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.

[HuangA]

Originally Posted by Zia

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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:

Currently Active Users: 10 (4 members and 6 guests)
Admin
Total members that have visited the forum today: 1
Admin

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

[akanevsky]

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

[Floris]

Originally Posted by Celtic_Mad

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?

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!

Originally Posted by Developer

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

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

Originally Posted by Damien2005

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

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

Originally Posted by geevest.com

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?

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.

Originally Posted by tei727

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...

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?

Originally Posted by Freezerator

Try 15163547 without the dots.

He meant those numbers per entry.

Originally Posted by KimmiKat

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

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

Originally Posted by geevest.com

@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?

Remove the dot between 23 and 321

Originally Posted by Rickie3

you set it so members cant view the member list

Exactly

Originally Posted by Nathan2006

Thank you Floris



This is a great idea



Install

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

Originally Posted by lasto

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.

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

Originally Posted by KimmiKat

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

Thanks! So nice of you to say

Originally Posted by Celtic_Mad

Anyone know how to do this?

In theory

Originally Posted by ThePimp

Cheaters never win.

Wise lesson from old man!

Originally Posted by christianb

Ik ga verder 2 jaren en heb enkel 124 leden.

English on this board only I believe?

[HuangA]

Originally Posted by Psionic Vision

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

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

[Floris]

Originally Posted by nsusa

Active users does not seem to work.

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.

Originally Posted by UniteTheCows

Any way to update vbadvanced?

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

Originally Posted by 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.

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

Originally Posted by monkeywarplane

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

Thank you Enjoy it

Originally Posted by 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

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

0.02

Originally Posted by rixthemix@aol.c

mines not workin either

Can't help you sorry.

Originally Posted by FlyBoy73

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.

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.

Originally Posted by 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..

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'.

Originally Posted by 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

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.

[redspider]

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

[Nathan2006]

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

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!

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!

[HuangA]

Originally Posted by redspider

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

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).

Originally Posted by Nathan2006

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

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!

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!

Thank you for the kind comments!

[Nathan2006]

Originally Posted by HuangA

Thank you for the kind comments!

You're very welcome thanks for the great addons

[UniteTheCows]

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