i was just looking at the members list and noticed that quite a few people who are registered on this site have 0 posts and i wondering if maybe when you sign up you should recieve a message saying come and introduce yourself in the introductions forum

PLEASE DON'T TAKE OFFENCE TO THIS QUESTION....

But does this site use Ghost members / Fake members to make it look like there are MORE people on line then there really are?

PLEASE DON'T TAKE OFFENCE TO THIS QUESTION....

I haven't noticed 'ghost members'? I've never seen any members consistantly on...

I doubt it.....I only know of one forum right now that does that....

ANY forum out there will have members that register, and lurk forever....we even have quite a few members at UB already, that are registered, are online pretty much every day and still have yet to have a single post.....I have PMed them and asked if they were scared to post or just shy....and of course, they don't even reply to the PM.....just the way some people are... :rolleyes:

Haha. Plus the option to appear invisible (not in the list on the main page) fuels it, eh?

Well, being admin on your own forum gives you the right to see them as well. :P

Well, there is the root admin account that adds one to the member count, but does not get used, so it doesn't add to the who's online count.

We don't use ghost members though. Why all those guests show up, I don't know. They don't even show up on the stat counter, so they are probably search engine bots. Well, a couple of them are real people, but when you see like 60 of them, the vast majority are not.

PS - no offense taken :up:

There is no need for ghost members here. This site is pretty active.

well that sure answered my question :|

I had a couple of my posts show up as guests because I actually logged out and forgot to log back in. When I got back on and started posting as usual, I didn't notice right away that I was posting as a guest. While that may explain a few, it doesn't explain many.

Still trying to figure out if that is even possible...

I will say this, eventually I will put out a bulk message to all members to come back and check out our changes, so that may entice some people to come back, and maybe get some of them to become active... but I think we'll wait until we get the web site side finished... since the whole thing will change then.

Good idea! Maybe add something about future plans you may have as well. :)

fair enough

can you post as a guest??? i think you should be able to browse but not post as a guest

guests can only post in 2 forums... the 'tech support' forum (just in case they are having problems registering), and the 'forum questions/comments' forum. Other than that, they can read most other forums (except the member map), but can not reply or start new topics.

oh ok fair enough