WeChall Online Counter

I am unhappy with the online counter.

Should i hide the [bot_here] users?

Should i add some refresh javascript to refresh the online list more often?

I want you to vote!

Sure, hide the bots.
refresh javascript, depends on the rate, and can people turn it off?

The "ping" rate/delay would be one or two minutes.
Probably two, as it's quite annoying to refresh pages.

I also managed to add a poll
Please vote!


Edit: I guess i can do some "opt-out" for the refresher script easily.... opt-in does not make sense at all, as i want online counter to be more accurate

Hide the bots. There is no reason to display those.

I wouldn't mind a refresher script under some circumstances. An opt-out is a must, a user configurable refresh rate would be great, and I don't think I'd want the script to run on certain pages, like the challenges pages, or when editing forum posts or PMs.

Quote from shadum

Apr 15, 2011 - 01:36:38

Hide the bots. There is no reason to display those.

I wouldn't mind a refresher script under some circumstances. An opt-out is a must, a user configurable refresh rate would be great, and I don't think I'd want the script to run on certain pages, like the challenges pages, or when editing forum posts or PMs.

Of course you would not notice the refresh, unless you are sniffing your traffic
For myself i like the robots to be shown in the online lists, but some people seem to dislike that.

Quote from Gizmore

Apr 15, 2011 - 01:55:24

Of course you would not notice the refresh, unless you are sniffing your traffic
For myself i like the robots to be shown in the online lists, but some people seem to dislike that.

Hmmm... maybe you aren't talking about what I think you are talking about? MantisBT (a bugtracker) uses a refresh script-- I think its runs on about half an hour intervals. I do notice that, and (most of the time ), I don't sniff my traffic.

I'll leave a tab open for hours, even days while I try to solve a challenge. What I don't want is to get started on one, have the script refresh the page, and reset the automatically generated content/passwords that some of the challenges have.

I don't dislike seeing the bots. Its just that I see no reason to display them. They are clutter that doesn't really convey any useful information, at least that is how I see it as a user. Google searches everything, all the time. I don't know what good it does to know that Google is back again. I can see how a site owner/admin might be interested in such things, but as a user it doesn't really mean much.

I have to agree to your post completely.
Adding the refresh script should not break any challenge or functionality with the current codebase.

Also, this poll is for the next major release, coming to a wechall near you, next summer :=

So, as there were whooping 9 votes against the bots, i decided to hide them immediately

Thank you all for your vote.

The refresher script would probably not make it into production, unless we have more votes for it

Happy Challenging!