Not wanting to go too far off topic, but fake online users don't really help much beyond the first glimpse. What is more important is that in the recent posts listing there are a lot of posts from today/yesterday and that they are by different users.
For a start up forum - especially if you don't know many people - using socks to post in order to make the place look a bit busier is acceptable. It definitely requires more effort than having a list of fake users.
@ Freezy - I would definitely advise against a social engineering forum. You would lose your MyBB support if you did that.
@Leefish, so like a bot posting setup? Like some blogs do for content?
I notice A LOT of WP blogs use comment bots and disable comments for real users lol. I hate that personally. I think it good to at least allow real people to post too
lol
Not bots. You actually post pretending to be someone else. It's like having an empty bar and filling it with hologram people that you control to make it look busy. Once you have real customers you stop using the holograms
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sockpuppet_(Internet)
Not that the opinion of someone who is seriously suggesting faking online stats means a lot to me, but you've got it all wrong.
OK, so one (apparently idiot) user signs up based on my online stats. Maybe ten. Maybe fifty! So what? Is that kind of user really going to contribute that much? Is that kind of user really worth selling out my integrity? How do you deal with it when your honest, incredibly active user realize you're lying – will those users have been worth it then?
The title "Negative Nancy" is a self-deprecatory title. It's tongue in cheek. People can't seem to realize that negative feedback is generally made in the hopes that it will prevent something bad – at least, it is in my case. I'm being negative to your idea, but I'm promoting positivity.
Low online stats are a small problem, and there are better ways to deal with it. If your forum is very low activity, you don't even need that on the homepage. Why not remove it? Or minimize its appearance, and restructure the index page to highlight all of the awesome content you have?
There are more positive approaches to this problem.
(And before anyone makes the comparison, fake online users and sock accounts posting are not the same thing – while I've never done it, I can see why one would. As long as the posts are adding value to the community and to users, it's worth doing with discretion.)
Yet again, you have way too many sections for a website with 11,000 posts. The amount of sections and categories you have makes your board look unorganized. I would start by having one 'Gaming' category, instead of a two-three.
Also, make the 'Technology' and 'Editing & Graphics' one category. You don't need separate forums for Mac and Windows discussions; just have one section named 'Computing' and then use thread prefixes to keep everything organized.
As for the theme; it's too dark from my perspective. I guess that's just my opinion, the theme can wait aside for the meantime. The domain and niche doesn't really appear to me, as it just indicates that you're just another board owner hoping to become successful from launching a forum with a general niche.
One thing I would highly recommend doing would be to find a unique and appealing niche and stick at it. General niches are overcrowded, and everyone launches a general forum in hope to become the next HF or FK; it's ridiculous in my opinion. I'm not saying that you can't achieve great, but using that niche is going to make it ten times harder.
Good luck.
(2013-02-05, 02:05 PM)Alternate Wrote: [ -> ]Yet again, you have way too many sections for a website with 11,000 posts. The amount of sections and categories you have makes your board look unorganized. I would start by having one 'Gaming' category, instead of a two-three.
Also, make the 'Technology' and 'Editing & Graphics' one category. You don't need separate forums for Mac and Windows discussions; just have one section named 'Computing' and then use thread prefixes to keep everything organized.
As for the theme; it's too dark from my perspective. I guess that's just my opinion, the theme can wait aside for the meantime. The domain and niche doesn't really appear to me, as it just indicates that you're just another board owner hoping to become successful from launching a forum with a general niche.
One thing I would highly recommend doing would be to find a unique and appealing niche and stick at it. General niches are overcrowded, and everyone launches a general forum in hope to become the next HF or FK; it's ridiculous in my opinion. I'm not saying that you can't achieve great, but using that niche is going to make it ten times harder.
Good luck.
Thanks for the advice..
Will Use..
Anymore Opions?
Not Trashing.