Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Most users online

Forums usually show at the left bottom figures how many users were online within a set time frame, and at which date they had the most users online. Some admins do think high figures there would give prospective members the impression of a really interesting and active forum to join. From that viewpoint mods were developed to manipulate this figure. So it isn't really a figure to care about, unless you're sure the site's admin is honest and not so dumb to believe, that "telling lies" were a good way to compete.

A few days ago a friend asked me, what I think of a certain forum all of a sudden having changed the time frame for the users online threshold from 3 hours to 24 hours. And above showing numbers "just not likely at all". A short look there made me remember what I had read about that "fake users online mod". It was just too obvious that the admin kept playing with that. About every two hours 25 users more kept opening that site. Now, I'm familiar with the internet. So I looked up other sites collecting data about webtraffic. And they revealed that the amount of visitors to that forum had actually decreased. Something I found very credible, since my webmastering experience of seven years told me that at the beginning of the hot season the interest in Thailand-related websites vanishes for a few months due to the Winter expats going home.

Well, what advice could I give to that admin who lost his credibility by not well-thought-of "tricks"? Resetting the values were one thing possible, but it could hardly keep people from chuckling every time they see his users online figure, knowing it just can't be true. Looks like he has to live with having made a fool of himself again!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's very obvious what the admin of that forum was doing using the Advance Fake Users and Guests Online for SMF mod. It's evident that he took for granted the fact that people would easily find out he was lying. He's constantly stating how his forum is the one and only, the best in Korat. Web stats tell another story and the admin knows that. If his forum was doing so well he wouldn't have to go through such extreme measures to give the illusion that his forum is successful when it isn't. Poor bastard.

Admin said...

that admin is known for backstabbing and playing intrigue games. He had sent some assertions to another guy known for a liking to cause trouble to post it on another forum (TD):

"Quote from: Yasojack on TD, 27-03-2013, 02:46 PM

Seems Alfie was having a pop at TD as well in his email to me, never liked the LOL at the end of his email regarding DD.

The problem for old Johnnie Fart is that it's easy to spot the fakes. Just run your mouse cursor over the names of the users online. Real accounts have numbers, like u=1 (admin), u=10 (alfie on K-F), u=227, u=1079 (CYBEvagvy, latest member on Fart). Fake ones don't have a number, they just have their name, like this: u=FranklyB. So u=Sporty is a fake and u=Sebandit is also a fake. How many fake ones can you spot on Fart? LOL


The lengths some people will go to to win the "Fight for the top spot in Korat forums" LOL


Keep up the good work. Teak Door needs some more life put into it. It's been quiet there since DD's demise. RIP. LOL


Cheers
Alfie"

Guess Alfie wasn't looking very well, as he just wrote nonsense. Could we please let people not involved out of this and not call their accounts they registered a while before Alfie's attempt to intrigue "fake"? Get a grip, Alfie!