Q: What do these times mean under each user?
A: These times represent the length of time each specific user had since last contact with torontoPL.com server

Q: What does it mean when a particular time is increasing?
A: The higher the time, the higher the chance that the user might of closed the browser, turned off the computer, or has connection problems and is no longer online.

Q: Why can't we just simply tell if the user is online or not? I had never seen anything like this before on any other web sites. Why is this there?
A: This has to do with how the HTTP Protocol works. In reality the server can never tell if the user is still online or not. Server always assumes that a user who is not active after a certain amount of time is considered a user who has gone offline. In reality every single web site works this way. The only difference is that most pages do not display this information publicly.

Q: Why is this information shown publicly?
A: To show for everyone which user is actually online, and to suggest the probability that even though the user has not logged out, he/she might of: closed the page, turned off his computer, or have connection problems.

Q: When am I considered to be an online user?
A: Every registered user who logs in is considered and displayed as "online". Every logged in user who has the torontoPL.com window open has a constant continuous contact with the server and their time should be close to between 0 to 10 seconds.

Q: What happens when I logout from the site?
A: The moment you logout from the site you are no longer an online user. This what we refer to as "offline".

Q: What happens if I just close the window?
A: The moment you close the window without logging out the timeout countdown begins. When the users see that your time is pretty high (above few seconds) they can begin to assume that you most likely had gone offline and you are no longer using the site. After 5 minutes (300 seconds) you are considered to be "offline" (a user who is no longer online)

Q: I had seen some weird stuff happen. User is online, user gets a higher time so I think they went offline, the user then disappears, the user reappears as logged in at the beginning of the list. How does this work?
A: There could be many possible reasons. The user might be having internet connection problems. The user could of closed the page and then logged back in. The user could be using an older browser which don't support a constant communication with the server when the page is open.

Q: O boy! This is too much mambo jumbo, I don't understand!
A: Please do not worry about it. This will not affect how you can use torontoPL.com :)