# "So-and-so is offline" = Is this new?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-and-so-is-offline-is-this-new/139716>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [December 1, 2002, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-and-so-is-offline-is-this-new/139716 "2002-12-01T02:24:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\
**Post date:** [December 1, 2002, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-and-so-is-offline-is-this-new/139716/1 "2002-12-01T02:24:58Z")

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I see now on many or all posts “(poster’s name) is offline” or online as the case may be. Is this new, or was this always there and I never noticed it before?

OK, I just checked again, and now I don’t see it anymore. WTF? Board glitch that let me see threads with Mod privs briefly?

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**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\
**Post date:** [December 1, 2002, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-and-so-is-offline-is-this-new/139716/2 "2002-12-01T02:41:14Z")

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Hamster burp, would be my guess.

Too much turkey. Pass the Tums…

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**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\
**Post date:** [December 1, 2002, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-and-so-is-offline-is-this-new/139716/3 "2002-12-01T02:51:19Z")

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Is that indeed something mods see?

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**Author:** ![donkeyoatey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47c2d/32.png) [@donkeyoatey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/donkeyoatey)\
**Post date:** [December 1, 2002, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-and-so-is-offline-is-this-new/139716/4 "2002-12-01T02:54:25Z")

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From the FAQ **Revtim** :

> [@](#):
>
> Q: What does the small button displaying the vBulletin logo do? There is one at the top of the forum list, to the left of the top-level forum, and one under each post, to the left of the profile button.
> 
> A: There is text that appears when you hover your mouse over the buttons, but the pop-up text only appears in some browsers. The button in each post shows whether the poster is online/offline. The button at the top of the page shows the version number for vBulletin.

It was discussed [in this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=134892&highlight=user+online).

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\
**Post date:** [December 1, 2002, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-and-so-is-offline-is-this-new/139716/5 "2002-12-01T03:03:07Z")

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Thanks **donkeyoatey**. I must have had a faulty page load. My browser, Mozilla 1.2, doesn’t seem to support the floating text.

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**Author:** ![Wikkit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c0e974/32.png) [@Wikkit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wikkit)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-and-so-is-offline-is-this-new/139716/6 "2002-12-02T05:35:37Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Revtim \*  
> \*\*Thanks **donkeyoatey**. I must have had a faulty page load. My browser, Mozilla 1.2, doesn’t seem to support the floating text. \*\*

Yeah, it shouldn’t. It’s image alt text, which isn’t supposed to show up unless you have images turned off, but in IE it also makes floating text when you mouseover the image.