"Most users ever online" record recently broken by almost 2x??

2000alhVW

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 30, 2018
Location
Silver Spring, MD
TDI
2000 Golf
I'm kinda nerdy, and sometimes pay attention to the "most users ever online" or "number of users currently online" counters at the bottom of the home page.

I had noticed that the counter had peaked around ~8000 back in 2015. This made sense to me, as (looking back as a newcomer) I figured TDI membership/culture/vibe was at an all time high (due to cumulative ownership) in 2015 immediately when Dieselgate erupted. Then, I assume it sharply dropped due to buybacks, VW reputation deterioration, even heard some people say things like "I'm sick to my stomach that I'm driving a law-breaking car!" (lol okay bud).

I had occasionally observed that the current "users online" counter was a bit injured. I hadn't seen it rise above 2,500 members in the ~6 months I had been casually checking. Likely to rise due to new people looking for solutions as older TDIs becoming problematic, but also likely to fall as new TDIs are no longer being made.

I just looked today and it says "14,000 members as of 11-02-18". Very odd? That's like 6 times the normal web traffic, and suddenly broke a record that's been in place for 3-4 years.

Did some TDI news break headlines? or was TDI club victim of some sort of mass bot attack?
 

ItAintRodKnock

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 29, 2008
Location
Fraggle Rock, CO
TDI
01GolfTDi
i suspect bot attack or tracking malfunction.
looks like its at the average current, 2500ish. interesting observation.
I too like that forums share that information.
 

Mongler98

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Mar 23, 2011
Location
COLORADO (SE of Denver)
TDI
98 Jetta TDI AHU 1.9L (944 TDI swap in progress) I moved so now i got nothing but an AHU in a garage on a pallet.
massive bot attacks, hacking, spam ect have been a serious issue on this site for the last few years, mods have been fantastic at keeping it under control to the normal user but i have seen days where some threads have up to 50 new posts in an hour, all of them spam, and some times its like nearly every thread as well.
I think its safe to assume that this number is not accurate.
Maybe something happend with some key in the server and most of the memberships had to be reissued a ticket.
For the last 6 years i have never had to re login every time i start a new tab and i think the ticker is counting old users as new users. Maybe there is an issue with the security feature issue that chrome had a week ago.
Point is, dont take that number seriously now.
 

eddieleephd

Top Post Dawg
Joined
May 27, 2012
Location
Battle Ground, Wa
TDI
2002 jetta Wagon
It's a cyber attack to assist in killing the most efficient commercially available diesel....
Probably spam bots really ..

Sent from my Armor_2 using Tapatalk
 
Top