Hey - it's the anniversary of the best POTN day ever!

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I see that just last year, on this date, we had over 6,000 users online at one time. . Normally, we seem to have between 1400 and 1900. . In fact, whenever I look at these stats at the bottom of the page, it always seems to be between 1400 and 1900. So, I wonder what caused the usage to peak so sharply at this time last year. . Any ideas on what could have caused this?

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Program (coding) error?

Picture North Carolina wrote in post #18375155
Program (coding) error?

nope.

bots? ghosts from POTN Vbulletin? Automated test cases testing forum code? 5000 Nigerian princes all looking for folks to help them smuggle money out? National POTN day, and all the photography classes were checking out the best photography forum?

aliens.

...or maybe zombies.

Fans of Chet tuning into to see my since deleted all nude review. It was spectacular!

5000 Pekka-testing accounts?

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I have always assumed that there were actually 6106 bona-fide users on POTN at that time. . It never occurred to me that these statistics could somehow be the result of some kind of bots or whatever people call them.

Perhaps Pekka has records of how many of those 6016 were registered members and how many were guests. . If the ratio between the two is significantly different than it usually is, then I suppose that will shed some light as to the real nature of the 6000+ peak. . But until these statistics are known, I will continue to believe that over 6000 real people actually got onto the website to discuss photography at one moment that day.

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Tom Reichner wrote in post #18376308
But until these statistics are known, I will continue to believe that over 6000 real people actually got onto the website to discuss photography at one moment that day.

I, in contrast, will suspend judgment on the nature of the 6000 because the statistics aren't known (by me).

Canon 5DS-R was coming out. Everyone wanted the scoop obviously!

I had just posted my Rhino photo I think and the world went crazy. thats obviously not it

Tom Reichner wrote in post #18376308
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I have always assumed that there were actually 6106 bona-fide users on POTN at that time. . It never occurred to me that these statistics could somehow be the result of some kind of bots or whatever people call them.

Perhaps Pekka has records of how many of those 6016 were registered members and how many were guests. . If the ratio between the two is significantly different than it usually is, then I suppose that will shed some light as to the real nature of the 6000+ peak. . But until these statistics are known, I will continue to believe that over 6000 real people actually got onto the website to discuss photography at one moment that day.

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There may be such peaks when some post/thread is referenced in any of the popular social media sites (like Twitter, Facebook) and that leads people here in a quick burst. Also, some search bots are nice for site resources (like Google), some more aggressive with lots of parallel sessions. I do get detailed browsing logs (as all websites do), but I try to use my time for something more productive than parsing logs