Is the footer "What's Going On?" really needed?

[Q115115]

If you go to the home page, at the bottom you'll see the footer, which is the "What's Going On?" section that list the number of users online:

"Currently Active UsersCurrently Active Users
There are currently 32657 users online, 3201 members and 30456 guests."

Do we really need to have this? Listing out all member usernames are slow and it literally took up 1/4 of my screen with just usernames... I know that's the default for this board, but I feel like that can be removed to improve performance and usability.

 

[B. Diddy]

Look at the upper right of that box--there's a little minus sign. Click that, and the box minimizes. Now see if it still causes delays when you're loading the page.