Meaning of "Viewing"?

[sky4forums]

In the list of forums after some or all of the discussion names there is a "(x Viewing)". I have never been able to figure out what it means. No biggie but can somebody enlighten me?

[ktinkel]

In the list of forums after some or all of the discussion names there is a "(x Viewing)". I have never been able to figure out what it means. No biggie but can somebody enlighten me?The number of viewers at a particular moment (not necessarily when you are seeing it — not sure about the intervals measured). It probably includes spiders/robots as well as members and guests.

[sky4forums]

Thanks for the info. Seems pretty useless. I will go on ignoring it.

[ktinkel]

Thanks for the info. Seems pretty useless. I will go on ignoring it.Makes sense to me. :)

It is sometimes useful to a site manager, but in our case we have more specific information elsewhere.

[CarlSeiler]

I know this an old thread, but just in case some lurker sneaks in here and reads... In phpBB, this is determined by the count of different clients that have accessed the given item in the last five minutes, and certainly includes bots, which get counted as "guests" unless you tweak things to leave them out (I think you can do this more easily in the new versions phpBB which seem to have some ability to detect legitimate bots).

I'd be willing to bet that vBulletin is doing something similar here.

Carl