someone can't count
 

http://i194.photobucket.com/albums/z...ntitled-15.png

i /just/ screencapped this, we only have 12 online and /all/ of them are members...

I think people can appear offline all the time here...one person does even when they are online.

Maybe it's that?

Guest count tracking is a little funny sometimes; the number can change pretty rapidly because of how it determines who's a guest and who's a member and such.

but to mistake 10 people for guests and add another 8?

Keep in mind those numbers are figured by a sliding window. It's not unreasonable for a dozen connections to roll off of the window over the span of a couple minutes. A lot of guest connections only access the site for a couple views; they don't stay on and active to keep the number high.

this was in a single rp thread though, the odds of that are so tiny....

Mind you that people who view the page and THEN log in get double-counted -- first as a guest and then as a member. Then also remember that search engines count as guests. Threads may also use a different window than the front page.