Have you ever used Fake Members?

Have you? I did. In one of my old forums I would post under a different name and would post and start threads in order to make my forum seem more legit. It eventually got complicated because others really liked the member that I had made a fake personality for. Ended up not posting with that member which made the forum return to its lackluster activity. Has anyone else ever come across this problem?

 

I did that when I first created a forum, and that was alot of years ago.. it was a very stupid thing to do... new webmasters do it everyday, and I have seen people who are experienced web masters do it also. Such as post a bunch of threads in private staff sections to raise the post count of their forums, and also create fake members manually and also using member generators. Its not the right thing to do, staying legit is the best way to go.

 

For a brand new forum, yes. It's a good way to kickstart activity.

 

I dislike the ideas of using fake members, keeping spammers posts hidden, and just banning their accounts. I'd rather just ban them, deactivate their accounts and keep members/post stats to those members who are actually there and are real, etc.

 

I have made several "fake member" accounts on my forum. However I never did any posts using those account. I just made them to increase the amount of members on my site. I made about 4 or 5 accounts.

 

It actually just wastes your time, and dosent really help you in the log run.

 

Definitely got to agree with you on that Kaiser

 

Yea because then you will have so many members but few posts... not worth it.

 

I have one, but it's not for posting intentions, rather for testing purposes. I don't have the need for fake members at this point in time, and hopefully I will never.

 

You wont, even if you do, dont because its really not worth it.

 

I must admit , I used it to boost CODIslands activities and tbh Kaiser noticed and I jus LOLd

 

Haha I remember that, I had noticed you used the user generator for mybb lol.

 

I have made a few and I have no problems admitting it.
I mean, a friend of mine who posted on my forum came up with the idea, we didn't make them go hyper. But when we thought of something to contribute according to their personality to stir up some controversy and get the debating juices flowing in the members.

It worked a treat.

 

But still, isnt it rather better just keeping things legit. Thats my way of thinking.