General Creating fake members to jumpstart community: yay or nay?

[Cpvr]

Has anyone here tried using fake members to kickstart their community? Or do you think it’s a bad idea?


Personally, I don’t see the value in creating fake accounts just to boost post count by talking to yourself—but I’d love to hear everyone’s perspective. Do you think it could help get conversations going, or does it risk harming the community’s authenticity in the long run? Let’s discuss!

 

[Al]

What's the difference between a fake member (sock puppet) and a paid poster? - or a post exchange?

 

[Cedric]

What's the difference between a fake member (sock puppet) and a paid poster? - or a post exchange?

Good point. There is little difference, since both aren't there for their interest of the community. Both types of users aren't genuinely interested in the community's long-term growth or engagement - they're primarily there for personal gain.Their involvement sometimes feel inauthentic too.

 

[ken_gitahi]

I would say nay. People have become very good at detecting inauthentic people, brands, and platforms. It is much more common for platforms and brands to fail these days due to authenticity issues.

We also want to connect to authentic people we can relate to because no one wants to feel deceived or as if they have been made a fool out of. It's just human nature.

Fake members can make people feel like this, so I would not do it myself.

 

[Cory]

I've never been a fan of fake accounts to gain activity for the board. Many communities have the rule, "one account per person", so if you have this rule and you're creating fake accounts on top of your original account, that's hypocritical. I understand the need for activity and engagement, but I don't think this is the way to do it. To generate content, do so under your original account. If you see an active administrator posting, I would be more likely to jump in and join rather than assuming inauthentic accounts are being used on the board.

 

[InMyOpinion]

I see people make this critical mistake ALL the time. And yes, it is a mistake. You want your forum/website to be genuine and members can smell when there is something fishy going on.

Creating multiple accounts to try to make your forum look more popular or boost their stats is not the right way to go. You won't be able to continue to log into all of these accounts and keep making content and so even though it may change the stats for now, it isn't a real statistic nor will member trust any kind of data that you give them.

Even if your forum is slow and not very active it's best to just keep to one account and post on that account. Of course everyone wants an active forum with lots of growth but not only does that take time, dedication and planning it takes real other members not just the illusion of many members.

Plus members will get irritated if they quote or reply to other members and never get any replies back.

All around this is just a bad idea and it isn't being genuine.

I have only seen this type of thing work once and that's because the person literally suffered from multiple personality disorder so they would have a different account for each personality. Yes, it is still kind of being ingenuine BUT the person had a sticky post and explained that they are all the same person, just different personalities. It worked for the site but I wouldn't encourage it nor would I say it's a good idea.

It's much easier to just stick to an account and keep the forum genuine because you want your members and staff to be able to trust you and the statistics to be real not just random numbers that mean nothing.

 

[Arantor]

If you can't get a few like-minded people to join up early and post... you maybe launched too early.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Not fake. I don't think I'd feel right doing the fake thing.

But buying posts (as long as it's real people not one person with many names) or post exchanges is fine.

I'd much rather people join organically though, And maybe a slow growth until then is a-okay with me

 

[Allan]

I might make a new member to see the view and permission are setup correctly but that as far as it goes.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I might make a new member to see the view and permission are setup correctly but that as far as it goes.

I agree with that. A test account, sure. I do make those and typically call them "Test User."