Your Users Post As Random Users

Hi, this is my first time posting a "hack", so please tell me if I've done something horribly wrong.

This is a hack I made mainly for as an April fools joke for my board. You select certain users, and whenever anyone posts, the post is listed as if it was posted by one of those users, chosen at random. On my boards, we chose the users Somebody, Nobody and Anybody.

The code goes in the PHP_INCLUDE_START template. Selecting which users you want it to pick from is easy, you just add and remove array entries. For example, if I wanted it to pick from the users "Joe" and "Bob", who have userids 3 and 4, I would enter ...

PHP Code:

        $randomuserchoice[1] = array(
            'userid' => 3,
            'username' => "Joe");

        $randomuserchoice[2] = array(
            'userid' => 4,
            'username' => "Bob"); 


... where the users are chosen. The full code, with the above example users used, is as follows:

PHP Code:

// vvvvvvvvvvvvv The Computer Mutt's Post As Random User Hack vvvvvvvvvvvvv

    if ((($_POST['do'] == 'postthread') and ($_POST['sbutton'] == 'Submit New Thread'))
    or (($_POST['do'] == 'postreply') and ($_POST['sbutton'] == 'Submit Reply'))
    or (($_POST['do'] == 'postreply') and ($_POST['sbutton'] == 'Post Quick Reply')))
    {
        $bodies = array();

        // Chose Users To Select From
         // The userid will determine who the post appears to be from in the thread,
         // The username will determine who the post appears to be from when you're looking at a list a threads (search, browsing forums, forumhome)
        $randomuserchoice[1] = array(
            'userid' => 3,
            'username' => "Joe");

        $randomuserchoice[2] = array(
            'userid' => 4,
            'username' => "Bob");

        $randomuser = rand(1,count($randomuserchoice));
        $bbuserinfo['userid'] = $randomuserchoice[$randomuser]['userid'];
        $bbuserinfo['username'] = $randomuserchoice[$randomuser]['username'];
    }
// ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The Computer Mutt's Post As Random User Hack ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 


If you want to add conditions to when this will apply, such as only applying it to certain users, or only in a given forum, you'd (obviously) just create an if statement and wrap it around all of the code.

You don't need to use real userids and usernames. When I wanted things to be really crazy, I used ...

PHP Code:

        $randomuserchoice[1] = array(
            'userid' => rand(1, 208),
            'username' => "Someone"); 


... 208 being the number of users my board had at the time, so each post would be given to a random user, but would appear as "Someone" while browsing threads.

My members got a kick out of this, I hope you and yours do to.

-The Computer Mutt

[BluPhoenix]

A great idea for a fun April Fools hack, but you might want to put where you should add the code

[GamerzWorld]

It sounds great but id ont get where it goes and how it works. Do i need to change the

$randomuserchoice[1] = array(
'userid' => 3,
'username' => "Joe");

To a userid on my forum to be posted as? Or does that mean that user ID 3 will post as the name Joe. If so is there anyway to completly randomise every user on the forum who posts?

[Allan]

screen please

[TCM]

Oops. The code goes in PHP_INCLUDE_START.

*Goes to change*

@Allan: There's not much to see. Everyone's posts are from one of three users.

[TCM]

Originally Posted by GamerzWorld

It sounds great but id ont get where it goes and how it works. Do i need to change the

$randomuserchoice[1] = array(
'userid' => 3,
'username' => "Joe");

To a userid on my forum to be posted as? Or does that mean that user ID 3 will post as the name Joe. If so is there anyway to completly randomise every user on the forum who posts?

Not exactly. I had a hard time explaing this right. This affects every user, unless you change it. It changes the userid and username associated with the post to one that you've provided, randomly seleceted. If that's all you had, all your users would post as whatever user has userid 3, but when viewing threads, it would appear as "Joe" for thead started or most recent poster.

[mkdevo]

i like it, but it won't revert the posts back to their original poster, will it?

[fly]

This is awesome. I added an extra if (rand(1, 10) ==1) statement so that it doesn't do it EVERY time. Thanks man!

[fly]

Originally Posted by mkdevo

i like it, but it won't revert the posts back to their original poster, will it?

Nope. It's permanent.

so this is a completely useless hack...

reason: your users register with a username... this hack make permanent change so ALL the posts made on the forum are made with random names...

who would use this on a board anyway... logically ?!