Showing who is online on the forum index

What are your opinions on showing vs. completely disabling vs. limiting (XenForo) the actual list of people that are online on the forum homepage?

For some reason, I have never liked the appeal of hiding this section from the index. Although not true, it makes me feel like there isn't anyone online. Even when the list starts to get really, really big, I still like it to be there. When I see it I feel like I'm in more of a forum community than a question/answer type website. I'm not sure how I feel about limiting the number of people shown (XenForo), either. At first I really hated it but it might not care as much now.

 

I hide it from guest and it's disabled "online.php" (vbulletin) for everyone on my site.
I have it disabled for performance reasons, and it's hidden from guest just because we normally have maybe 10 ppl on at once, if it was 40 or more I would love to show that to guest, but I don't think 10 is going to impress many ppl :|

 

Good point. Hiding it from guests for that same reason is something I have done in the past, too.

 

Ditto exactly what Brandon said. Instead of showing guests "who's online", I have the list of "members logged in today" displayed. Since I usually get 50-70+ logins per day, I figure that's something worth showing off. And even better, somebody familiar with vBulletin forums who is skimming my index may accidentally mistake it for "users currently online."

 

i keep it visible to everyone, as its nice to know who is online at the moment, and im just used to seeing it on forums, as the only forum i was on that had it disabled, members were asking for admin to add it.

 

I show who is online, but i dont allow my members to view on who all was here. they ould be judging so much things out of that!

 

I think showing number of users online, is the best way to check forum reputation and traffic.
every site must show number of users online, etc; guests, registered members, by which the visitors come to know that the how much traffic this site have...

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Shahzadqayyum

 

I think disabling it initially when a forum is building its foundation is fine, but I do look for it whenever I visit another forum. Its a snapshot of how popular the forum is, whether or not the staff have a constant presence and whether it looks like its filled with spambots.

Love to brag so much that I have tried to put the "Total members that have visited the forum in the last 24 hours" mod on my earlier forums. Makes me feel things are more active when I see that box constantly filled.

 

I think disabling it initially when a forum is building its foundation is fine, but I do look for it whenever I visit another forum. Its a snapshot of how popular the forum is, whether or not the staff have a constant presence and whether it looks like its filled with spambots.

Love to brag so much that I have tried to put the "Total members that have visited the forum in the last 24 hours" mod on my earlier forums. Makes me feel things are more active when I see that box constantly filled.

 

Why the heck am I double posting...

 

*Via my HTC EvO 4G*

 

I think make it visible to everyone that who is online...
Number of guest, Registered members, online members etc...