For weeks and weeks, "### Users Online" at the bottom of every page was usually in the 300-450 range. For the past many days, it has been up around 1200-1500.  
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Any ideas why logins have jumped by 1000 in such a short time? Americans taking summer holiday trips abroad so they are making more use of the remaining (non-US) active parts of TER?  Newspaper stories bringing more attention (free advertising) to TER? (I first learned about TER from a story in the NY Times!)
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Other ideas?

probably correct, and since not everyone participating in the increase is a mooch, year-end revenues should increase by well over two hundred dollars!

How often do you see a printed check with a number in the single or even double digits? Most people order their first box of checks starting with check number 101, or even 1001. I think TER is doing the same thing here. The current "users online" number as of this post is 1,342, most likely it's really 342.

are bots used to patrol the site for various nefarious reasons.

if there are bots being used.  They would have to pass the bus, traffic light, or crosswalk test, which I usually get right by the third try.  Lol

Even so, some people told me that to the really good hackers, those tests are a piece of cake.

I do know that there are a lot of ladies in Canada that are still using TER.
Perhaps it's them logging on every now and then.  

I guess all those Canadian hookers climbed back into their closets and are once again hanging upside down like bats.

Its the middle of the work day in Europe.  When evening rolls around, in 5-6 hours, the numbers will likely go up. European workers don't usually have a little privacy in their workspace like American's do, so its more difficult to log on from work.  

It has nothing to do with the work day in Europe. TER has NEVER been a big deal in Europe, or anywhere else in the world other than the US.  

I know that when the site was accessible in the US, there were often fifty to a hundred thousand more people logged on in the evenings than in the daytime here in the US.  Then it would fade out after midnight into the next morning.  Just reaching a logical possibility based on my own history of watching the logons on this site, which granted, is ONLY ten+ years.  But I will admit that the only thing I can prove are the 10-12 people that are here talking to each other regularly.  There might be a few dozen more that follow the threads, but rarely post comments.    

but you are wrong. lol