Thanks for the hack. I am testing it right now but one question I have in mind, I have noticed other people are asking the same thing and I am not sure if there is already a solution for that or it is not working on my test board.
When you add some usernames that should appear online and you put your mouse on over the fake usernames that are online you don't get a link to their user profile but a dead link.
Is there a way thatcould be actually members I register manually and the names can point to there profiles?

Awesome hack!

It's a tough world out there for newcomers and this is exactly the kind of help they need to help them get by. I applied to my own forum and it looks great.

Question.. about the WOL, I noticed if the numbers are low, it does not look very realistic ex: 16 users online 8 members & 8 guests but only 3 of each are visible.

Hi, i just download but it does not work for vbadvanced. Can someone tell me what template to edit? Thank

I just wanted to add a few things.
I have been running this hack for a few days now(works great!) and I thought up of a few things that might improve this hack.


1) random display from fake names list - this would be great if we created a dictionary of fake usernames which exceeded the total no. of fake online users, then the hack would randomly pick that number from the list to display.

2) link fake online users to basic profiles. - even if they had no posts etc. it could prove better to have a basic profile to view than simply popping back to the forum front end.

3) Randomly show users browsing assigned forums - assign forums and then have the system display the fake online users randomly in those forums.

3) show users in the WOL. - Same as above except in the WOL it would show them browsing forums (randomly assigned)

Thats about it , I just wanted to share these ideas because I noticed that many people noticed the same names on the forum all the time and that the member profiles don't work etc.

Hope some of these features will be considered :)
Love this hack btw. - thanks for a great addon

Yes, can someone help us? :cross-eyed:

if you read posts made in this thread, i dont think it works in vbadvanced. i may be wrong.

......

Need improvements. The IPB guys have the one which takes the users from the database, and make them online, also they will be showed as browsing different things and threads.

how to fake viewing in room category?

How can you see that a forum is using fake stats? Which are the signs?

I don't see why that information is necessary.

yep ! well done

i do not want to turn on the today most users online function, How do we input the date and time of most users online instead of all time today online?TIA

anyone can assist?:o

I like it, LOL how can we make it look more realistic? like do these name just stay on all the time or do they rotate on and off thru-out thr day/night? also other mods don't work with it, they keep real statistics while the fake ones are up still, LOL

I am strictly using this mod for getting advertisers to advertise on this forums/site, I hope it helps. It also makes alot of members feel better as they think "oh lots of people on today i better look at whats new".


example: www.guelphsfinest.com


Mark,

So basically gonna rip them off?

Never thought you could use this for money wise.. Interesting.

Interesting hack, I think I might use it for April's Fools day as well as turn all of my forums Barbie Pink...and very girly.

I can see how this would be helpful for a site that is having issues durring start up. I think thou.. a forum dies because it is stale or there is not enough new blood coming into it.

What sense does it make to have statistics that don't accurately reflect anything?

this is a great hack for beginner boards or those with slow activity, my only concern to this is the big givaway of how many users would choose not to appear on the member list. if i saw on a board that 5000 members chose not to appear on the list and only 4 did i'd be suspicious lol.

other than that a great hack as ever floris, i might give this ago actually.

i hope to see add-ons for fake no of viewers in forum sections.

Question under:
Currently Active Users: 62 (2 members and 60 guests)
Most users ever online was 65, Today at 07:34 PM.
gmntmare, 04screamingyellow, wickedstangs, goonies

Fake Names

How can I change members to 2 members to coincide with the fake members?

If you can't get 2 more people to visit your forum, maybe you should close it?

This modification still works on the 3.5.x branch, but I have no intention in giving support, or keeping it up to date, or to include more features. If any .. it will be for 3.6.7pl1 or higher, and through this thread: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...hreadid=117933

I recommend everybody to upgrade to vb 3.6.7pl1, and upgrade to the latest build of this modification (see other thread).

Thank you all for your support and for the positive (and negative) feedback.

This should have never been release. What is worse is that a VB team member is behind this.

Like you said, Floris: some people will enjoy themselves with this. The problem is that you should not envoy yourself in all circumstances. Personally, I reject relations with people that "envoy themselves" in this manner, and guess what: I still have a lot of friends. It's just a matter of choice.

There are a lot of people that steal (I mean in real life), but inventing a system that permits them to steal more easily (for example by automatically detecting old people, which are easy targets) is even more immoral than the actual act of stealing.

The web is still in its infancy. I hope that in the future will be laws against this kind of behavior.

Besides the moral priciple, there can also be implications on the long term:

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=232188


Regards,
Razvan M.

If you don't want to use it, by all means don't use it.
Bigboard compliance was also coded in so if you want to avoid forums using this you can. Simply check the HTML near that area for comment which starts with "bbcompliance".

is there a way to add fake info to "Members visited Today" mod?

this mod:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...=members+visit

Good Question - I'm going to start a new forum and faking 100 members is no big deal. Once I get over a 1000 members, this hack will be useless. However yes Members visiting today do not correspond with total number of users on board. ANy modifications?

Just a short note to everyone flaming Floris for this mod. If you are so upset about the concept of fake statistics then it would apepar to me that you are simply insecure about your site's ability to retain its members with original content. If a site is able to start up, use this mod to entice membership, then after a few months they have become a thriving community, well I have news for you - This mod didn't cause it. It may have accelerated the process a bit, but nobody in their right mind will register with a forum that has inflated numbers, then hang around if nothing interesting is going on. Your mentality is akin to stating that nobody should make a 6-figure income unless they have worked at mcdonalds for 10 years, no matter what their qualifications are. If this mod bothers you, don't use it. If you are running a large community site, then you are not a part of the target market, anyways.

As a side note I would also suggest that, having been in the position of a starting webmaster trying to create a community, do you not remember how difficult and time consuming it was? Would you not then be happy to discover a product that may decrease some of this burden for others? Or is it some sort of elitist mentality in which you feel that 'I went through the hardships, everyone else should go through it too'. If that's the case, then you have my pity.

</rant>

I can definitely appreciate the value that this mod would have both to sites just starting out, and those in other circumstances such as undergoing a database migration. Very nice work!

hi there nice hack but does this also show like in forum " Intorduction" (16 viewing) and so on to other forum ?
waiting for reply
thanks

yeaaaaaaaaaa...sick hack!

Err, the only insecurities would be from those that feel the need to deceive their visitors. Those that don't, are the most unlikely to feel "insecure".

Lying and deceit ARE 2 main factors in insecurity.

I believe most running a serious above board business, see no long term value in being deceitful. But, each to their own :)

ok, lets all try to stop argueing over this. Be happy.:)

i think it would be an even better idea to be able to have fake viewers. where it says (## viewing) in the forums. you would be able to set the number of "fake" people viewing. i think this would make people sign up a lot faster if they know (think) theres a lot of people viewing

we had a HDD crash and lost roundabout 20.000 threads and aprx. 230.000 postings. That hack helps to get real stats back and therefor I like it. Sure, if you wanna fake your stats it makes it easy now. Otherwise, in my community we have about 3 million page hits a month and huge amount of posts each hour. What sense makes it to fake a page with 45 users online if they do not post one word in 2 hours ;)
so, keep cool, everybody will see soon, if a board is busy or a stat-faked deadzone ;)

This is insane man ! You lost 20.000 threads !! When you have such a big board you should backup daily.

This is such a pity ... so much information lost in the blink of an eye.

Yep, rather than installing a hack like this, you should be looking into automatic database backups.

Thank you, this is great plugin.
It helps small forums become big

How do you uninstall this from the db manually?

worky vBulletin 3.7.3 ??