I was just wondering... the forums here (like every other vBulletin board) is set to 15 minutes and the rest of the site is 10. I do not know which to adjust... the forums down to 10 or the site up to 15.

The major bulletin boards and what they do:

• phpBB.com : 5 mins
• Invision : 15 mins
• vBulletin : 15 mins

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J de Silva
Learning Journal | GIDForums™ | GIDNetwork™ | GIDWebhosts™ | GIDSearch™

You can spend more than 5 minutes typing a post, but seldom over 10. I suppose 15 minutes is playing it safe, and makes the forum looking really busy, but I thing 10 is fairer.

GF

Whatever you choose, maybe you should state "active users in the past x minutes" rather than "users online". At least it gives the number more meaning to people.

Rob

I set the timeouts on my site to 30 minutes in most sections and in one I even set it to an hour. My site, however, is targeted to children who alot of times won't type as fast as an adult would and you also have to try and take into account things like people taking bathroom breaks and going to get a drink, sandwich, answer the phone, etc...10 minutes may seem like alot but when you figure that people have to do all of these things from time to time it's not really very much time at all. I would suggest, personally, a 30 minute site wide time for this site. 15 minutes may even be ok, but I wouldn't think 10 to be very appropriate, even for adults...

I recall reading something on MSDN / ASP where the default online timeout value for some function is 30 minutes.

Although I cannot remember what it was exactly and why I even ended up reading something on ASP, I remember thinking to myself, "Wow! 30 minutes"....

So you might be on to something there Elm!

You, obviously, haven't met my nephews and nieces from hell. They would have logged in, checked their PM, hit reply and be typing their messages before you tell them "Go to..."

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J de Silva
Learning Journal | GIDForums™ | GIDNetwork™ | GIDWebhosts™ | GIDSearch™

Heh, when I was younger, I could easily type over 90 wpm. Nowadays, I'm probably only around 75.

I think 15 minutes is fair enough. The 5-minute limit that phpBB has is definitely not enough. As Garth said, having it set at 15 minutes definitely makes the forum look busier.

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