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Should Forum Administrators Use Multiple Accounts to Boost Activity?
- Thread starter Ghost
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Thanks, it's definitely something I want to continue. Any time I can quote members or mention their website (if established for a while) I think it's a good thing. It shows regular visitors that we are still a thriving community and helps current members relate. I definitely am glad I made that thread and am probably going to make a similar one today 🙂 Glad you enjoyed the article!
There's no reason for a brand new member to just browse through the profiles and see timeframes, look for writing style etc. They join a forum to get an answer to their question, access resources or just have a laugh in the community. If any are so OCD stricken that they feel 'betrayed' by this, maybe they should join another forum. People who get offended so easily will make bad forum members and the sh.. will eventually hit the fan with them sooner than later.
Not to mention some admins can actually do this job so nicely that it's almost impossible for people to see. I had a forum years ago that I boosted like this and my best friend, who knows my 'voice' (we've been friends for almost 30 years, she does know me well), wasn't able to actually recognize my 'fake' accounts, even if she was a forum poster herself (an exceptional one I might add).
Isn't paying people to post a sneaky tactic? They wouldn't join otherwise anyway. Why entice them for their activity? Isn't asking friends to post wrong as well, provided they wouldn't have joined 'naturally'?
If I come and tell you: join my empty forums, will you? Even if I tell you that I'm an experienced webmaster, that I have almost 2 decades of experience, I'm good with most of the stuff I do, from logos to web design, wordpress work and forum management. SEO? I know that. Will you come and join a forum that's just been started just because I tell you there's a truckload of information there and you can ask me almost anything and I'll do my darn best to help you out? Most likely not, because an empty forum today has almost no appeal to anyone 🙂
Not to mention some admins can actually do this job so nicely that it's almost impossible for people to see. I had a forum years ago that I boosted like this and my best friend, who knows my 'voice' (we've been friends for almost 30 years, she does know me well), wasn't able to actually recognize my 'fake' accounts, even if she was a forum poster herself (an exceptional one I might add).
Isn't paying people to post a sneaky tactic? They wouldn't join otherwise anyway. Why entice them for their activity? Isn't asking friends to post wrong as well, provided they wouldn't have joined 'naturally'?
If I come and tell you: join my empty forums, will you? Even if I tell you that I'm an experienced webmaster, that I have almost 2 decades of experience, I'm good with most of the stuff I do, from logos to web design, wordpress work and forum management. SEO? I know that. Will you come and join a forum that's just been started just because I tell you there's a truckload of information there and you can ask me almost anything and I'll do my darn best to help you out? Most likely not, because an empty forum today has almost no appeal to anyone 🙂
I'm not giving up my fake bot who likes to make polls on Christianity Haven 😛
My initial plan was to have an account that would post weekly polls and we had a guy working on making the modification but then he left our site so it never happened. So now we have to go into the account manually and post polls and we do that to increase activity and members aren't mad about it even though they suspect it's me doing it. Stop by and be greeted by iBot as we call him. He has a daily auto log in but I don't manually log in except for maybe once a month now since I'm really busy and the last poll didn't get many responses anyway.
My initial plan was to have an account that would post weekly polls and we had a guy working on making the modification but then he left our site so it never happened. So now we have to go into the account manually and post polls and we do that to increase activity and members aren't mad about it even though they suspect it's me doing it. Stop by and be greeted by iBot as we call him. He has a daily auto log in but I don't manually log in except for maybe once a month now since I'm really busy and the last poll didn't get many responses anyway.
Paying people isn't the same as fake posters. Paying is simply the only way to grow certain forums - cause social media forums take all the real people!
If a person lost sight of the conversions etc - that could get them busted.
I’d be way too afraid that I’d make a mistake and get caught lol. I’ve never actually tried this. I’d rather do post exchanges or just post until people start replying which is what I did in the past.
For forums with less funding it’s an easier way to get started if post exchanges are not working well enough.
On my forum I’ve been doing a mix between paid posting and post exchanges to start seeding my forum with discussions.
It’s really difficult to start a forum and talking to yourself gets boring after a while. I’d be concerned with how users respond to sockpuppet accounts. I personally understand the struggle and won’t be too critical. It will be hard to do long term so my advice would probably be to find friends who can do a few posts for you to lighten the load as you continue working to grow users naturally.
On my forum I’ve been doing a mix between paid posting and post exchanges to start seeding my forum with discussions.
It’s really difficult to start a forum and talking to yourself gets boring after a while. I’d be concerned with how users respond to sockpuppet accounts. I personally understand the struggle and won’t be too critical. It will be hard to do long term so my advice would probably be to find friends who can do a few posts for you to lighten the load as you continue working to grow users naturally.
If you are starting a forum having a few fake accounts to create topics and also post replies can be good because it will give the impression that the site is active. However, if you have some real members, continuing with your fake accounts will not be a good idea.
I use a fake 'account' (There's no accounts on my site so it's just guest posting as a different name) to try and get more comments onto some of the blog posts until I start getting activity without putting in the extra work.
I didn't even notice meaning I couldn't tell that you did that.
Yes and no, Can be used regards helping in terms of what your goals are or what to achieve. But making accounts just for posting as much as you can is not going to help, you will learn that people see that 500 accounts are under one real person 
I made double accounts as bots to use from discord and welcome PMs
I made double accounts as bots to use from discord and welcome PMs
I've had a second account to test what members can see and etc. I didn't use it for content purposes. I feel if you're having to create all the content at your own forum it doesn't feel real to you as the admin. I get though not wanting to have all the content coming from the admins so having a "fake account" post makes it appear more natural. I would more so go and request posts to be made by another real person because they may have some new views or interesting posts to add to the ones there.
I only make a second account on my forums just to test things out and make sure my permissions are correct for members. I feel like I'm sort of cheating if I start to make posts under this fake account.
CuriousFiend
New Arrival
Yeah same, or rather, i just recently learnt we can do this.
Frankly, like you've stated, i think it is a prudent tool for double checking everything is set correctly for each user group.
Though beyond that, i think using a sock account—is to portray a falsehood to others, which is just plain old deception.
i guess it probably will be tempting for a fresh forum admin initially as a means to temporarily create an illusion of activity but it's still highly questionable nonetheless.
We all ought to be aware that most cluster b personalities, and those presenting traits thereof, typically don't care for ethical, moral or rational behaviours and are generally proficient at psychological compartmentalization.
Meaning such personality types will no doubt be taking full advantage of sock accounts and yet more concerning still, would be if they're using that LAU2 thing.
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