Allow guests to view forums but mask/hide usernames?

[tehbasmentdwell]

Hi there, let me explain what i'm looking for.

A while back our forum was under constant attack from an ex-admin of ours, it got so bad that in the end we changed our forum URL and now keep our forum private so he can't find us by googling our usernames. The only issue with this is that we now don't get any new users signing up so we are thinking about opening the site to visitors again.

Ideally i'm looking for a hack that will make usernames hidden from guests but still allow them to view our board content. Have had a good search on this site but can't seem to find anything that can do that (of course i may have overlooked something).

Any help would be hugely appreciated, thank you :)

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Update - we've found this reply for hiding usernames but it's for VB3:

why not edit the postbit / postbit legacy, look for $userinfo[username] and replace with:

<if condition=$show[register]">Not Displayed<else />$userinfo[username]</if>

Can someone let me know where to do this on VB4.2.2 please and thanks :)

[ozzy47]

There would be a plethora of template edits to do in order to hide the usernames everywhere.

[tehbasmentdwell]

There would be a plethora of template edits to do in order to hide the usernames everywhere.

But it is doable? I'm happy to do a bunch of template edits rather than face ddos attacks every day...... only issue is my limited knowledge of vbulletin and html.

[tehbasmentdwell]

No one able/willing to help? :(

[Zachery]

<vb:if condition=$show[register]">Not Displayed<vb:else />$userinfo[username]</vb"if>