many visitors - but few of them members

[likesitnatural]

I was startled to see this at the bottom of my browser -
Currently Active Users: 490 (12 members and 478 guests) likesitnatural, Xabbyy3, sterling2, rbrnkr, NightRyder1, intalam, nobbin, Luxman, tesudo, svenbrm, yoledey

I guess I'm shocked at the lopsided ratio. I know AW has lots of paying members (30,000 approx. is the rumor), so there's no problem paying the grocery bill. Stiil, I would hope some of these window-shoppers would step up to the plate and join. I believe in paying for what you use and enjoy.

[Frans]

A lot of those guests are actually AW members viewing the shoots on the site without being logged in to the forums (which is separate from the AW mainsite).

Also note that the pictures on the forum can only be viewed/seen by members logged in to the mainsite. All you can get for free is the (sometimes very interesting) discussions

[likesitnatural]

ok - thanks for the clarification.

[wolfgangbuster29]

The AW forums site has habit of automatically logging a viewer out during a session, which seems to occur quite soon after login. I find I get auto-logged out after I had been reading/following a thread, and I would have to sign back in again just to make a post. I can see where the auto-logout can be handy in the prevention of the site being hacked and to protect the site from bot activity but I'd venture to say that the auto-logout feature could be a reason why OP is noticing more 'visitors' than 'members' browsing the site at a given time.

[tom2c7777]

Wolfgangbuster29,

If you tick the remember me box located next to the user name when you log in to the forums then that should solve your problem.

tom

[laktor]

I'm always logged in, so don't understand all the members why they aren't. Why not stay continuously logged in and click "remember me". Saves a lot of trouble.