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.

[nsusa]

Active users does not seem to work.

[UniteTheCows]

Any way to update vbadvanced?

[rex_b]

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.

[monkeywarplane]

Originally Posted by Bro_Joey_Gowdy

Nice hack. I could see this being useful :

1. if someone might have lost all their threads due to being hacked and/or accidently deleted and they needed it to temporarly restore their thread/post count while they restored those deleted threads/posts.

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

[HuangA]

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

[FlyBoy73]

Originally Posted by mentalrz

hope this doesnt alter with big-boards.

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.

[FlyBoy73]

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..

[HuangA]

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

[Floris]

Originally Posted by RFViet

It's good for some small board. My question is if I uninstall the plug-in, my Stat. will be back normally ??

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.

Originally Posted by Pathor

Of course.



@floris



Nice hack, good work.



I think it?s really good for the first April.

User: "How can it be? One million more posts than yesterday?"

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

Originally Posted by RFViet

Everything works except the Active members. !!!

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.

Originally Posted by Zia

hahahahahah....hahahha nice idea....hahaa



Hope will install.....





allready we got 5-6 guest always on our board....umm using it..figure will be increase....Nice..







edit:



[high]* Zia kliks install

[/high]



sorry : edit 2nd



is there any way to show some pre-defined nick(registerd or un-registerd) always online ?

It would be very nice for us..if there any way to show few nicks always online.....?



Please give a serious thought on it..



fake guest not showing

http://img60.imageshack.us/img60/5114/fke4ti.jpg

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.

Originally Posted by Rickie3

well i recon this is great for newies starting their boards,it would make their new board look like its alive to a guest and would promote a guest to register,i'm going to have a play with this on my board for a few days and see if my staff actually notice the increase in the stats LOL,i also believe negative comments about this release are not called for,its simple dont like it dont use it,no wonder the coders are saying they have had enough,just my 2 cents worth

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.

Originally Posted by pspcrazy

Thanks floris my forum was hacked last year and i lost 100,000 posts Just so that it doesnt seem like im cheating the system ill increment it like 2 k a day lol.

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.

Originally Posted by Lil Ripsta

So are you going to say Big-Boards will never gonna find out about this?

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.

Originally Posted by Snow

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.

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.

Originally Posted by arcadian_girl

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

Originally Posted by moonclamp

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 with you, I don't mind though that we're open for discussing the matter. Never hurts to see what others think.

Originally Posted by Freezerator

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?

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.

Originally Posted by Rickie3

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

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.