which a dna page was last requested which would count.

However, some people here seem to want to use <./>online</.> as an alternative to <./>NewUsers</.>. So it would be the sub-site where someone signed up which would matter to them. At the moment they need to click on the U-number and then check the article list to see the site of the PS because the online list always links to the U-number as if on the site from which you ran it (eg h2g2/online links to h2g2/U# whereas hub/online links to hub/U#).

So it looks like you would need a couple of options, either display site with U-number or allow filtering on site as with NewUsers, which could apply to either the original registration (ie as PS + journal) or to the last viewed page.

OK, in that case people *should* be using NewUsers because that's precisely what I designed it for.

I suppose part of it is wanting to know the user stats - ie how busy h2g2 is (as mentioned a couple of times above). But those are the things which the staff normally say are not allowed to be public and of course there are all the page hits from people (and automata) not logged in at all. The number of posts per site would be another measure of busy-ness. Info only gives a partial list of articles - and then some staff member comes along and books thousands in one go anyway!

Jim- if, in the future, the online list *was* site-specific, would that mean that people who had used more than one site within the however-long-it-waits-before-taking-you-off period would appear as online on both those sites?

I'm confused now.

I've been in a couple of conversations, where people are using Who's Online to see how many h2g2 researchers are currently online. I take it that this is only a guide because Online includes all DNA site users.

So, given that there has been a marked increase in the maximum numbers on Online, is this due to an increase in h2g2 numbers? or DNA users in general? or is there no way of telling (short of going to each user's PS and seeing where they are posting)

The next question then was - there seem to be a lot of new users on h2/DNA who are choosing names immediately - in the past you often would see a lot of numbers in the new this week list on Who's online of the New Users page. So has something changed to encourage people to actually change their number to a name?

>So has something changed to encourage people to actually change their number to a name?<

Yep... Now when someone registers they have their member's name appearing instead of the usual Researcher number like before...

And their space is also automatically activated so that it's possible to post on it even if they haven't written an intro...





loup