patrick.net

Or perhaps it's still possible to "lurk"

What are you talking about? If I recall it’s just users not logged in or randoms visiting the site. What is the concern?

Yes, now that is just counting the number of ip addresses which looked at the home page in the last 5 minutes without being logged in. It was always the number of non-logged in users looking at the site, but now patrick.net requires users to log in to read it. I'll explain later.

Patrick says

now patrick.net requires users to log in to read it. I'll explain later

I always assumed it was sort of white lie, becasue at odd hours there would be 17 lurkers. I thought it was basically fake, using a random number generator on a range, for both the number lurking as well as how long that number would show, before changing. So I took the fact that the numbers still seemed about the same now that you require membership as more or less confirmation of my theory.

I bet many of those lurkers are bots crawling patnet. They tend to use multiple IPs to crawl a site too.

One drawback to requiring login is that search engines can no longer index the content. I don't know about others, but I like to use search engines to find old posts on patnet.

Hircus says

I don't know about others, but I like to use search engines to find old posts on patnet.

Under normal circumstances I would like that to. But we live in a time where Commies are trying to take over our country and our souls. They use every little last tidbit you write on the internet against you, no matter how innocuous or frivolous it may be. They will dig up old posts, and take dialog and content and turn a "how do you do" post into proof, one is a racist, or misogynist or Islamophobe. Even if it was nothing more than a friendly Christian post.

After Trump locks up the Commie plotters in Washington and hang their propagandists and henchmen for treason. We'll have more leadway, and can speak freely and be proud that what we say is searchable.

It will be great to be a proud Cis Gender straight male with toxic male tendencies. And it not be grounds to get fired from your job.

Hircus says

I bet many of those lurkers are bots crawling patnet.

They could be, but not the main robots from Google etc, since those are excluded from the lurker count.