Fake Community Statistics

[Floris]

Due to the recent announcement of Internet Brands telling they are suing XenForo, I decided to immediately stop updating my vBulletin modifications, because I am not supporting this action.

[Protoman]

installed! thx much

[Floris]

You're welcome.

[sensimilla]

:D does it allow to cheat on big-boards ? 500 000 posts and more ? :D :D

funny hack thanks Floris

[Injektilo]

great idea and ofcourse great work Floris... :) installed

[DJ XtAzY]

what if everyone uses this and cheats on bigboard?

[mcyates]

I was thinking of doing that, but your only cheating yourself.

[sensimilla]

It doesnt update vbadvanced CMPS module ;)

[PennylessZ28]

Why? I'd much rather make it look like users are online currently.

[Snake]

What the hell... Is this truly a hack 'cause it sounds funny to me.

[The Chief]

Looks cool but isn't much advantage for a already well established board, maybe good for beginning, might use with another one of my forums :)

[mat64]

Interesting, Don't really see how it could be used for me though. Nice work.

[Rich]

Some of us worked our asses off to build up our sites and our stats and now competitors can just come in and fudge their own stats to make their site more appealing. I personally think this mod sucks and wish Floris never released it. Those of us that had to work hard for our stats just got a good screwing with this one.

[Bro_Joey_Gowdy]

Nice hack. I could see this being useful :

1. if someone might have lost all their threads due to being hacked and/or accidently deleted and they needed it to temporarly restore their thread/post count while they restored those deleted threads/posts.

2. if their downloaded backup file was too huge to upload/restore and they needed to enter everything manually by editing the thread owner/posts with a hack like this : https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=98737

Otherwise it's just cheating ;) and cheaters never prosper :P

[MentaL]

hope this doesnt alter with big-boards.

[Floris]

:D does it allow to cheat on big-boards ? 500 000 posts and more ? :D :D

funny hack thanks Floris
I do not know the TOS/AUP from big-boards.com, I can imagine they do not condone cheating and this is not made to support those actions.

It is initially made for smaller / new sites to give an impression of being active.


great idea and ofcourse great work Floris... :) installed
:banana: of course


what if everyone uses this and cheats on bigboard?
The dead will walk the earth. ;)


It doesnt update vbadvanced CMPS module ;)
That's right. It is not written to support third party plugins at all.


Why? I'd much rather make it look like users are online currently.
Yes, but those are different statistics, and in the first post it mentions exactly what it does do .. which means everything: it doesn't do.


What the hell... Is this truly a hack 'cause it sounds funny to me.
No, this is not a hack, it is a plugin. A hack is when you modify an existing feature or change source code to get new functionality. This is updating a variable from an existing feature by using a hook to insert code at a specific location inside the forum software. I have no idea what your motivation is to post your comment in this thread.


Looks cool but isn't much advantage for a already well established board, maybe good for beginning, might use with another one of my forums :)
Not trying to be a pain here, but obviously I've covered this: This plugin helps new communities boost their activity by pretending they are bigger and more active.

[Invalid ID]

Nice job

[Floris]

Some of us worked our asses off to build up our sites and our stats and now competitors can just come in and fudge their own stats to make their site more appealing. I personally think this mod sucks and wish Floris never released it. Those of us that had to work hard for our stats just got a good screwing with this one.
Thank you, I appriciate constructive feedback.. and your post qualifies. As mentioned however in the first post this is a resource someone requested and I've created it and was so kind to share it. Users are free to use it or not. Even you, who work very hard at a busy site, could use this to give a more solid impression. If you have a morale objection against that I can understand, I am fine with everything you do.

New sites could simply show 100 members, 100 posts and wait for new members to make real activity. Then they can turn it off .. this just gives them a boost. There really is no use setting it to 1000 posts and members and have someone register and not find a single member or post. They will feel cheated in and will close the browser and walk away.

These type of options added to a community are always a 50/50. Half of the admins love this (well, at least like it) and half of them don't.

This was already released in private a year ago but not in the form of a plugin. And many sites are already using my code. And this was out on vBulletin Fans Network for a while already and today I've just decided to also share it with this community.

I hope people who think they need this will use it and enjoy it. And stop using it once they no longer need it.

And just for comparison against an already existing feature. And another plugin for that matter. vBulletin allows you to change the cookie time. There are a lot of sites who set this to 7200 or load the 'users who visited today' plugin as 'who are online right now', giving incorrect values in regards to activity.


Nice hack. I could see this being useful :

1. if someone might have lost all their threads due to being hacked and/or accidently deleted and they needed it to temporarly restore their thread/post count while they restored those deleted threads/posts.

2. if their downloaded backup file was too huge to upload/restore and they needed to enter everything manually by editing the thread owner/posts with a hack like this : https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=98737

Otherwise it's just cheating ;) and cheaters never prosper :P
Another few good examples where people could use this. The possibilities besides using this to cheat activity are endless :D

[Chroder]

It's a great little plugin that'll make new sites seem not so new. Just like many new forums are starting to hire some posters, or create their own fake posters to get the ball rolling. This is in the same toolbox IMO ;)

You can't use it to fake bigboards or anything like that, but I'll get the ball rolling for new admins.

Good work Floris :D

[Floris]

Thanks Chroder for those kind words.

[blogtorank]

Great mod ;). Surely have to say hats off to you and your good work!

[Floris]

Great mod ;). Surely have to say hats off to you and your good work!
Check out the code, it's not that difficult. if I can do it, you can too!

[tei727]

This is a sad addition.. Very disapointed.

[moonclamp]

Finally I can make my forum look busy :D

[Rich]

I understand where it could be useful Floris. We both know though that this is just another tool for newbies to jump into the mix and pretend to be larger than they are, thus attracting more members because they look more active than the site actually is.

Many of us have had our sites up for years and everything that went into it was old school. We had to earn the respect of our members and our activity is genuine and has been processed with old fashioned work. lol Nowadays people can just toss a site up, and immediately they are competing with the next guy who has been around for a few years.

One of my smaller sites has roughly 20,000 posts. I could use a feature like this to boost the numbers up to 200,000 and change the cookie as well....but that isn't what I am about. I guess my issue is a moral one. My sites don't have a large number of competitors as I deal in some very specific fields. It will affect those though that have a much broader topic.

Yes, mods that help new site owners to cheat bother me. lol

[Floris]

This is a sad addition.. Very disapointed.
Thankfully I disagree with you :)

[moonclamp]

I had a phbb site that ran for 3 years before I upgraded to vbulletin. (notice I said upgraded?)

The database was so big when I moved that I deliberately deleted all threads over a month old. This will make my statistics look closer to what they are supposed to be.

*installs*

[username12]

I had a phbb site that ran for 3 years before I upgraded to vbulletin. (notice I said upgraded?)

The database was so big when I moved that I deliberately deleted all threads over a month old. This will make my statistics look closer to what they are supposed to be.

*installs*

Same here. I've pruned over 5 years worth of posts, largely because I previously used UBB. As a result, I don't qualify for Big Boards (admittedly, I'm not real concerned about that either). I won't actually be using this hack but can certainly see the justification behind doing so.

[Floris]

Good feedback people, keep it coming.

[Snow]

I had the same situation with moonclamp a while back, it's a shame this hack wasn't around back then. Nevertheless it's a fab little hack and will no doubt help alot of new forums.

[tei727]

Thankfully I disagree with you :)
Thankfully you agree you're a cheat and a liar and promote the same...It's dispicable that you'd wear that avatar and post such a thing. :(

[Boofo]

Thankfully you agree you're a cheat and a liar and promote the same...It's dispicable that you'd wear that avatar and post such a thing. :(

Please refrain from making personal attacks to the author of this hack or anyone else in this thread. You may not agree with the hack, that is your prerogative, but personal attacks can and will not be allowed.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Thankfully you agree you're a cheat and a liar and promote the same...It's dispicable that you'd wear that avatar and post such a thing. :(There are many different ways a lot of boards twist their statistics.

This hack just give them 1 of the ways easy. The coder of such a hack is not responsible of how it is being used.

A personal attack like your post is in my opinion worse then this hack, and we don't allow post like that. So please don't use personal attacks and name-calling in the situation that you don't like a hack.

[RFViet]

It's good for some small board. My question is if I uninstall the plug-in, my Stat. will be back normally ??

[Pathor]

It's good for some small board. My question is if I uninstall the plug-in, my Stat. will be back normally ??

Of course. ;)

@floris

Nice hack, good work. :)

I think it?s really good for the first April.
User: "How can it be? One million more posts than yesterday?" :D :D

[RFViet]

Everything works except the Active members. !!!

[Zia]

hahahahahah....hahahha nice idea....hahaa

Hope will install.....


allready we got 5-6 guest always on our board....umm using it..figure will be increase....Nice..



edit:

* Zia kliks install

sorry : edit 2nd

is there any way to show some pre-defined nick(registerd or un-registerd) always online ?
It would be very nice for us..if there any way to show few nicks always online.....?

Please give a serious thought on it..

:confused: fake guest not showing
http://img60.imageshack.us/img60/5114/fke4ti.jpg

[Rickie3]

well i recon this is great for newies starting their boards,it would make their new board look like its alive to a guest and would promote a guest to register,i'm going to have a play with this on my board for a few days and see if my staff actually notice the increase in the stats LOL,i also believe negative comments about this release are not called for,its simple dont like it dont use it,no wonder the coders are saying they have had enough,just my 2 cents worth

[pspcrazy]

Thanks floris my forum was hacked last year and i lost 100,000 posts :) Just so that it doesnt seem like im cheating the system ill increment it like 2 k a day lol.

[Snake]

So are you going to say Big-Boards will never gonna find out about this?

[Snow]

I doubt this innocent little plugin will give the bigboards team a headache. If someone was intent on cheating their way into bigboards they'd find a way with or without someone elses plugin/hack and Bigboards almost certainly have their own way to check if someone is faking their stats.

[arcadian_girl]

interesting plugin...i'm thinking of using it but still debating. i don't see anything morally wrong with it-in this day and age, soooo many people have a messageboard, especially what with these "host my messageboard" free places, that board owners really need to go the extra mile to make sure their forum is a success-i see this plugin as just one more tool to help your board succeed.

[moonclamp]

I really don't understand what the fuss is all about, you only need to edit the stats template and add a "1000" in front of all the numbers to make it look like you've got the busiest forum on earth.

Faking a big board with this mod would be silly ... A forum with 500,000 posts, 30,000 members but only 10 new posts a day? Do you really think they would buy that?

[Freezerator]

I understand where it could be useful Floris. We both know though that this is just another tool for newbies to jump into the mix and pretend to be larger than they are, thus attracting more members because they look more active than the site actually is.

Many of us have had our sites up for years and everything that went into it was old school. We had to earn the respect of our members and our activity is genuine and has been processed with old fashioned work. lol Nowadays people can just toss a site up, and immediately they are competing with the next guy who has been around for a few years.

One of my smaller sites has roughly 20,000 posts. I could use a feature like this to boost the numbers up to 200,000 and change the cookie as well....but that isn't what I am about. I guess my issue is a moral one. My sites don't have a large number of competitors as I deal in some very specific fields. It will affect those though that have a much broader topic.

Yes, mods that help new site owners to cheat bother me. lol

I agree. I am currently in a situation where we are the biggest board in our section, and we don't need to cheat. But our competitors do and now there is very hard to proof them wrong. The hack self is fine coded, only the moral to release it is not.

Nofi floris, but do you use it on vbulletin.nl? Wouldn't be suprised though. Approx 26k of postings difference whit the forums i can see and what the total postcount says. Almost 20% of your total postings in your forums on private forums? :)

[Rickie3]

I really dont think this hack was intended for big boards,but more for those with small boards just starting out

[Celtic_Mad]

Is there any way in which you could change the number of posts and threads to the right of each forum on forumhome to match the 'fake' statistics?

[Developer]

Nice job, but i don't like cheating :S

[Damien2005]

Yup good job.. but i dont like also to cheat

[geevest.com]

The value added here will be added on top of the real value. ?
The value added here will be added on top of the real value. ?
The value added here will be added on top of the real value. ?
The value added here will be added on top of the real value. ?

i fill 15.16.35.47 not work in my stat why?

[tei727]

well i recon this is great for newies starting their boards,it would make their new board look like its alive to a guest and would promote a guest to register,i'm going to have a play with this on my board for a few days and see if my staff actually notice the increase in the stats LOL,i also believe negative comments about this release are not called for,its simple dont like it dont use it,no wonder the coders are saying they have had enough,just my 2 cents worth
I think it would look worse if the stats say the new board has a thousand members, and there are no posts..I hope no one looks in the member's list then and finds out the stats are a fraud. How does that make the admin look? If it sounds like a duck...

[Freezerator]

The value added here will be added on top of the real value. ?
The value added here will be added on top of the real value. ?
The value added here will be added on top of the real value. ?
The value added here will be added on top of the real value. ?

i fill 15.16.35.47 not work in my stat why?

Try 15163547 without the dots.

[KimmiKat]

This should be added to vB's support mboard! :) It would help in the pre-sales area to sell more licenses! :D

[geevest.com]

@freezerator :
The value added here will be added on top of the real value. 16
The value added here will be added on top of the real value. 15
The value added here will be added on top of the real value. 13
The value added here will be added on top of the real value. 23.321

thats not work in my forum stat...why?

[Rickie3]

I hope no one looks in the member's list then and finds out the stats are a fraud. you set it so members cant view the member list:tired:

[Nathan2006]

Thank you Floris :D

This is a great idea:cool:

Install

[lasto]

top hack floris - and i clicked install

Anychance of a who`s online now hack :) - so we can cheat on that if we want :)

End of day vbull is all about customizing so no harm in doing it regardless off ethics.

[KimmiKat]

This would make a great April Fools mod! :) Great product! :)

[Celtic_Mad]

Is there any way in which you could change the number of posts and threads to the right of each forum on forumhome to match the 'fake' statistics?

Anyone know how to do this?

[ThePimp]

Cheaters never win.

[davidw]

Ik ga verder 2 jaren en heb enkel 124 leden.

[nsusa]

Active users does not seem to work.

[UniteTheCows]

Any way to update vbadvanced?

[rex_b]

My .02

Floris can release whatever he wants, he does not owe any of us any type of social responsilibity and it is the responsiblity of the users not to abuse this hack. With that said yes their will be people to abuse it and will they get anywhere from it, I think not b/c you can inflate your stats all you want but if you don't have activity nobody will stay.

Also what if they get on BB, does it really mean anything?

This is Free Market at it's best.

[monkeywarplane]

Nice hack. I could see this being useful :

1. if someone might have lost all their threads due to being hacked and/or accidently deleted and they needed it to temporarly restore their thread/post count while they restored those deleted threads/posts.


Exactly, it's a nice option for me since I lost 3 years of threads/posts. Don't think i'll use it though.

Stuart

[HuangA]

If someone were to inflate active user count, what would WOL say for the inflated users? I'd perassume nothing since they don't really exit. This would mean all Big Boards would have to check is whether or not the user values are really 'true' by seeing the WOL and do a quick tally ;)

[[email protected] vbmenu_register("postmenu_985040", true);]

mines not workin either

[FlyBoy73]

hope this doesnt alter with big-boards.

Big-Boards perm-bans/blocks sites from their index that are found to be using this. There are quite a few that you can see on the list that are no longer there and almost all of them are for faking their post counts.

[FlyBoy73]

Something for those of you who do not like this hack (mostly those who built their forums the old fashion way)... It can fake certain "counts" but it cannot fake content. At the end of the day it is content that brings in the masses. Search engines index content - not post / thread / member totals.

The majority of people who are going to be interested in this type of mod don't have much in the way of content. They can say they have millions of posts but how does that bring in more members & visitors? It doesn't.. Having ten's of thousands to millions of links in each search engine does, and in a big way.

Back to Big-Boards... Someone could fake getting into the 500k minimum index but after that they are going to be stuck. If they try and add 20k at a time after that and all that shows up is huge increments beyond the base line each day that B-B picks up their account will be flagged. To even have a chance getting away with this the scammer would have to change their number every day without fail and within a reasonable amount. That won't last long and they will be black balled..

As for "pruning".. My personal opinion on that is you might as well pull out a knife and cut off your communities fingers and toes little by little... There is never a good excuse to prune in my book. If you are so big that you have to prune you surely have not looked into monetizing your forums... Because if it is that big you should be able to make the money to cover its existence. If not, PM me and I'll pay you for your "junk" unless it is just post-whoring comments..

[HuangA]

I added an extra vboption value, an extra replacement, and an extra plugin...
now I have fake guest counts. Why guest counts? Because guests cannot
be seen on the WOL by normal registered users (only admins and I think mods
can see), so it gives the false sense that your forums are more busy than it
currently is. It wouldn't be hard to add a few online member counts as well
(claim invisible mode). However, that is VERY UNETHICAL in my view and
should not be used unless your forum is really dying. And even then, this will
only give the false impression, not new posts unless you are posting lots on
fake accounts to bring more activity to the forums. If Floris don't mind,
and if anyone is interested, feel free to PM me for it :X

Edit:
oops, I noticed now after some more testing that normal users CAN see
guest and spiders on the online.php list. So I made some thing else...
add fake invisible users. Well, both options are there, I can add both
fake invisible users (which normal users doesn't see in online.php, but
vb might have a bug about it (vbulletin.com/forum/bugs35.php?do=view&bugid=2482)), and fake guests which will look strange
on the online.php (because fake guest does not have entries on online.php
listing but is counted on top)

Edit 2:
Contacted Floris about this, provided him with the xml file for both guests
and invisible users. Floris will update it shortly after testing it.

Edit 3:
Yay, its updated.

Ok, here's what the new one adds.
Guests, don't we all love guests ;) They'll look weird if people really pay attention and follow the WOL / online.php page, because fake guests doesn't have entries like real guests.
Invisible users, they act just like a user logged in with "using invisible mode" option enabled; except, they won't be detected by your other hacks (IE: users online in the last 24 hours hack) because they don't exist at all!

One thing to note:
This addon does NOT affect your highest amount of members online at the same time, because I don't want to add additonal queries to the hack. If you want to do that, you'd have to modify the plugin for forumhome to do that. Refer to code in index.php for what you need and what variables to use. I don't think I'll support that unless a lot of people really want that to be part of the option.

Questions? Post it. I'll answer asap.
Comments? Post it. I'm sure myself and Floris would both love to see it.
Complains? Post it... we've already seen some, and I suppose it won't hurt to see a few more :X

[Floris]

It's good for some small board. My question is if I uninstall the plug-in, my Stat. will be back normally ??

Yes, this overwrites the values generated by vBulletin. So if you remove the additional code it will not overwrite those values and display the correct ones.



Of course.



@floris



Nice hack, good work.



I think it?s really good for the first April.

User: "How can it be? One million more posts than yesterday?"

I am glad you like it and yes, this would be very funny next year if we suddenly show a million online guests and threads and posts, etc :)



Everything works except the Active members. !!!



You should read the first post, it does not say that the active members is supported. Only the amount of registered members. version 0.02 will include this feature you've requested.



hahahahahah....hahahha nice idea....hahaa



Hope will install.....





allready we got 5-6 guest always on our board....umm using it..figure will be increase....Nice..







edit:



* Zia kliks install





sorry : edit 2nd



is there any way to show some pre-defined nick(registerd or un-registerd) always online ?

It would be very nice for us..if there any way to show few nicks always online.....?



Please give a serious thought on it..



fake guest not showing

http://img60.imageshack.us/img60/5114/fke4ti.jpg



No, read the first post, it does not include active members in the version 0.01 you've downloaded and installed. Upgrade to version 0.02 or higher. Real usernames or fake usernames isn't a feature we're currently working on.



well i recon this is great for newies starting their boards,it would make their new board look like its alive to a guest and would promote a guest to register,i'm going to have a play with this on my board for a few days and see if my staff actually notice the increase in the stats LOL,i also believe negative comments about this release are not called for,its simple dont like it dont use it,no wonder the coders are saying they have had enough,just my 2 cents worth I believe some comments should have been shot towards the staff and not be posted in the public thread. Other comments are constructive feedback and are very welcome. They help open dialog for learning where the line is drawn on what type of hacks lean against the edge of morale. Personally, I think this one is not even close and I simply disagree.



Thanks floris my forum was hacked last year and i lost 100,000 posts Just so that it doesnt seem like im cheating the system ill increment it like 2 k a day lol.That's not so cool to hear. Getting hacked sucks, but I am glad this plugin can help you restore your statistics and slowly help rebuild them to real values again.



So are you going to say Big-Boards will never gonna find out about this?This is something for you to confront big-boards with. This plugin is not written with big-board in mind, nor do I condone users who misuse this resource to get on big-boards. Into the hall of shame with those users I say.



I doubt this innocent little plugin will give the bigboards team a headache. If someone was intent on cheating their way into bigboards they'd find a way with or without someone elses plugin/hack and Bigboards almost certainly have their own way to check if someone is faking their stats.

I agree, this is up to big-board to figure out. I don't mind updating the plugin with a big-board compliant line (version 0.03 and up) like <!-- fake stats --> or something.



interesting plugin...i'm thinking of using it but still debating. i don't see anything morally wrong with it-in this day and age, soooo many people have a messageboard, especially what with these "host my messageboard" free places, that board owners really need to go the extra mile to make sure their forum is a success-i see this plugin as just one more tool to help your board succeed.

I agree with you and I am sure a few users could use this to accomplish that. :)

I really don't understand what the fuss is all about, you only need to edit the stats template and add a "1000" in front of all the numbers to make it look like you've got the busiest forum on earth.



Faking a big board with this mod would be silly ... A forum with 500,000 posts, 30,000 members but only 10 new posts a day? Do you really think they would buy that?

I agree with you, I don't mind though that we're open for discussing the matter. Never hurts to see what others think.

I agree. I am currently in a situation where we are the biggest board in our section, and we don't need to cheat. But our competitors do and now there is very hard to proof them wrong. The hack self is fine coded, only the moral to release it is not.



Nofi floris, but do you use it on vbulletin.nl? Wouldn't be suprised though. Approx 26k of postings difference whit the forums i can see and what the total postcount says. Almost 20% of your total postings in your forums on private forums?


Yes, the product is installed on vBulletin-Fans.com but the values are set to 0. I coded it there for a vBulletin customer who requested it. I don't need to cheat, those are our real statistics.
We've merged many forums into one from the old creations.nl, vbulletin.nl, everythingvb.com, etc .. and the things like those admin forums or archive forums or deleted posts or private forums .. those threads and posts have all moved into our trash bin. And yes, we also have a category which is called the underground, with private forums.
If you don't believe me and want me to show the community that I am an honest person I have the objection because I prefer that people take me for my word, but I have no problem with making a screenshot to convince you.

I really dont think this hack was intended for big boards,but more for those with small boards just starting out

I guess you read the first post :) Yes, this is for starting forums who keep asking on a regular basis how to change those values .. here's how, install this product! It's that simple.

[HuangA]

<!-- snip -->
Fake active user = active user type (versus inactive user) not online guest. I added the fake guest and invisible user support in the new version now.

Fake user always online isn't possible as of right now. I'm contemplating whether or not to do that, but to be honest, I can't think of a way to do it without increasing by at least one query for forumhome. This is because if we simply list a user (or multiple users), and someone clicks on the name to see profile, the 'last activity time' and 'last seen location' won't work, and we need to continuously update it...

For now, there's the invisible user support which will only have problem if your forum says:
Currently Active Users: 10 (4 members and 6 guests)
Admin
Total members that have visited the forum today: 1
Admin

What you are seeing in the above is what my forum said when it was 3am in the morning. I'm the only one online, and fake invisible users obviously doesn't appear on the users who have logged on today hack because they don't exist...


In regards to everyone's big board comment:
If you only have 10K posts and you inflate it to 40K to get on bigboards, its not too hard for bb admins to notice that you don't really have that much posts. If you already have 40K posts and you inflate it ot 45K or something like that, then you're an ass for cheating the system. Future releases we can add a complaince comment so BB admin can check it (IE: <!--bbcompliance: 40132posts, 2319users--> or something like that).

Edit: oops, Floris already covered the bbcompliance thing :p

[akanevsky]

lol, what's the point in this? people are not that stupid

[Floris]

Is there any way in which you could change the number of posts and threads to the right of each forum on forumhome to match the 'fake' statistics?

I do not know, you'd have to make a sum. Total fake threads: x, total forums: y, x/y = z, get current forum value + z = new value, and display new value. I wouldn't know if there are hooks, etc for this. I don't have it as a feature on the todo list. Feel free to look into it! :)

Nice job, but i don't like cheating :S

Thankfully nobody forces you to install this plugin :) Thanks for the feedback though.

Yup good job.. but i dont like also to cheat

Nice to hear you at least like what I've done. Thankfully nobody forces you to install this plugin :) Thanks for the feedback though.

The value added here will be added on top of the real value. ?

The value added here will be added on top of the real value. ?

The value added here will be added on top of the real value. ?

The value added here will be added on top of the real value. ?



i fill 15.16.35.47 not work in my stat why?

Maybe the plugin is not active? Maybe another plugin overwrites the values already?
Could be many things. Works for the bigger majority who install the plugin though.

I think it would look worse if the stats say the new board has a thousand members, and there are no posts..I hope no one looks in the member's list then and finds out the stats are a fraud. How does that make the admin look? If it sounds like a duck...

Yep, so keep the numbers reasonable. And just throwing something in the pool here with these duckies: Which member goes and counts all the members and posts to validate, before they decide to register? :)

Try 15163547 without the dots.

He meant those numbers per entry.

This should be added to vB's support mboard! It would help in the pre-sales area to sell more licenses!

vBulletin.com is big enough already and has no intention of changing to fake values :) Glad you like the plugin though.

@freezerator :

The value added here will be added on top of the real value. 16

The value added here will be added on top of the real value. 15

The value added here will be added on top of the real value. 13

The value added here will be added on top of the real value. 23.321



thats not work in my forum stat...why?

Remove the dot between 23 and 321

you set it so members cant view the member list

Exactly :) ;)

Thank you Floris



This is a great idea



Install

Thanks for the install ! :) version 0.02 with new functionality is on its way.

top hack floris - and i clicked install



Anychance of a who`s online now hack - so we can cheat on that if we want



End of day vbull is all about customizing so no harm in doing it regardless off ethics.

Thanks, and you're welcome. Yes, an update is on its way..

This would make a great April Fools mod! Great product!

Thanks! So nice of you to say :)

Anyone know how to do this?

In theory :)

Cheaters never win.

Wise lesson from old man!

Ik ga verder 2 jaren en heb enkel 124 leden.

English on this board only I believe?


:p

[HuangA]

lol, what's the point in this? people are not that stupid
You'd be surprised to see how much people who just looks at the number and rave away instead of checking the WOL/online.php; and you'd also be surprised to see how much people who doesn't even give a flying @#$% about the online user count ;)

Its just put there so the new forums' admins can make their forums look more popular in attempt to get more users. I don't think any developed forums would even need to consider this :)



PS: for those that installed it, don't forget to click the install link ;)

[Floris]

Active users does not seem to work.
Because if you've read the first post, it wasn't an option in 0.01, download the zip which is 0.02 and hopefully that's what you're looking for.

Any way to update vbadvanced?

You would have to ask the support from vBAdvanced this question, I didn't code this for supporting third party plugins.

My .02



Floris can release whatever he wants, he does not owe any of us any type of social responsilibity and it is the responsiblity of the users not to abuse this hack. With that said yes their will be people to abuse it and will they get anywhere from it, I think not b/c you can inflate your stats all you want but if you don't have activity nobody will stay.



Also what if they get on BB, does it really mean anything?



This is Free Market at it's best.

Glad you like the hack! :) And thanks for those 2 cents, i will use them to buy some icecream.

Exactly, it's a nice option for me since I lost 3 years of threads/posts. Don't think i'll use it though.



Stuart

Thank you :) Enjoy it :)

If someone were to inflate active user count, what would WOL say for the inflated users? I'd perassume nothing since they don't really exit. This would mean all Big Boards would have to check is whether or not the user values are really 'true' by seeing the WOL and do a quick tally

Update is .. wait .. you've made it :)

0.02

mines not workin either

Can't help you sorry.

Big-Boards perm-bans/blocks sites from their index that are found to be using this. There are quite a few that you can see on the list that are no longer there and almost all of them are for faking their post counts.

I am sure they have a policy on cheating, I hope they enforce it. That said, unless you work for big-boards you're post is just an guess.

Something for those of you who do not like this hack (mostly those who built their forums the old fashion way)... It can fake certain "counts" but it cannot fake content. At the end of the day it is content that brings in the masses. Search engines index content - not post / thread / member totals.



The majority of people who are going to be interested in this type of mod don't have much in the way of content. They can say they have millions of posts but how does that bring in more members & visitors? It doesn't.. Having ten's of thousands to millions of links in each search engine does, and in a big way.



Back to Big-Boards... Someone could fake getting into the 500k minimum index but after that they are going to be stuck. If they try and add 20k at a time after that and all that shows up is huge increments beyond the base line each day that B-B picks up their account will be flagged. To even have a chance getting away with this the scammer would have to change their number every day without fail and within a reasonable amount. That won't last long and they will be black balled..



As for "pruning".. My personal opinion on that is you might as well pull out a knife and cut off your communities fingers and toes little by little... There is never a good excuse to prune in my book. If you are so big that you have to prune you surely have not looked into monetizing your forums... Because if it is that big you should be able to make the money to cover its existence. If not, PM me and I'll pay you for your "junk" unless it is just post-whoring comments..

I agree, you get your content from the search engine results, however. If these visitors join the site and they run into 5 members, 5 posts and threads in stats they feel the site is not going anywhere and they feel less provoked to register and post. However, if it instead would say 50 users, with 50 posts and threads .. they feel more provoked to register and create some increased activity for your forum. Once you are around those stats you could reset the value to 0 or decrease it and become a real-er more active community and you no longer need the plugin. Trust me, a lot of vb support questions are 'how do i change these numbers, i want to look more busy'.

I added an extra vboption value, an extra replacement, and an extra plugin...

now I have fake guest counts. Why guest counts? Because guests cannot

be seen on the WOL by normal registered users (only admins and I think mods

can see), so it gives the false sense that your forums are more busy than it

currently is. It wouldn't be hard to add a few online member counts as well

(claim invisible mode). However, that is VERY UNETHICAL in my view and

should not be used unless your forum is really dying. And even then, this will

only give the false impression, not new posts unless you are posting lots on

fake accounts to bring more activity to the forums. If Floris don't mind,

and if anyone is interested, feel free to PM me for it :X



Edit:

oops, I noticed now after some more testing that normal users CAN see

guest and spiders on the online.php list. So I made some thing else...

add fake invisible users. Well, both options are there, I can add both

fake invisible users (which normal users doesn't see in online.php, but

vb might have a bug about it), and fake guests which will look strange

on the online.php (because fake guest does not have entries on online.php

listing but is counted on top)



Edit 2:

Contacted Floris about this, provided him with the xml file for both guests

and invisible users. Floris will update it shortly after testing it.



Edit 3:

Yay, its updated.



Ok, here's what the new one adds.

Guests, don't we all love guests They'll look weird if people really pay attention and follow the WOL / online.php page, because fake guests doesn't have entries like real guests.

Invisible users, they act just like a user logged in with "using invisible mode" option enabled; except, they won't be detected by your other hacks (IE: users online in the last 24 hours hack) because they don't exist at all!



One thing to note:

This addon does NOT affect your highest amount of members online at the same time, because I don't want to add additonal queries to the hack. If you want to do that, you'd have to modify the plugin for forumhome to do that. Refer to code in index.php for what you need and what variables to use. I don't think I'll support that unless a lot of people really want that to be part of the option.



Questions? Post it. I'll answer asap.

Comments? Post it. I'm sure myself and Floris would both love to see it.

Complains? Post it... we've already seen some, and I suppose it won't hurt to see a few more :X


Yes, it is official, your contribution as helping member on this community is rewarded with updating the original resource and giving you the credit :)

version 0.02 is the current .zip - there are no bug fixes, code changes or improvements for version 0.01 so there's no need to upgrade unless you require the additional functionality as updated in the first post.

Enjoy.

[redspider]

nice mod after the upgrade is there any way I can use a custom name list to show online ?

[Nathan2006]

Thank you HuangA & Floris,

This is also great for people who want to make out there are invisible
members online, so such people as hackers or spammers will think the mods/admin is online ;)

You could always change the total then each day or so
then people would not notice the same amount online each day :D

This will give new boards a very big boost to try and get some
members because at the end of the day, who wants to join a
board with 2 members?
Not many.

I have seen 100's of boards go down because of lack of
members and this will at lease give new boards ahead start.

If it is used the correct way - there is nothing for anyone to
moan about ;)

Myself, once I get some members I will knock them counters
down to zero but I would always use the members online,
I think that is really good!:cool:

I don't know why this hack is receiving so much negative feedback!

If anyone whats to change their stats then all they would
have to do is add a few numbers in their code the same as I
did so that anyone would think that someone was online and
they would not think about spamming the forums.

Thanks again GREAT! :D

[HuangA]

nice mod after the upgrade is there any way I can use a custom name list to show online ?
Not as of right now, see my explaination above (it will give at least one extra query for it and I'm not too keen on doing that).

Thank you HuangA & Floris,

This is also great for people who want to make out there are invisible
members online, so such people as hackers or spammers will think the mods/admin is online ;)

You could always change the total then each day or so
then people would not notice the same amount online each day :D

This will give new boards a very big boost to try and get some
members because at the end of the day, who wants to join a
board with 2 members?
Not many.

I have seen 100's of boards go down because of lack of
members and this will at lease give new boards ahead start.

If it is used the correct way - there is nothing for anyone to
moan about ;)

Myself, once I get some members I will knock them counters
down to zero but I would always use the members online,
I think that is really good!:cool:

I don't know why this hack is receiving so much negative feedback!

If anyone whats to change their stats then all they would
have to do is add a few numbers in their code the same as I
did so that anyone would think that someone was online and
they would not think about spamming the forums.

Thanks again GREAT! :D
Thank you for the kind comments! :)

[Nathan2006]

Thank you for the kind comments! :)

You're very welcome thanks for the great addons :D

[UniteTheCows]

Hey guys any way to make this also work with VB advanced? I could reall use this...

[HuangA]

Hey guys any way to make this also work with VB advanced? I could reall use this...
I really don't know vBadvanced to do this, and I don't have access to an installation of vBa to do that. Does vBa have its own hook locations? Does vBa support the plugin system? I used vBa back when I'm on 3.0, but I've never even touched it with 3.5... If anyone would be so kind to give me a temp admin account on a vBa (via PM), I'll try to look into that tonight after I come home. No guarentees that I can make it work though (because I honestly don't know vBa 2).

Edit:
I found a place where I have access... Looks like if I were to add something on the global_complete part and use a defined check for vba_portal, I might be able to do it. Where do I get vBa2's php files again?

Edit2:
Ok, I think I can do this, anyone want to give me a test bed? I don't have a local copy, and my production site is a forum site, not a portal based site, so I'm not gonna deploy vBa there just to do this...

[Floris]

I can give you admin access to www.omgboards.com where i have vbadvanced installed.

[evss]

Thanks for the updates Floris and HuangA

[FlyBoy73]

I am sure they have a policy on cheating, I hope they enforce it. That said, unless you work for big-boards you're post is just an guess.


Floris,

I don't have to work for big-boards to tell you how they handle things. If memory serves me correctly, they have commented about this very thing (bogus stats) online, though you might not have access to this yourself. However, it really is a non-issue as far as I am concerned. Simple math proves when a forum is using a bogus post / thread / member count hack like this.

Personally, I don't care... Like I have said... Those who really have the stats reap the exponential rewards of their content.. Most users online today are going to fast-track it to find what they want, and if they can't find it, they will continue on in search of it. Someone can start up a forum like my big-board and use your stats but the only way anyone will find it is if they find individual (personal) links posted. Otherwise they are going to come to my links first in most all search engine results, as well as other locations online.

Do I dislike your hack? Nope.. I'm always happy to see new hacks come out and this doesn't worry me at all like it does some. It's a fuzzy feel-good hack at best for those with new forums. The worst thing someone could do is install this and think it will give them a shortcut to success. The only way anyone is going to be successful with a forum is with a lot of hard work and dedication... Oh, and time... :)

[Floris]

Thing is very simple: This is not made to assist users who want to cheat big-boards.com, nor is it made because it is innovating. A user could edit a template and appear to have a million posts where in fact they're not.

Despite that, version 0.03 will include bbcompliance and I am contacting big-boards to inform them that we do so.

[Blue-Inc]

This would make a great April Fools mod! :) Great product! :)

Yep :) :banana:

Thanks for the Plugin Floris! :knockedout:

[HuangA]

CMPS STATS ALTERING WILL NOT BE SUPPORTED until they include hooks system for use to edit the content resulting from the modules.... I spent like 2 to 3 hours just keep on trying out different things and there's no way of getting things to work with it without screwing things up or editing their code (both unpleasable). When they include hooks to their code, I can try to edit the plugin to work with it.

Big-Boards have a method to check how much values you really have now, so those that are saying this will screw things over with big boards, it won't anymore ;) I am not going to disclose how this is done, and you are not going to try to get around it. If you do go and get around it, you're being an ass and a cheater, big board admins can also do math...

[Floris]

Due to populair demand and a finished admincp help section here's 0.03 just a day after the 0.02 release to cover big-boards.com compliance.

The first post has been updated, please read it before you post here.

Thanks again everybody for the installs, it shows that many people appriciate the resource and that many are using it. I recommend nobody to misuse this plugin to cheat big-boards as I've emailed them about the bbcompliance and updated the plugin to support them.

Bugs? Report them!
Support? Good luck!
Suggestions? Post them!
Feedback? Be productive & constructive
Requests? Post them!

Improved the plugin? Let me know in #vBorg on irc.vbulletin.org (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/chat.php?) and we will look into it and update the code perhaps and give you credit.

[edit]
Screenshots (8!!+.zip) added Enjoy

[Celtic_Mad]

Is it possible to fake these statistics to match the fake ones at the bottom of the page?

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/ (http://imageshack.us)

[HuangA]

Is it possible to fake these statistics to match the fake ones at the bottom of the page?

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/5010/here5gg.gif (http://imageshack.us)
It might be possible, I have to look into it. Not today though, I've promised my forum members that I'd draft the user rules and update stuff for far too long (and still haven't gotten to it yet). The two problems I'm seeing with that is 1) I might not be able to identify whether or not its really a forum I'm appending stats to (what if its a link/directory?). And the display options inside would show the real value anyways (there's no way to tell which forum we inflated the fake values to). My best suggestion is still to not lie about posts/threads :p But, I'll look into it when I have a chance...

Another thing on my to look for list is to also inflate the 'most online was ### at some time' thing to reflect your fake guests and fake invisible users. This one is fairly easy to do, I think I've found a way to do it without queries. So I'll look into this as I slack off and not pay attention in class later today in the afternoon if I don't sleep in it :X

Edit: Scratch the above, I got this done now... gonna wait a bit before releasing though, else people get really tired of keep on updating :p and plus, I need to go through Floris to update the package. We'll include this in the next update (maybe with more features ;)) For now, lemme check out the forumbits thing...

Edit2: Added another extra plugin, now you can choose which forum to dump the fake posts in ;) Floris is also working on some neat cool feature. We'll release it later when we have it ready :D

[Rickie3]

not trying to be a pain but in this screen it shows x amount of members and x amount off guests currently active,but actually no usernames below,is there a way to add fake usernames as well?just a thought
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2006/05/4.jpg

[Floris]

HuangA:

You can make a sum of deviding the total new threads / total forums, and then add that value on top of the real total threads per forum value. Same for x viewing and x posts, etc. I think this is overkill which is why I haven't included it.

most users online was existing value + fake value. This way it always matches the currently online was as a higher value. . i think. I will look into this too.

[Floris]

not trying to be a pain but in this screen it shows x amount of members and x amount off guests currently active,but actually no usernames below,is there a way to add fake usernames as well?just a thought
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/attachment.php?attachmentid=48128&d=1148468173
That's a nice idea, and currently not an option but I will look into it. If you figured out how to do it let me know and we will review it for inclusion.

[redspider]

That's a nice idea, and currently not an option but I will look into it. If you figured out how to do it let me know and we will review it for inclusion.
as a option maybe you could include a box where we can type the name we want .
also most user online dont change for me would be nice to have a way to upgrade the numbers.
but anyway thanks for this mod help make some of my small forum alive in combination with rss feed.

[HuangA]

Floris, I already got the most user online thing added. And the way I solved the post count not adding up problem is added a config option for user to choose which forum to 'dump' the posts into. It must be a forum that have its count showing on forumhome though, because I got it to add the number during forumbit_parse hook, and so it won't check your subforums on forumhome (where it really matters).

Next part is to edit forumdisplay to check whether or not it is the 'dump' forum and make it always add the extra posts in the 'showing x of y' part at bottom.

Edit: done as well, you have the latest, just export away when you're ready ;)

[Floris]

Comment about the admincp help. It appears that 3.5 allows you to export the admincp help items, but it doesn't import them. So .. we have to manually do this now.

yourforum.com/dir/admincp/help.php?do=files enter this url manually in the admincp and import the vbulletin-adminhelp-fake.xml file.

Here is more info: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/bugs35.php?do=view&bugid=928

Thanks MarcoH64 for helping out :)

[Floris]

as a option maybe you could include a box where we can type the name we want .
also most user online dont change for me would be nice to have a way to upgrade the numbers.
but anyway thanks for this mod help make some of my small forum alive in combination with rss feed.
That's what I've made so far, an input box where nicks can be entered. But .. where do you want these nicks to link to? :)

[HuangA]

Becareful there, if you link to a real user profile, it'll be bad because if someone follow the link, your last activity will be when you last did something, which may or may not be within the cookie timeout (IE: wtf, current online 2 users, me and this other user, but the other user haven't moved since 3 days ago!) and you can't really fake an entry in the WOL/online.php with the fake usernames (location won't be easy to change without increasing load, and again, time issue). If you really want to fake users, I strongly advice the invisible user feature because that's most 'realistic' and only your mod/admin/those that you grant access to see invisible users will be able to see something 'strange' (3 users online, just my name listed, no name* listed).

[redspider]

That's what I've made so far, an input box where nicks can be entered. But .. where do you want these nicks to link to? :)

was thinking of maybe 2 option point to a :
1.you do not have permission to access this page or member profile.

or maybe the members names I enter could be actually members I register manually and the names can point to there profiles .
(I will try to find how to Add new Users automatically)

[Floris]

New users>
AdminCP > Users > Add User

One idea I have is to include the nicks from the showgroups.php pages (staff) as these are real users and should be online anyway. However, to get this done it requires one or more queries and I am trying to avoid queries alltogether.

[Celtic_Mad]

When can we expect the next update?

[Floris]

When can we expect the next update?
When it is done.

[krispy1812]

This is a cool hack and I don't understand some of the people posting the nasty things they have posted.

You can have the busiest forum in the world, and people wouldn't join it just because everyone else has.

Forum admins have being finding ways to manipulate their stats for ages, this is nothing new. This is just a tool that saves them time, nothing more. It wouldn't stop them from finding other ways of doing it. It would allow a lot of BB admin noobs to learn some of the tricks that the rest of us had to learn through hard toil.

And as for the people claiming it will affect them who have worked to do things the hard way building aup slowly etc etc etc, I say nonsense. Hands up anyone in here claiming that who did NOT register more than one account for themselves on their own forum ???

A good forum is created by ingenuity of differing methods. This is just one of theose ingenious methods. Make your site look busy, make it look big, but whatever you do, don;t make it look empty whilst using the hack! You have to work hard at it every day.

I for one have no problem manipulating my forum stats. No scruples, no conscience, NOTHING. Why not ? because I spent years posting on other forums, helping some geezers I never knew build up good communites with nothing more that casual thanx here and there, whilst they rake in good money on advertising and sponsorship. AND MOST OF US HAVE DONE THINGS LIKE THAT. Instead, do it on your own forums now! Spend your days there talking to all your imaginery friends until some real ones come along. :banana:

This little tool just makes the quick birds eye view of statistics look good a quicker way, so well done.

[HuangA]

Thank you for the kind reply, Krispy1812. Yes, even though I authored most of the fake users online part, I must honestly say that I do have multiple fake/test users on my own forums, and most of my other admins also have them too. This is only used to inflate the numerical readings, but the actual content (which drives members to join) cannot be replaced by serious hard elbow greese.

And also, you can't really fake big numbers with this. Look at the example picture attached in the first post. 5000 online users and 5000 online guests seems just a little bit odd for me ;) Even 50 fake online users and guests (combined) is a bit too much for a booster-required-forum if you ask me...

If anyone wants to donate a spare vBulletin license and prove me wrong, please feel free to do so. Install this hack and make no posts on your own forum. Advertise it if you want, see how much traffic you can get, and how many people will register. I can reassure you that the turn around rate will be very low even if it looks like you have users online ;)

Anyways, I need to hunt down Floris and ask him what happened to the release :p

[Floris]

I can't tell you, lol ;)

[m80]

looking to use this just had a question, when you do this and your current online number surpasses your most users ever online number, does the most ever online change to keep up with the number created by this hack?

[Floris]

looking to use this just had a question, when you do this and your current online number surpasses your most users ever online number, does the most ever online change to keep up with the number created by this hack?
Not in version 0.03 no.

[HuangA]

It will in 0.04 though ;)

*baps Floris* :p

[Celtic_Mad]

So what will the new features be in 0.04?

[rogersnm]

Yeah you kinda need that - Currently Active Users: 89

most ever online 39.... hmmmm lol

[rogersnm]

ok here you go guys an addon for it: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=117130

[HuangA]

Currently confirmed (as I've already got coded since like 24th or 25th) features for 0.04 are:
- Updates the max counter as needed
- Option to add fake post count to a specific forum id
- I think on the faked forums, it'll add the fake post count to the "Currently showing x of y" string

I think Floris was doing some other stuff as well, but I don't know what are the status on his end. I coded the stuff on his forum, and then kind of just left it as is because I think its good enough for release... I'd release the product for 0.04 with the stuff I already have if I have access, but I don't, so you guys gotta wait or use rogersnm's addon :p

[rogersnm]

i have made a mod for the max counter :)

[Celtic_Mad]

Can we expect 0.04 within the next few hours then?:)

[Valter]

Nice idea Floris

What about options to increment these numbers too?

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/

[Celtic_Mad]

Nice idea Floris

What about options to increment these numbers too?

http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/7678/untitled12tv.jpg

I asked for this a while back and it's been added into 0.04 which we are all eagerly awaiting:)

[COBRAws]

Why are so many complaining? Actually you could just go to phpmyadmin and change a few values here and there, and you wont be a cheater because you never installed "that evil plugin" lol

calm down guys. If you keep complaining, you wont get this hack unlisted. If you dont like it, just keep on browsing other hacks.

My 2 cents.

[Valter]

I asked for this a while back and it's been added into 0.04 which we are all eagerly awaiting:)
Cool. Thanks.

[Floris]

Can we expect 0.04 within the next few hours then?:)
Yep, I am packing up the release 0.04 right now and it will be downloadable soon. So no additional addon from roger is required then anymore.

[rogersnm]

dam :(

* rogersnm goes of and cries
* rogersnm doesn't like you any more
:p

A little suggestion though.

in the who's viewing this thread you should make it so it chooses a number between x and y (userset) for the guests because other wise it's a bit fake..

[Floris]

dam :(

* Floris goes of and cries
* Floris doesn't like you any more
:p

A little suggestion though.

in the who's viewing this thread you should make it so it chooses a number between x and y (userset) for the guests because other wise it's a bit fake..
We already had it coded, so no use replacing our code with your code and pre-release it. If you had mentioned in the thread here that you're getting this done your code would have been included in the .zip instead. It's just how things went. Anyway, 0.04 is out.

[Celtic_Mad]

Thanks for the update!

Is it possible to get commas seperating the numbers in the posts and threads columns?

[Floris]

Thanks for the update!

Is it possible to get commas seperating the numbers in the posts and threads columns?
The .zip file is updated 12 seconds ago, which will include the below tweak, but if you already had 0.04 installed, you could manually apply it:

open the plugin Fake Community Statistics - Forumbits.
And before the closing: }

add this:

$forum['threadcount'] = vb_number_format($forum['threadcount']);
$forum['replycount'] = vb_number_format($forum['replycount']);

[rogersnm]

Can you include the other half of my mod?

[Celtic_Mad]

The .zip file is updated 12 seconds ago, which will include the below tweak, but if you already had 0.04 installed, you could manually apply it:

open the plugin Fake Community Statistics - Forumbits.
And before the closing: }

add this:

$forum['threadcount'] = vb_number_format($forum['threadcount']);
$forum['replycount'] = vb_number_format($forum['replycount']);

Thanks:)

The post count doesn't seem to be increasing in the post column when I reply to a thread or create one.

[Floris]

Thanks:)

The post count doesn't seem to be increasing in the post column when I reply to a thread or create one.
Do you have those views to update immediately? This is a vB option I believe.

[Celtic_Mad]

Do you have those views to update immediately? This is a vB option I believe.

The thread column updates fine when I create a thread, but the post column doesn't increase, it just stays the same. I tried dumping the posts and threads into another forumid and it works fine.

[Valter]

Why option to dump one forum thread/posts stats only? 2+2 must not be 4 LOL.

Why not make options like these:

== list forums ids where you wish to dump thread/post stats
== amount of additional (fake) threads
== amount of additional (fake) posts

[Floris]

Right now I have this memberlist_complete plugin in 0.04.1 which will be released later today:

// Insert Members List - Chosen not to be listed
$fake_members = $vbulletin->options['fake_stats_members'];
$fake_members = vb_number_format($fake_members);
$totalusers = $totalusers + $vbulletin->options['fake_stats_members'];
$totalusers = vb_number_format($totalusers);

which shows on the left the phrase one has to manually add in the memberlist template, and on the right it will show 'showing results 1 of 2 of fake_new_value

This way it won't say on the left '5000 chosen not to be listed' and on the right 'showing 1 of 2 of 5 ..' should be at least 5000 + 5

I've also applied the vb_number_format which rogersmn was missing .. I tried to update the template cache so no manual template edit was needed but couldn't get it to work. sorry :)

I will look into the spreading of fake values over multiple forums, but i simply won't have time today. cybernetec if you know how to do this please write out instructions and i will update the plugin.

[Floris]

version 0.04.1 is out, including the previous tweak and the new memberlist plugin by rogersmn (credited too).

Thanks for the contributions. I'm off to vBcom now, it appears they closed the site ;)

[Kihon Kata]

Installed! love it. But one issue with .04, when I entered the ONE forumID, it subtracted posts in the collumn, and ADDED to threads collumn. Is this correct?

[Floris]

Installed! love it. But one issue with .04, when I entered the ONE forumID, it subtracted posts in the collumn, and ADDED to threads collumn. Is this correct?
No idea what you mean, lol. .. please define.

[rogersnm]

Can you do the +1-4 guests veiwing thread?

or another option in the admin cp for range of guets to add to viewing thread. It needs to be a range because if theres 2 users on every thread every single second of every hoour of every day then poeple will kind of get suspicious..

[Kihon Kata]

really? Hmm mmkay. Well. when I add the forumID to:
This is where the fake threads and posts will be dumped in. Please fill in a FORUMID (IE: 1), NOT the forum name. You are only allowed to enter ONE (1) forum id. Make sure everyone can access this forum or else your stats will still be wrong.
On the forum homepage, it subtracted posts in the post collumn, and ADDED threads in the threads collumn.

Understand now?

No idea what you mean, lol. .. please define.

[Stone Cold 3:16]

Nice hack FLoris! Ill need this as my forum is dying.

[Floris]

really? Hmm mmkay. Well. when I add the forumID to:
On the forum homepage, it subtracted posts in the post collumn, and ADDED threads in the threads collumn.

Understand now?
I will let the dev know so he can look into it. I couldn't reproduce this on my forum though.

[xtreme-mobile]

how do you get it so it shows more members have visited in 24 hours?

[COBRAws]

how do you get it so it shows more members have visited in 24 hours?
Actually thats another hack i believe. But im not 100% sure.

[Floris]

how do you get it so it shows more members have visited in 24 hours?
As per first post: third party plugins are not supported.

[HuangA]

really? Hmm mmkay. Well. when I add the forumID to:
On the forum homepage, it subtracted posts in the post collumn, and ADDED threads in the threads collumn.

Understand now?

I didn't run into this problem while coding, and it wasn't intended to do that, can you please pm me your url as well as how many posts and threads you're adding as well as which forum you're putting posts into?

[Kihon Kata]

Thanks FLORIS, lmk

I didn't run into this problem while coding, and it wasn't intended to do that, can you please pm me your url as well as how many posts and threads you're adding as well as which forum you're putting posts into?
ok, pm is in the mail ;)

[threat]

wow be cool if you can add fake names too

[rogersnm]

Yeah but that would be like writing LOADS of fake names. But i suppose it would be quite cool

[Floris]

wow be cool if you can add fake names too
Colin just helped me with the foreach code for this feature, I will release version 0.05 later tonight which allows you to list a bunch of names who will then appear as if they're online.

[Nathan2006]

Colin just helped me with the foreach code for this feature, I will release version 0.05 later tonight which allows you to list a bunch of names who will then appear as if they're online.

That will be great!

Also this will deter spammers if they think mods or admins are online 24/7 lol :D

I cant wait ;)

[rogersnm]

would it be possible to make it so when you pm them they reply and say i don't want to talk to you or something?

[Floris]

would it be possible to make it so when you pm them they reply and say i don't want to talk to you or something?
No. I wouldn't know how to do this. The fake users won't link to a userid.

[Floris]

Version 0.05 has been released. bow chica bow wow

[threat]

thanks but the users are not showing up, this is how mine looks in the admin cp

GixxerBoy, Sam, GixKing, Cheekyboy, 750Rider

I just uploaded the plugin again. Is this how its suppose to look? or bring the names in closer to the comma?

[Celtic_Mad]

They don't show up for me either.

[rmxs]

It works perfect...

[Nathan2006]

Thank you for the update.

But also not working for me.

The names are not appearing at all :(

EDIT: It is fully working
I did not add changes to the $fakenames $activeusers on the FORUMHOME Template

[threat]

Oh dont i feel like the dummy, did not see the added instructions at the top...hehehehe, works now.

Guys make sure you read the extra added instructions at the top and it will work

Admin Control Panel > Styles & Templates > Style Manager > dropdown: Edit Templates > Expand: Forum Home Templates group, select the FORUMHOME template and click on customize to modify it.
FIND:
$activeusers
Replace With:
$fakenames $activeusers


The only this is if you have it set to show ya member names alphabetically it will look funny because the names you choose will show up first in the order you put them.

[Nathan2006]

Oh dont i feel like the dummy, did not see the added instructions at the top...hehehehe, works now.

Guys make sure you read the extra added instructions at the top and it will work

Admin Control Panel > Styles & Templates > Style Manager > dropdown: Edit Templates > Expand: Forum Home Templates group, select the FORUMHOME template and click on customize to modify it.
FIND:
$activeusers
Replace With:
$fakenames $activeusers


The only this is if you have it set to show ya member names alphabetically it will look funny because the names you choose will show up first in the order you put them.

I only just noticed that myself lol in too much of a rush to see it lol:rolleyes:

[UniteTheCows]

Hey guys I may have missed it but is this going to be coded to work with VBadvanced?

[Kihon Kata]

Floris, can we add HTML or BBCODE to new "List of (fake) Logged in Users"?

For example, I wanna be able to show the fake user(s) in a certain markup text.

[threat]

How about a link where when someone clicks the fake users it takes them to a page that shows something like "This User has turned his/her profile off for viewing" That way it looks like they are actual real members?

[Nathan2006]

Is there anyway to have them non click-able or
have them when clicked to be directed to a fake members profile?

Such as my test accounts or something?

Thanks ;)

[threat]

Something I noticed also, if you have 20 real members on and it says "20 members online" but you have 15 fake members, the members online will not change, so a smart attention to detail type fellow might be like hmmmmmmm?

But I really dont care,,,,I love it.

[Nathan2006]

Just found a small problem,

When you dont add any names there is a comma that is left on its own

[blogtorank]

GreatJob Floris!!!! Keep kicking arse, you have to love the ways of finding traffic ;), keeping my eye on this thread is the highlight of my day (Just kidding, but it's great).

All the best!

[Kihon Kata]

I fixed mine by editing Admin Control Panel > Plugin System >Manage Products >Fake Community Statistics - Forum Home

Scroll all the way down

I put my comma in FRONT of the the user to add fake users in the END of the list(I also used $activeusers $fakenames NOT $fakenames $activeusers in template edits):

$fakenames .= ', <a href="#">' . $fakeuser . '</a> ';

[Blue-Inc]

Hahah. This rules, I can have offline users showing up on the online list.. wow, I can make my forum actually look active :P

[lasto]

works perfect well done floris

[Nathan2006]

I fixed mine by editing Admin Control Panel > Plugin System >Manage Products >Fake Community Statistics - Forum Home

Scroll all the way down

I put my comma in FRONT of the the user to add fake users in the END of the list(I also used $activeusers $fakenames NOT $fakenames $activeusers in template edits):

$fakenames .= ', <a href="#">' . $fakeuser . '</a> ';

Thank you ;)

[HuangA]

Hey guys I may have missed it but is this going to be coded to work with VBadvanced?
No, I've tried to make it work with vBadvanced, however because of template caching and lack of hooks in vBadvanced (BAD! vBadvanced BAD! no chocolate chips cookies for you!) it is not possible to play around with the values without modifying your database (which I do not want to do because it will then require additional queries etc.).

[threat]

Hey guys I may have missed it but is this going to be coded to work with VBadvanced?


You mean like this? Shows just the max users from the forum home and I just changed the text to make it seem if they are online. Another thing you can do is set the time out limit from 900 to something higher to show that they are still online even when they have logged out. Makes it look even busier.

[Floris]

Hey guys I may have missed it but is this going to be coded to work with VBadvanced?
Read the first post please.

[Floris]

You mean like this? Shows just the max users from the forum home and I just changed the text to make it seem if they are online. Another thing you can do is set the time out limit from 900 to something higher to show that they are still online even when they have logged out. Makes it look even busier.
A timeout of 7200 seems to work for quite a bit of sites.

[xtreme-mobile]

i can get the fake members to show up but i cant seem to change the number of members online? what ever i stick in acp it just dont change, anything im doing wrong?

regards

dean

[Rickie3]

i can get the fake members to show up but i cant seem to change the number of members online? what ever i stick in acp it just dont change, anything im doing wrong?

regards

deandid you do the template edits???

I also had the same issue with members online all i did was fill out this part in the options and it worked "Amount of additional (fake) invisible user"

[JakeS]

you should get it so the guests and members are on the who is online page.

[xtreme-mobile]

is there any edits ive missed ive edited the bit at the top of this thread but tahts it

[JakeS]

All thats needed is to import the plugin and do these template edits

Admin Control Panel > Styles & Templates > Style Manager > dropdown: Edit Templates > Expand: Members List Templates > Customize: memberlist >
FIND:
$vboptions[bbtitle]: $vbphrase[members_list]
Replace With:
$vboptions[bbtitle]: $vbphrase[members_list]<br /><phrase 1="$fake_members">$vbphrase[x_choose_not_to_be_listed]</phrase>


Admin Control Panel > Styles & Templates > Style Manager > dropdown: Edit Templates > Expand: Forum Home Templates group, select the FORUMHOME template and click on customize to modify it.
FIND:
$activeusers
Replace With:
$fakenames $activeusers

[xtreme-mobile]

ive done both of them :(

[Rickie3]

ive done both of them :(check my below screenshot from my adminCP where ive circled the red try filling some numbers in there

[Dermo-MIO]

it says "Invalid File Specified" when i try to add the admin help product

[sensimilla]

Adding Fake Online Users << I have added some and they are not displayed on forumhome.. Anyone with similar problem ?

Ok I got it i need some template edits.. It should be said in the zip file..

Thanks!

[B.A.D.]

I don't claim to be the sharpest knife in the bunch and I have been told I am about 2 fry's short of a happy meal as well when it comes to coding but dang! I do believe I am doing this thing right and look what I get!

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/

[felstead]

I have installed it all, how do I edit it to create fake members?

[blogtorank]

I have installed it all, how do I edit it to create fake members?


Inside your vB options....

[JakeS]

I don't claim to be the sharpest knife in the bunch and I have been told I am about 2 fry's short of a happy meal as well when it comes to coding but dang! I do believe I am doing this thing right and look what I get!

why is it on your stick?

try doing it straight from your computer.

[almukmin]

I just found out something, this thing doesn't update VBadvanced community statistic, I make VBadvanced to be my home page and well. You know the rest.

The only stats updated is the one at the bottom of Forum Home.

[HuangA]

I just found out something, this thing doesn't update VBadvanced community statistic, I make VBadvanced to be my home page and well. You know the rest.

The only stats updated is the one at the bottom of Forum Home.
As stated many times, this hack will not work with third party hacks. I personally tried to make the fake numbers work with vBadvanced but I've posted it above about how bad it is because vBadvance doesn't have hooks for me to mess with the numbers and so editing value there will require sql queries (and we are NOT doing that).

This hack, as stated in the first post / release, will NOT support other hacks like vBadvanced or whatever you may have running.

[m80]

quick question, i installed this and it works fine.One thing i noticed is when you surpass your most users ever online it does change but the date and time it happened doestn change.Am i doing something wrong or is that just the way it works.?

[Mudvayne]

I hav got a problem with this.. Itz abt fake user.. We hav 3 registered user whoch currently shown in fake user option.. But these 3 nick don follow the html markup.. Any help? I want it as thr nick display settings hav been satedup.. Screenshot bellow..

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/

[Floris]

i can get the fake members to show up but i cant seem to change the number of members online? what ever i stick in acp it just dont change, anything im doing wrong?

regards

dean
Maybe you have another plugin installed that modifies the existing variables already? All this plugin does is take the $variable from vbulletin and adds the value you've added in the admincp.

did you do the template edits???

I also had the same issue with members online all i did was fill out this part in the options and it worked "Amount of additional (fake) invisible user"
Yep, also make sure you have set the correct values, click the admin help if you have any doubts, and of course make sure you have did the appropiate template edits from the first post.

you should get it so the guests and members are on the who is online page.
I will look into this for a future release, but this is NOT a promise. (Fake users also appearing at online.php). Nice idea :D If you know how to do this feel free to PrivMsg me the details and I will update the mod and test/include it.

is there any edits ive missed ive edited the bit at the top of this thread but tahts it
I am not sure how I can know what you've missed :p lol

check my below screenshot from my adminCP where ive circled the red try filling some numbers in there
tnx for giving support in this thread, cool to see ppl helping eachother :)

it says "Invalid File Specified" when i try to add the admin help product
I can't reproduce this. Make sure you've went to the right URL as mentioned in that one post in this thread. (first post links to it)

Adding Fake Online Users << I have added some and they are not displayed on forumhome.. Anyone with similar problem ?

Ok I got it i need some template edits.. It should be said in the zip file..

Thanks!
It's mentioned in the first post though .. however, I will update the install txt file with the next release.

I don't claim to be the sharpest knife in the bunch and I have been told I am about 2 fry's short of a happy meal as well when it comes to coding but dang! I do believe I am doing this thing right and look what I get!

http://www.fjcruiser.cc/pictures/duh.gif

That kind of looks like you're trying to install the adminhelp as product.


I have installed it all, how do I edit it to create fake members?

Please read the first post of this thread.

[Floris]

I just found out something, this thing doesn't update VBadvanced community statistic, I make VBadvanced to be my home page and well. You know the rest.

The only stats updated is the one at the bottom of Forum Home.

Please read the first post at least .. and then all the other comments where we mention it multiple times. If you know how to do it send me a privmsg with the instructions and I will update the mod and test/include it.

quick question, i installed this and it works fine.One thing i noticed is when you surpass your most users ever online it does change but the date and time it happened doestn change.Am i doing something wrong or is that just the way it works.?

The next release will have something to control this ;)

I hav got a problem with this.. Itz abt fake user.. We hav 3 registered user whoch currently shown in fake user option.. But these 3 nick don follow the html markup.. Any help? I want it as thr nick display settings hav been satedup.. Screenshot bellow..

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/3452/fake3vp.gif

That's because they are 'fake' users. You should have to add the html to the input field like <b>John Doe</b>,UserC,<em>UserX</em> maybe that renders.

[bigmonay2k]

this hack is funny

[Mudvayne]

That's because they are 'fake' users. You should have to add the html to the input field like <b>John Doe</b>,UserC,<em>UserX</em> maybe that renders.
Okiz.. Got it.. Thnx.. I tried <b>$fakeusers</b> last night ;).. But it bolds the "," 2.. So hav to remove it.. Now I'm gonna try ur idea :D..

[Floris]

yeah, don't: <b>blah, </b>, just <b>blah</b>,


Sneak preview of the next version 0.06:

(a) Ok, I've got the most users online admincp help done, and there is now an option that give the admin the option to use TIMENOW or the real date.

(b) Now also including css markup for online users (all users, not per user) (see screenshot)

(c) Another new option is to display the newest member who registered at the who's online.. I've made it so that if the user is REALLY online .. it won't display it twice ;)


[edit] mod merged 4 posts :p

[edit2] Ok, 3 new things added, enough devving for one day :)

[Floris]

Hello,

There's a new version out with a few new options! So please upgrade as soon as possible if you desire to have the improvements. It is not required to update, no bugs were found, so none were fixed.

Changes:

* Included screenshots in .zip file
* Included admincp help .xml in .zip file
* Updated the screenshots
* Updated AdminCP Help existing entries and included the new ones
* New Option: Switch Date/Time to Today or Real Time for Most Users Online
* New Option: Ability to enter CSS markup for the list of online users (css markup applies to all fake users, this is not on a per user basis)
* New Option: Ability to display the newest member on the list of online users (if the user is really online it won't display, so no double listing)

So far we've had 100+ installations, also thanks to you! So THANK YOU. We've had over 100+ downloads per .zip file, and this all motivated me to listen to the requests and try to implement them where possible. I hope you like the changes.

Enjoy!

Floris

[xtreme-mobile]

brilliant mate keep it coming

ill tell you what would be good aswell would be if you could get an add on to make it work on "who has visited today in past 24 hrs" that would be cool, ive had to disable that hack cos it gives it away

[Floris]

You mean that the users who visited in the last 24 hours appear as if they are the real online users?

[Nathan2006]

Thank you all for this great update :D

[UniteTheCows]

So Floris any chance of this working with VBadvanced? I have asked the question at least 3 times now.

[Kihon Kata]

upgraded mine! uninstalls, then RE-INSTALLs to update my list

[blogtorank]

yeah, don't: <b>blah, </b>, just <b>blah</b>,


Sneak preview of the next version 0.06:

(a) Ok, I've got the most users online admincp help done, and there is now an option that give the admin the option to use TIMENOW or the real date.

(b) Now also including css markup for online users (all users, not per user) (see screenshot)

(c) Another new option is to display the newest member who registered at the who's online.. I've made it so that if the user is REALLY online .. it won't display it twice ;)


[edit] mod merged 4 posts :p

[edit2] Ok, 3 new things added, enough devving for one day :)


Great hack still... Keeps me entertained watching this thread.

Recommend: rotate fake posts or split them up amongst x amount of threads per the thread ID you insert in the admin area....

Recommend 2: Also, randomly choose online users from the member database by saying I want 500 users online on top of 130, so it goes into the database and chooses 500 out of your members on the forums.

Let me know if this is too much ;)

This hack here and another (Which is here (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=106905)) is a great way of alternating content on site for sure!!!

[Floris]

So Floris any chance of this working with VBadvanced? I have asked the question at least 3 times now.
I recommend to read our replies.

[Floris]

This is the last development version for 3.5.x unless a bug is found. This release is considered stable.

Version 0.0x for 3.5.x
Version 0.1x for 3.6.x

A BETA (unstable) version for 3.6.0 beta 1 has been released here: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=117933

[rmxs]

New Option: Ability to display the newest member on the list of online users (if the user is really online it won't display, so no double listing)

Its possible to display x last users???

[Floris]

New Option: Ability to display the newest member on the list of online users (if the user is really online it won't display, so no double listing)


Its possible to display x last users???
Nope, that would require a query and I want to keep this query-less. Feel free to make an addon :)

[TomJames]

This might be really good for starting a new site, certainly could be less of a pain than making new accounts + posts all the time :S, and of course you can slowly remove it once you get actual activity. Just take away some members per day, if you get some new members everyday no one will notice, and if they do just say 'Deleting some people who registered twice by acident'.

Anyway great work, I just hope people stop using it once it has kick started there site.

[Floris]

So far only a few people noticed that the test forum where I run it on has 10,000+ users online :D

[speedracer68]

Bummer! We work like crazy for our numbers and are proud to show them off. In fact, recently we had a big milestone and now, it's worthless. I might as well just go double it.

[Floris]

Bummer! We work like crazy for our numbers and are proud to show them off. In fact, recently we had a big milestone and now, it's worthless. I might as well just go double it.
I disagree, without this modification this can be manually applied or admins can just update the template. This just make that easier. We didn't introduce this 'cheating', we just put the variables into a backend.

But thanks for your feedback and good luck with your community.

[Zia]

its nice...using it...
some requested feature:

-Fake User online .If the use name is registerd there nick could be linked with user profile.

- enable to show at "who is online"
- enable to list reg.usrs name show in "user visited today" block.

-If the reg. user log-out from forum there fake name will be change auto to another pre-defined nick.(kinda irc feature like BNC.)

please give a thought on it.

Thanx in advance.

[ronaldmcky]

how to install this help file?

vbulletin-adminhelp-fake

thank's

[rogersnm]

- enable to list reg.usrs name show in "user visited today" block.

-If the reg. user log-out from forum there fake name will be change auto to another pre-defined nick.(kinda irc feature like BNC.)

1st. This hack does not support 3rd party mods.
2nd. What do you mean? I don't quite get you.

[imported_Visions]

Is there any possable way to put the "what's going on box" from forumhome into a center module for CMPS? Cmps already has a stats module on it but it shows the real stats. Kinda throws people off if you know what I mean.

Any help would be appreciated.

[rogersnm]

yeah, that should be pretty easy. If you not what code/template is in the stats module(i don't use cms systems) Then i can tell you what to add.

[imported_Visions]

yeah, that should be pretty easy. If you not what code/template is in the stats module(i don't use cms systems) Then i can tell you what to add.


The stats module template is located in vBadvanced CMPS Templates>adv_portal_stats

Im not sure if you understood what I meant. The "what's going on" box is located on forumhome. If CMPS is installed you have a stats module that shows the real stats on the homepage. I wanted to import the "what's going on" box fron forum home page to the cmps homepage and that I could just disable the Stats module. The "what's going on" box on forum home shows the fake stats.

Also there is another module that shows the real stats. The who's online module. We really need to integrate this for CMPS users. I know this is not a supported mod but if someone could get it integrated it would make alot of users happy.

Any takers?

[RFViet]

If I don't want fake logged in user, what should i do ??

[rogersnm]

delete it

I will install vBAdvanced on my dev site tonight and work on your request

[imported_Visions]

delete it


I will install vBAdvanced on my dev site tonight and work on your request

That would be great...would really make a huge difference to get it into CMPS modules

Good Luck and let us know when you complete it :banana:

[jbd]

currently this hack only seems to allow the dumping of fake posts in one forum category. Would be better and more realistic if you could assign a fake number of posts to any number of forum categories.

Also, incremental posts do not work. Once you've dumped the fake posts, real posts do not increment the post count for that forum category.

[ruminet]

I was thinking of doing that, but your only cheating yourself.


NO kidding - what the hell is the point of bolstering?
Are we that "board" with our lives?

[Zia]

2nd. What do you mean? I don't quite get you.


Okay Let me explain:
example a registerd nick is : Human
i put this nick in fake onlie user.So now Human is now showing as online user.
If any one klik on this nick user will see this nick's profile.

And :Human nick is showing in online.When the original user will be log-in there will be no double listing.But when the original user will be log-out
the nick will be changed to Human[away] automatically.
means the users nick will be online as Human[away], untill the original user log-in again.

[Replicators]

Neat thing for this, would be a random amount of fake users every so often, and names keep changing. Also the fake users having a profile, not hard for people to tell it is fake. I had like 12 fake users, and 4 real users on the forum, for the members online there was only 4, so it wasn't counting the fake users.

[Luggruff]

what will the users say when the forum has gotten that bopost, and all of a sudden you stop using it.. and the statistics drops radiacally? ;S

[rogersnm]

Luggruff: decrease slowly
Zia: I would not use already registered nicks, if you want a mod which allows you to input names to the who's online just ask.
imported_Visions: Just got back from france, i will start tommorow.

[Zia]

Zia: I would not use already registered nicks, if you want a mod which llows you to input names to the who's online just ask.

hmmm.............
okai sir..asking u..can u integrate it?

[aky]

do the # of guest/members who are online change or is it alway a static # that i have to input?

[rogersnm]

What do you mean? The number of members who are online at that time. It automatically updates.

[Gunshot]

It works well....but when you click on a fake user it just takes you to the top of the page. It should show a "member has chosen blah...blah..blah.." phrase

index.php# is what I get

the phrases are installed but not working

and yes I did the simple edits......tried three different boards too

[RedTurtle]

I seem to be having the same problem some other users have written about:

For the currently active users area it shows something like this:

Currently Active Users: 24 (1 members and 23 guests)

I have the # of guests set to 23 so that is showing up correctly but I also have the # of additional fake active members set to 10 and that isn't reflected at all in the # of members showing up.

The code I put below is the part of the template that deals with that but I don't know if it needs to be modified in any way or not.

My forum is at http://medstudentz.com and I'd love to get any help that you can give me -- I'm really new to all this so apologies if I've overlooked something really simple. Thanks!

<a href="online.php$session[sessionurl_q]" rel="nofollow">$vbphrase[currently_active_users]</a>: $totalonline (<phrase 1="$numberregistered" 2="$numberguest">$vbphrase[x_members_and_y_guests]</phrase>)

[Gunshot]

I have the # of guests set to 23 so that is showing up correctly but I also have the # of additional fake active members set to 10 and that isn't reflected at all in the # of members showing up.


no..no..no

you have to set the value of "Amount of additional (fake) invisible users" to get the effect you want

"additional fake active members" only shows additional "active members" if you have that feature turned on

[RedTurtle]

Thanks so much!

Now is there any way to have the "Total # of users who visited in last 24 hours" to show the fake names + fake count?

Thank you so much for your reply!

[SpaceStar]

Nice way to cheat yourself :Dnot installed

[Zia]

Nice way to cheat yourself :Dnot installed

yeah..so was thinking to use it as a Bouncer (BNC) (An Irc featuer ,Like BNC)
When the user quit..nick auto changed to a away nick....when user login nick auto changed to real nick...
Alas...he dont know abt BNC n dont try to understand abt it

* Zia quit

[Shazz]

It works ok.

[Hemanth]

Need a Real Change. Instead of manually entereing the Name of fake users online, use Users offline for Xdays. It's really helpfull & More powerfull..

Also in who's online add some threads & posts with the Fake members & Guests.

Then it'll be a perefect product.

We're ready for code chages if needed..

Please..

[007]

I wouldn't be caught dead using this hack. What a great impression to send to your members.. Lieing to them to get them to join. That's a bad reputation that will be hard to lose.. Don't you think that once your "new members" sign up and realize they were duped that they will be slightly upset? I would be. This is a very annoying hack that does no good for the vBulletin community. It's a shame to see that people are actually using it too.

This hack should maybe be renamed to the Enron hack or the Martha Stewart hack. :-D

[rogersnm]

If you don't like it then you don't like it. But you don't have to insult everyone else who uses it.

[SnitchSeeker]

Nice plug-in!

I like it because we delete all members who are inactive for more than 6 months with one or less posts. Thus, even though we show currently having over 13,000 members, in reality (if we hadn't deleted inactive users) we would have well over 60,000.

So I don't feel I am "cheating" by using it. But rather showing how popular our site really is.

[albn]

I tried this hack, and while this may be helpful for some, it does not work me. If somebody knows how to look, the stats are obviously doctored.

Thanks for sharing this hack though. It may work just fine for some.:D

[RedTurtle]

yea, I've stopped using this too because I can't get it to work with the "# of users online in the last 24 hours" mod...

if someone can get these two to work together, that'd be kickass.

[antiekeradio]

I wouldn't be caught dead using this hack. What a great impression to send to your members.. Lieing to them to get them to join. That's a bad reputation that will be hard to lose.. Don't you think that once your "new members" sign up and realize they were duped that they will be slightly upset? I would be. This is a very annoying hack that does no good for the vBulletin community.

spot on...

its actually the first really, really bad vbulletin mod I see. not because it doesn't work technically but because it doesn't work, period.

so, i'm skipping.. better luck next time :banana:

[masterross]

hello,

i use your hack to change only some stats:

i puted in:
forumhome_complete

// Fake Active Members
$fake_active = $vbulletin->userstats['activemembers'] + 1000;
$activemembers = vb_number_format($fake_active);

// Fake Online GUESTS
// Regular users will see Guest entries missing on the online.php page
$fake_guest = $numberguest + 1000;
$numberguest = vb_number_format($fake_guest);

$fake_total = $totalonline + 1000;
$totalonline = vb_number_format($fake_total);
$fake_max = $recordusers + 1000;
$recordusers = vb_number_format($fake_max);

and in:
online_complete

// Fake Online GUESTS
// Regular users will see Guest entries missing on the online.php page
$fake_guest = $numberguests + 1000;
$numberguests = vb_number_format($fake_guest);
$totalonline = vb_number_format($fake_total);
// temporarly included to address a bug in vb?
$fake_max = $recordusers + 1000;
$recordusers = vb_number_format($fake_max);

and it works ok untill i reached "Most users ever online 1000+ "
now it's shown:
Most users ever online was 1,001, Yesterday at 20:26.
in forumhome

but in online.php is still ok:
Most users ever online was 2,042, Yesterday at 20:26.

can you help me where i'm wrong?

thanks,
Ross

[Muellmann]

you had a great idea and i was happy to see such hack, but because
of a few bugs i considered to deactivate this product again.

it has a few bugs or maybe it's specially wanted to be such.
if i added a fake user to be online (in this case the admin who should be appear 24h online) and if i removed this user again it remains a semicolon before all
users like this:

Users Online
,Eric, Nataly, Sonja

what makes this hack in my opinion totally useless is the fact, that
the fake users are not clickable in the list
so everybody determines the fake immediately

i just wanted to be my admin always online something other i need not

[letsjoy]

nice one.... ! keep it up

[Sychev_S]

Is there anyway to make this plugin work with Live Forum Statistics on All Pages in Header

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=95493

[ImportPassion]

Some of us worked our asses off to build up our sites and our stats and now competitors can just come in and fudge their own stats to make their site more appealing. I personally think this mod sucks and wish Floris never released it. Those of us that had to work hard for our stats just got a good screwing with this one.

agreed. I can't believe this is nominated for HOTM.

[Adrian.]

It's a great modification.

But, is it classed as "cheating", i mean, i want my forum to look good, but,am i just cheating myself?

Sounds odd but meh...

Adrian

[LILMORA4]

Do this hack need to uploaded thru an FTP server?

[The Realist]

Installed and tested this but I cant see a real good reason to install this, unless you cheat of course.

REMOVED.

[Ted M]

Forgive this ignorant question... because Lord knows I am clueless to vBulletin... being a new admin myself. :)

But if somebody checks my board... sees that this thread has 384 posts...and then joins it to read it...seeing really only 3 posts... wouldn't that cause that person NOT to want to post at my forum? He would suspect something is "fishy"...and he'd be right. That may turn him away.

Please understand... this isn't a personal attack on Floris. Obviously Floris is very intelligent and skilled enough to create this... and I could never dream on making anything like this.

I guess (and this is sincerity... I'm not mocking or using sarcasm)... I don't see the purpose? It would show a tremendous amount of posts until somebody wants to read those posts, no?

Unless this program/add-on/hack/whatever can emulate artificial posts as well?

[blogtorank]

Forgive this ignorant question... because Lord knows I am clueless to vBulletin... being a new admin myself. :)

But if somebody checks my board... sees that this thread has 384 posts...and then joins it to read it...seeing really only 3 posts... wouldn't that cause that person NOT to want to post at my forum? He would suspect something is "fishy"...and he'd be right. That may turn him away.

Please understand... this isn't a personal attack on Floris. Obviously Floris is very intelligent and skilled enough to create this... and I could never dream on making anything like this.

I guess (and this is sincerity... I'm not mocking or using sarcasm)... I don't see the purpose? It would show a tremendous amount of posts until somebody wants to read those posts, no?

Unless this program/add-on/hack/whatever can emulate artificial posts as well?

Ahhhhhh we all have to start somewhere and sometime right??? :)

So you are questioning if the actual post ID and thread ID can be manipulated is what you're saying right?

Well there is an add-on to this hack that I see will help increase your post count if you want to use I have found them on the board here and surely they will beef up to the content on the board:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=107319 (Posting however much you want by the minute to a specific thread of RSS Feed News sources)

I can surely see you all looking to increase some popularity so those two threads you see above are very good with this hack as I see it.

Also don't forget the following pinging one here:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=108222

This is my insight to anyone that would want to combine a few add-ons to their forums if they want to start increasing their popularity a bit more. Just my insight!!!

All the best!

[bada_bing]

Wow weird I installed this on my 3.5.4 site and in admincp under vb options-Fake community statistics options these are the only options I have

Amount of additional (fake) registrations:
The value added here will be added on top of the real value.

Amount of additional (fake) threads:
The value added here will be added on top of the real value.

Amount of additional (fake) posts:
The value added here will be added on top of the real value.

Amount of additional (fake) active members:
The value added here will be added on top of the real value.

What is going on?

[Spinball]

Some of us worked our asses off to build up our sites and our stats and now competitors can just come in and fudge their own stats to make their site more appealing. I personally think this mod sucks and wish Floris never released it. Those of us that had to work hard for our stats just got a good screwing with this one.
I agree. One of our competitor forums uses a visitor generator of some kind to generate fake traffic (with different IPs) and they use this to promote themselves for the purposes of selling advertising. It's dishonest.
Having run forums for 6 years, I can say with some conviction that this hack is not the way to get round the catch 22 problem of quiet forums. You can't convincingly fudge forum stats because people only have to look at the number of threads and replies to see how busy a forum is.
However, the idea that a vbulletin developer would create and vbulletin.org would condone the release of a hack which makes it easier for people to FRAUDULENTLY publish false statistics is astonishing.
vBulletin.com and .org should be promoting best practises and should be striving to uphold the highest principles of honesty and integrity.
For genuine, honest site owners, this hack is an insult and anyone who installs it is a liar, pure and simple.