This was asked for and suggested by several other users (including my little person) before superpickle, but the 'status button' as you call it is simply dorment at the moment. It was taken offline at some point and somehow never turned back on...
If you want the whole story ask Gantic, he could fill you in with the details and maybe answer you're questions for you...
Yeah, it has not been working for some time but you can always tell if a person is online by if they respond to your comment you left on their profile. If they don't answer they probably: 1. Are not on. 2. They are playing games. 3. They do not feel like replying to you.
This was asked for and suggested by several other users (including my little person) before superpickle, but the 'status button' as you call it is simply dorment at the moment. It was taken offline at some point and somehow never turned back on...
That's only because they [the web developers] are trying to make the site run as strong as possible before adding back the add-ons. For all we know, they have all the past add-ons saved to a drive somewhere...