visitors

OK lets look at this from a computing point-of-view, it strikes me that there are two possibilities given that the number seems to be 19 or 20.

Firstly, it could be that the forum software is reporting that staff using the main system are visitors.

Secondly, it could be that what is being reported are search engines that have linked permanently with the forum.

In the first case, just check your ports and see if any have been enabled when they should be disabled; the other one could be a problem with permissions in that the main frame may have permission to engage with the forum as opposed to having an overview.

In the second case you will have to decide to what level crawler software will be permitted to enter the forum, I suggest that you should only let it enter to the top level of the forum and not into the messaging area itself, this will prevent possible DNS (Denial of Normal Service) attacks, e.g. mail bombs, etc.

And just to let you know, we'll let you and everyone know before we make the main homepage public on the website.

We'll also let people know through a final email to the founders, for those people who have been signed up through that process. That'll let you people know when the updates through emails are available and inform them of us opening up the Community.

The Community is a public space Wolfbear, which is where it differs for private one-to-one services such as the helpline and the befriending service available through the NAS.

Once we go live the service will be available and open to people who are browsing the website. This is why we've asked people not to publish personal contact details within the Community.

It's a very important decision, to decide whether you are comfortable with using a public discussion board. If it does cause you too much concern then it may be better to consider other services. Alternatively it may just be worth remembering that what you write within the Community is public and just avoid anything you'd be uncomfortable with other people reading.

Discussion areas of websites are incredible tools for the people who choose to register and reply to ongoing discussions, but these same discussions are very valuable to other people reading them. Even if people don't reply or register they can benefit from discussions similar to the issues they might be facing. For this reason it's important that the service itself is public. 

Hi Mike,

When someone isn't signed in as a user but is looking at the forum they will show up as a visitor. So it may be that some of the visitors are people who have been invited to join the Community but aren't currently signed in.

However, I must admit that the number seems to remain very close to 19 or 20, which is somewhat unlikely. When we've looked at the system it seems to be working correctly, but we'll be monitoring it to double-check whether the number is accurate as we move towards inviting more people to use the service.