Who's viewing a particular forum?

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Didn't the site used to list who was currently viewing each forum? Can't see that information any more.

You mean that when I am on a model railway forum you will see that I am on it on this forum?

No, for example if you went to the Random Discussion forum or PPR forum etc it would show the names of the people currently browsing those forums.

I thought it is all the same forum but divided into sections?
I think some of the forum software allows figures to be seen but I assume the more things accessable the more memory etc that is used so as forums get bigger they are sometimes stripped of un-neccessary functions. I have seen this happen in other forums because it is either a case of the forum owner buying a more powerful computer of paying for an increased forum capacity (I don't know a lot but I am getting the gist of how it works as I was half thinking of starting my own website but not sure if I want it to have two way communication and I don't want itto be free to have it, but when doing a little research, it is plain that some forum providers seem to have a template where some things are free, and then more complex things have a charge, and the more one wants the greater the charge will be if that makes sense? So if I just want a simple site to share some of my model train ideas then it will usually be free but if I want two way forum like communication with membership it can be upgraded but usually there is a charge.... Live chat forums are more costly again (Usually) etc etc etc.

I would like to give it a go but I would need to add photos and I am not sure if there is a charge for me to do this as I don't know a lot yet.. I don't want to start anything with hidden charges.

Maybe the functionality was removed from Wrong Planet to reduce server overhead?

I remember that being present on the earlier version of the site software.

A removal because of overhead is unlikely - it looks like it's just one of those things that got customised into oblivion when the site software was updated.

You used to be able to see the names of the people viewing the forum on a sort of ticker tape which ran along the top of the page. I used to find it a little creepy and 'big brotherish'. You could opt out of this feature by ticking a preference in the 'My Account' section.

I've never actually seen this on any other forum. However, quite a lot of them have a notification (usually at the bottom of the page) which informs readers that 'x number of people are viewing this forum, including x number of members and x number of guests'. The number of guest viewers is invariably much higher than the number of members, often by a factor of at least 10. One must assume that this applies to WrongPlanet as well.

It seems to appear most on phpBB-based forums, or at least on the ones I've seen, along with the format you describe - just the numbers with no names. IIRC the list of names format is the default for a phpBB installation - I've broken mine so I can't check.
It was moderately interesting/useful - for example if I wanted to PM someone I could see there would be a reasonable chance of a quick reply.

Usually located at the bottom of a forum's index page, and showing member names and "guests" - generally meaning anonymous people who are not logged in - viewing that forum. I don't think WP publically showed guests but there are doubtless many more guests than members at any given time - I was one for weeks before joining.
Some even show bots, referring to the various minions sent out by Google, Bing, Yahoo and so on to scrape web content. From a moderator's viewpoint those were also shown on WP and easily exceeded any other category.

I was one for eight years before joining, lol.

Well, you can't be too careful...

I've seen this on various forums but WP is the only forum I post in these days so I don't know if lots of other forums still do this or not. Can the mods here still see which members are currently logged in to WP I'm sure it's a handy feature for mods to have even if you cant see which sections they have open. I sometimes have multiple sections open or I minimize my browser & get off computer for a while because I plan to go back to reading that section or finish my post later.

Sadly, no.
The members viewing a forum, shown on the forum's index page, was the only view available.

Some other forums had it where only the mods & admins could view that info for privacy reasons &/or reasons like MG mentioned. Too bad that's not the case here.

I've seen this feature on other Interet forums; where the screen names of who's viewing a particular forum are listed. This feature is sometimes helpul in gelaning important insights.

Some forum managers opt to include this feature, some forum managers choose not to include this feature - it is what it is.

Internet fourms provide excellent statistical data e.g., number of posts/responses, number of reads/views - data which can prove to be very helpful in spotting easily overlooked trends.