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.

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 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. 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? :)

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

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?

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

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

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?

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...

Try 15163547 without the dots.

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

@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?

you set it so members cant view the member list:tired:

Thank you Floris :D

This is a great idea:cool:

Install

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.

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

Anyone know how to do this?

Cheaters never win.

Ik ga verder 2 jaren en heb enkel 124 leden.

Active users does not seem to work.

Any way to update vbadvanced?

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.

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

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 ;)

mines not workin either

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.

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 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, 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.



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 :)





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.





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.



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.



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.



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 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.



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


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 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.

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:
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

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

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! :)

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

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

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.

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? :)

He meant those numbers per entry.

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

Remove the dot between 23 and 321

Exactly :) ;)

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

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

Thanks! So nice of you to say :)

In theory :)

Wise lesson from old man!

English on this board only I believe?


:p

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 ;)

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.

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

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

Thank you :) Enjoy it :)

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

0.02

Can't help you sorry.

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.

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'.


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.

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

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

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 for the kind comments! :)

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

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