I can't find forum time as a guest.
I also didn't find any forum time as a guest. However, the forum time is displayed at the top left when you log in.
(https://i.imgur.com/YOK5oks.png)
I found the same thing on another forum based on SMF 2017, also used by the Altcoinstalks forum.
As a comparison, the time display on the Simple Machines Forum when not logged in:
(https://i.imgur.com/iyYUgZe.png)
After I have been active since 2018 on altcoinstalks, I was also surprised and once asked the admin about the time when altcoinstalks did not appear when logging out but the admin ignored my question.
But according to my observations, this seems like a positive thing from the admin so that we continue to be active in the forum because we can only see the forum time when we log in.
And we can also see the list of "Online Users" on the bottom page of the Altcoinstalks website, check this please:
(https://i.imgur.com/JuACeQB.jpeg)
So, what I mean is this:
-Admin keeps the forum time secret for those who are not logged in and do not have an altcoinstalks account.
-The more people who register accounts on Altcoinstalks, the better the traffic on the Altcoinstalks website will be.
-If you want to see the forum time then we have to log in to the altcoinstalks forum.
-The more people who log in to the forum and are visible from the "Online Users" list, the better the traffic on the Altcoinstalks website will be.
After I have been active since 2018 on altcoinstalks, I was also surprised and once asked the admin about the time when altcoinstalks did not appear when logging out but the admin ignored my question.
But according to my observations, this seems like a positive thing from the admin so that we continue to be active in the forum because we can only see the forum time when we log in.
And we can also see the list of "Online Users" on the bottom page of the Altcoinstalks website, check this please:
(https://i.imgur.com/JuACeQB.jpeg)
So, what I mean is this:
-Admin keeps the forum time secret for those who are not logged in and do not have an altcoinstalks account.
-The more people who register accounts on Altcoinstalks, the better the traffic on the Altcoinstalks website will be.
-If you want to see the forum time then we have to log in to the altcoinstalks forum.
-The more people who log in to the forum and are visible from the "Online Users" list, the better the traffic on the Altcoinstalks website will be.
In my opinion, there is no urgency for admins to make forum time secret when accessed by guests.
If the admin wants the altcoinstalks forum to be more private, he can just turn off the 'Allow guests to browse the forum' option in the admin panel's settings.
Another example of a forum based on the same SMF 2017 that Altcoinstalks uses:
(https://i.ibb.co/HhNvPbh/Screen-Shot-2024-03-29-at-14-00-25.png)
As seen above, the forum time is not displayed when the user is not logged in.
Regarding the Users Online feature, you can also get an explanation from here:
https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Who%27s_online (https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Who%27s_online)
Who's Online
At the end of the forum index, there is a section called Users Online. This is a list of users who have recently used the forum. This feature can be enabled or disabled, and the definition of "recent" changed from Features and Options (https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/SMF2.0:Features_and_Options) in the admin panel. -snip-