I always turn it off; one of my sites had a framework built for a private game server, so we were querying that database frequently, and we began to cut down as much as we can on queries.
I also don't see much point to it, most people will reply, and then leave a thread, not caring if people are actually in the topic or not.
Essential for me: I quite frequently check to see if users/moderators are just logged in and lollygagging on the home page or if they are actively searching/replying to posts.
Well, we had it active for years and then deactivated it (the list of users inside threads) to much revolt. People went nuts not being able to see other members in their regional threads. Some people would sit in them all day essentially, and refreshing the page would show them who was in the thread. I guess you could look at it as a "chat" to an extent in some threads. Needless to say, I know a lot of people are used to having it in vb and would miss not having it in xen
we only allowed staff the ability to go invisible, and that was purely to monitor issues if a thread was going south. They were not using invisible to monitor the site on an ongoing basis
we only allowed staff the ability to go invisible, and that was purely to monitor issues if a thread was going south. They were not using invisible to monitor the site on an ongoing basis