What are 'referrals'? and how to use them?

[Sergiy Radyakin]

The profile page lists referrals among other stats on participation in forum discussions. So far it appears to be zero for all the forum users. What is it?
Thank you, Sergiy

[Alan Riley (StataCorp)]

Thanks for spotting that -- the referral count has now been removed.

This was formerly a feature of this particular forum software. Users could have a referral link they could give to others to invite them to the forum, and that count would show how many people had registered based on their referral link.

The makers of the software have actually deprecated this and are in the process of removing it. I went ahead and removed the display of the always-zero count.

[Sergiy Radyakin]

Thank you, Alan! It is all clear now. And congratulations on the choice of the forum engine: despite a few minor glitches (with timezones and cookies) -- it appears very robust, responsive, and apparently easily configurable on the fly.