Forum Home Enhancements - Fake Community Statistics

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.

[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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by 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?

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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.