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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 :)

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

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."

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

This is what a dev board is for (duplicate accounts for testing as well as signing up new accounts to ensure functionality of that didn't break).

 

You should have 2 instances at all times and copy/paste the files over after an upgrade to test new add ons and compatibility before upgrading them as they can, and often do, break things.

 

Better to test them out on a dev than have to roll back. Such a waste of time.

 

Sometimes, add ons do work, but you just haven't tested them enough to see, which kind of sucks. I had a recent add on that looked promising, tested it out, and it was working on the dev. So, I installed it on the live site. However, it took away the "quick reply" feature (as in when you type in a thread title, the message box wouldn't drop down, or the Elasticsearch similar threads wouldn't appear either), something that I didn't take notice of, but could have if I tested out forum posting, etc., more before pushing it live.

 

I was posting threads to test it, as it was an add on that added to threads, but I used the button to post threads too. So, it's important to check every way that could effect your forum. It's now disabled and I hope it gets fixed because it's a good add on.

When I'm doing a site with active dev, I usually have three instances: my local where dev happens, a test/staging environment to eliminate weirdness from my machine (avoiding the 'works on my machine' syndrome, but also eliminates oddities from my test data during dev), and then production.

Oh, I do everything on local host before making it the live site I agree with both of you there completely. I still make sure that everything on live works as it's supposed too. Sometimes things get lost/ forgotten when moving. 😇 (I have never forgotten to paste the last line in code)

I know some that do it, but I've been against it with my own forums. I like to build my community naturally, and with post exchanges.

Nah, it's a stupid concept.

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

You aren't replying to yourself. i did that in the past not anymore lol.

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

and that's very fair and even smart. You just don't want to be an "active" member on that account. Using it to help you set up the controls and permissions is reasonable.

I could see how it could've been a benefit many, many years ago but, as it was mentioned before. People can see through the fake account like a window. It's hard enough to create and find the content for posting, let alone control several false accounts just to make the place feel alive. That's putting more work on yourself that isn't needed.

I was under the impression that posting packages would jumpstart a forum, then they're just there to pay the bills for the one who joined the forum to complete the packages, honestly, i feel like any community would truly get off by genuine interactions and engagements.

I'd think if you felt the need to create fake accounts to mimic what an actual community looks like is a sign you shouldn't be opening one in the first place. I seen many boards open up without a community and I don't get what makes them think a bunch of people will rush into an empty forum.

Well, I have done this on every forum I have created. However, I have made fake members active until there were real people posting on the forum. When I open a forum, I do not want to to be bare bone. I can create a lot of topics but I cannot reply to my own topics, I need people to respond and creating fake accounts and letting them create posts and replies can show some activities. Even to buy posting packages on promotional forums, you need some members and activities. Therefore, I believe creating fake accounts while starting a community is not a bad idea.

The thing about fake members is that most people can tell when someone is posting to themselves - because most people aren’t actually convincing enough to pretend to be other people, not even (perhaps especially) if they try to hold opposing or deliberately combative opinions.

I have known some that do it - if it is adding content and is building a base for real members to engage, then I don't think it's an absolute no.

 

I haven't done it myself personally, but others have pointed out that it's not a million miles away from post exchanges or buying forum posts/packages for your site. If you have the time, in fact, it probably works out an awful lot cheaper even if you considered paying yourself the money you would've spent on content... idk.

 

I definitely wouldn't see a purpose in continuing the practice beyond the first week or two of your forum opening - the only time I can see this being useful is literally right at the inception of a new forum. Otherwise, it seems a bit silly to me.

The thing about fake members is that most people can tell when someone is posting to themselves - because most people aren’t actually convincing enough to pretend to be other people, not even (perhaps especially) if they try to hold opposing or deliberately combative opinions.

If you're too lazy to work on getting real members, then you're probably going to be too lazy to make your fake members look convincing.

 

If they are convincing, you might need a government check and a hospital visit. :P