BTW, There is a big incentive to installing this hack. The reason is this:
Being invisible is something that most users like, the incentive to them is privacy. However this means that the number of actual people who appear to be online is lower than it really is.
New users to the forum use things like the Who's Online at the foot of the forumhome to judge whether they've found an active forum which lots of real people on. Active forums being better than dead forums.
You can't incentivise your users not to go invisible to help attract new members, because they don't care. But by installing this hack you have given users a clear incentive to not be invisible. And the result of that is that more users appear to be online, and that helps to convert new users as they see how active a forum really is.
I like this hack, it's one of my better small hacks, and is quite fun on the psychology side as you get to see who really values privacy, and who values openness
You couldn't hook this into init_startup rather than requiring a file edit?
I'm afraid not.
That hook is called before the session has been created and we have the user who is currently logged on. Until we have a session we do not know whether the user who is logged on is set to be invisible.
Ideally there would be a init_completed hook and we could use that, but there isn't one so to avoid hooking the start of every single other script, I insert the 3 lines to the end of init.php.
How many people here allow their reg users to appear invisible tho? I think that setting is best left for staff or special usergroups.
but none the less, it is a good idea if you are one of the users who do let reg users appear invisible, however I think it would be best to be able to define who this works for as well, because im sure admins dont want to be affected by this.
I've allowed all users to be invisible for years. They love it, and only about 20% max go invisible. This setting encourages some of them to come back from the dark side, or at least to evaluate the importance to them of privacy over functionality, which in itself is a great social question.
Just imagine how wonderful it would be if our politicians had to lose their privacy when they took ours, and how they too would gain privacy by granting ours. It's great fun!
That hook is called before the session has been created and we have the user who is currently logged on. Until we have a session we do not know whether the user who is logged on is set to be invisible.
Ideally there would be a init_completed hook and we could use that, but there isn't one so to avoid hooking the start of every single other script, I insert the 3 lines to the end of init.php.
So why can't you use global_start or one of the other hooks in global.php ?
Turn off Who's Online for users who choose to go Invisible. Details »»
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10-29-2006, 01:01 PM
