Adding Ghost Member

[ZarPrime]

I don't know what Ghost members even are. (People who have died but still log in?)

ROFLMAO  <Ha Ha> I read this post last night and I'm still laughing as much as I did when I first read it.  Good one JPD. 

This Ghost Members is from a Mod that someone did on SMF which lists "Ghost Members" in the Forum Info Center, but the function doesn't work for <?php ssi_whosOnline(); ?>, thus it won't work in a TP block.

Mrcare, I already asked this question on the SMF site over 2 months ago without an answer from the Mod author ...
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=337319.msg2306411#msg2306411

Since this is the only way I can see to put it into a TP block, I suggest that you keep pestering the Mod Author about it since it's not a normal function of the Mod.  He will have to tell you what to do.

ZarPrime

[JPDeni]

I'm glad I made you laugh, ZP, but I still don't get what it is. I looked at the mod, which didn't explain it, and I looked at the topic, but it was unclear. One post seemed to say it displayed the login name instead of the preferred display name for selected people. Another post seemed to indicate that it was non-existent members in order to trick real people into thinking that there are more members than there really are.

If I could figure out what Ghost Members are, I might be able to write code for it.

[ZarPrime]

  I think it's the second one, fake members who aren't really members.  I installed it on my SMF 2 site and tried it out.  It seems pretty useless to me actually.  I could see no way to display the Ghost Members if the Forum Admin wasn't logged into the site.  If it actually created a profile for the fake members and maybe allowed you to set a time of the day when the Ghost Members would display as being online, I could possibly see the usefulness of it.  I think I uninstalled it at this point.

ZarPrime

[JPDeni]

Okay. It does seem pretty useless.

Thanks.

[WillyP]

Do you really think having it appear more people online will make real people stay online and participate?

Not to crap on anyone's mod but you don't need fake people online, you need content! If you need help creating content, there are websites devoted to that, just look around the web and you will find plenty of free content you can copy/ paste to your forum for only a link back to the original.

[Freddy]

Well said WillyP, I agree.

[Skhilled]

There is no substitute for content. The web is all about reading what you see on a site. If there is nothing there or nothing interesting to read or no current news/updates then even the people you have there will end up leaving.

Check out other sites that have the same theme or subjects as you do. Search the industry for the latest topics, etc. Your website is a work in progress and you'll need the latest info to keep up.

[MrCare]

Still waiting for a long long time to make this reality...

[ZarPrime]

Still waiting on someone to tell me why anyone would want to try to fool their members into believing there are more members on their forum than there really is ...

QUBBAH,

FWIW, if you look back through that topic on SMF, you will see that I asked the same question a while back because I couldn't figure it out.  I was trying to do the same thing you were.  If I thought it was worth it, I could probably dig down deep into the code and figure out what he's doing with it but, in all honesty, the only reason for that Mod is to deceive your members into thinking there are more members on your site then there really is.  I gave up on it when the Mod author wouldn't respond.  I think that Mod Authors that don't respond to support requests should have their Mods removed until they decide to help the members but that's just my opinion.

The author should have designed this thing to work with an ssi call but obviously he didn't.

ZarPrime

I last looked at this nearly 2 years ago, and it still doesn't make any more sense to me now than it did then.

ZarPrime