WhoIsOnline

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This service lists the current users logged into the site. This gives a sense of the other members of the community, especially the quiet ones whom you would otherwise be unaware of (cf TheAudience). For wikis, see RecentUsers for something along these lines.

Some services offer this service as a natural matter of course, such as InternetRelayChat. It is less clear whether this service is vital to a TransactionBasedCommunity like a wiki or, say, AdvoGato. However, it is possible to roughly track "sessions" on a website or one could force users to log in and then expire their sessions if they don't log out. Then, one could list the logged in users.

EverythingTwo makes interesting use of this. While it is in many ways similar to WikiWiki, it provides a "List of Fellow Noders" as well as a "ChatterBox" by which on-line noders can chat with each other. It's an interesting addition in that it divorces some of the conversational aspect of noding from the pages themselves.

Contrast ReadAnonymously.

CategoryChat

Using XMLHttpRequest? to indicate presence on wikis

While the original ideas of how to do this involved using InstantMessaging in the browser, say via the JabberProject, now XMLHttpRequest? exists. With an XMLHttpRequest? dynamic interface to a wiki, it is possible for the server to keep track of who is on or editing a given page at a given time, and thus notify others who are reading / editing pages, thus adding PersonalPresence? to the wiki. Thoughts? -- SunirShah

Oddmuse has had the basic infrastructure for some time because I wanted to know about the ratio of readers to writers. I haven't looked at it in ages. [Example]. Maybe the option of using chat as presented at Web Based Communities 2005 would change the experience. See [WebRogue] (not the rogue-like game; broken link, contact asoro@crs4.it). The simple list of who is online, even if extended to show who is online and what he's looking at, seems to be not enough. -- AlexSchroeder

As we have on FractalWiki:FR/SignatureAutomatique and CommunityWiki:IndicationAuteur, I think it could be really interesting to test a PersonalPresence? attached to the automatic signature? Could be a way (pehraps?) to have less ThreadMode in inviting any MembreDeLaCommunauté to connect directly with the protagonist via a jabber/IM connexion? -- ChristopheDucamp [1]

: Wouldn't this create intransparent BackStage communication? How should other users understand of what happens or what is written, if part of the communication is hidden? -- HelmutLeitner

: I agree Helmut. May be a way to leave the BackStageCommunication on a real-time-collaborative-editor (as MoonEdit) and indicate the community member the server/file/room if people are asking any explanation ? Maybe think to use also a TransporterRoom to drop a transcription on a wikilog ? -- ChristopheDucamp

WhoIsOnline

Using XMLHttpRequest? to indicate presence on wikis

Discussion