I've had two different OpenACS sites where I've received abundant feedback from users that the "3 Users Online" bar is confusing to them.
I personally like the feature, but I think the terminology is confusing. It doesn't reflect what is actually going on in the system. Users think that this number represents the number of people currently using the site.
It doesn't.
It represents the number of people, who are registered, and logged in, who are using the site.
I consider this a UI bug. It makes our OpenACS sites look unused, and inaccurately portrays the state of the system.
This thread deals with more long term issues, of how to accurately get the number of people accessing the site: https://openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=179004
My concern is with short-term fixing this problem. If nothing else, we should just change the terminology.
3 Members Online (perhaps this is good)
3 Registered Users Online (too long)
3 Visitors Online (just as inaccurate as the original)
I'm going to change it to 3 Members Online for now, and we can change it again if we reach some sort of consensus here. And if we decide that we don't want to change anything, then I'll change it back (roll back my change), and I'll locally modify all of my own sites.
