Have you ever been tempted to make fake accounts to increase membership and post count, I tried it once, then gave up when I caught myself arguing with myself and losing !!
Never used them. Don't see the point when there are good services like Postloop or (pre-Postloop) post exchanges.
No. I've seen certain forums (a couple people here will know what I'm alluding to) where the users are all the same person, and it just looks ridiculous. Too much work for too little reward, in my opinion, and it's not exactly truthful either.
Personally, I don't see anything wrong with it. Think of it as a post exchange with the following benefits: You control the content You control the quantity You control the quality You control the number of members You control the addition of signatures/avatars It doesn't cost anything You don't have to give anything back As long as you don't get into a situation where you're talking to yourself too much, then it's a legitimate padding method. As for 'not exactly truthful', neither is a post exchange or postloop.
No, that is not what I said. When you pay other people to post the quality, consistency, the wording, etc will all vary. Just like a natural community would, if you play your cards well. If you get duds, which can be found in most any post exchange or paid posting service, you might end up worse off than just making a bunch of fake accounts.
Which is exactly my point. If you create sock puppets YOU get to determine the quality, consistency and wording. Why take a chance on an exchange that may turn out shit, when you can ensure you get exactly the right quality required by doing it yourself? (when I say the right quality, I mean that you can adjust the quality down on a fake account.) If I got low quality posts that I had paid for, I'd be pissed, and that is where the paradox comes in - especially re. Postloop. If you post crap your rating will be poor, yet if you post well you may stand out like a sore thumb in the community you're posting on. I'm not saying that people shouldn't use Postloop (I do) or post exchanges / paid posting. But at the same time, to rubbish fake accounts just because they are fake accounts is a little hypocritical coming from someone who is engaging in a different type of fake posting from what the fake account user is.
Whilst I can see where you are coming from, isn't it true that all forums have the odd 2-3 really good posters, and it's these good posters you rely on to create threads and stimulate debate, if we all relied on the muppets to do this we would all fail, so being a good poster on a forum you are interested in is a benefit to that forum and yours.
I partly agree with what you're saying, as some forums have many people who will make threads of good quality. It's simply a matter of growing large enough to increase that ratio in your member base. I don't quite, though, understand your point. What does that have to do with fake accounts?
I thought about trying it on my new forum. I am not sure how affective it would be. I think a good thing do is just add as much useful content as you can to the forum
No I have never tried this. Because increasing your income by doing more referral for the purpose of increasing membership under you by cheating them is very dangerous. Sometimes it happens to the people that they will make a post by giving answer of the question which is posted by them.
No, i think thats ridiculous. A good website shall be the one which can attract persons from all over the world, not just one or two persons. I havent done that and wont do that in the future. Thats cheating and i dont like cheating.
Please explain the difference between a fake account, a post exchange, or indeed a service such as Postloop. Fake accounts are wrong so you have two per new forum?
