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.

[ConqSoft]

If users seeing higher numbers (and not seeing any good content) causes them to go to another site instead of yours, then you may need to work on your own content.

High numbers, with no content to back it up, shouldn't be any threat to you at all...

Having said that, I still agree that this type of hack has no business being released.

[Spinball]

Originally Posted by ConqSoft

High numbers, with no content to back it up, shouldn't be any threat to you at all...

It's not and I never said it was.
My point - which you missed completely - is that one site (e.g. our competitior I mentioned) publishing false stats besmirches all forums/websites.
Look, any large forum requires an expensive server or servers. 3 in our case with a fat pipe. How do we pay for this? Subscriptions are one model but in the age of free content, the most common way is banner advertising.
Now my experience is that most advertisers are on the ball and will cancel their campaign if they don't see the impressions/clicks they are paying for. But some are not. And the only stats they may have will be those presented by the forum in question. It would be nice to think that as a whole, the vbulletin forum running community was recognised as being trustworthy. This hack will have the opposite effect. By publishing false stats, a forum owner calls in to doubt our genuine stats.
Not everyone can afford independent reports (like Hitwise at over ?1000/$1770) each and every month.
P.S. Wish I still had my black Blade!

[bada_bing]

Originally Posted by 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?

can someone help me on this please

[Shazz]

^Yes what other options do you want?

[wiredinoc]

mmmmyeah... I just found this hack, and I am totally shocked that is is being written by a VB dev, and advocated by vb.org. What the heck are you guys thinking? Us admins work incredibly hard, and some of us put in over 100 hours a week to create something better in our respective hobby's or areas intrest. Now we need to have front and center stage, a hack that allows any $8 bozo to intentionally deceive new members about their size and gain market. NOT because of quality of content, or building a better mouse trap, but instead because of this product.

I don't know about you guys, but the first thing I look at on any new board I visit is the numbers. All of this "you're just cheating yourself" yadda yadda is a bunch of nonsense. IMO, VB.org is blatantly advocating and promoting lying and cheating through the creation of this product. This is horrible.

For some of us, this is our job, and puts food on the table. And then a company that I trust to my hard work with comes out with a POS hack like this, and sticks it to me. Wanna know why I'm pissed? I have a competitor who is now using this lovely product.

Good work guys, probably one of the best written hacks to date. Make sure you keep ignoring all of the other vital projects that need work like the multiple forums/one user database issue, and keep working on garbage like this.

[Nathan2006]

Hi,

This hack has been really great!

But now after a while and members have started to come to my board and sign up I don't need it anymore

The only problem after uninstalling it and trying to Rebuild Statistics in the admincp I receive the following error:

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /admincp/misc.php on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Also now there are more users online today than it says on the board

Most users ever online was 43, 31-05-2006 at 12:35.

But there have been 63 members who have visited today

Is there anyway to fix this problem

Thank you for any help

[tienkhom]

How can I delete the first comma when I dont add online member
, xmember,

[rogersnm]

Don't add the variabel next to $activeusers

[duskdawn]

I will take a try. Thanks.

[rogersnm]

/me doesn't use this anymore but he will contiue to support the thread