Manually adding fake members?

[I, Brian]

I appreciate it's not a problem per se, but I note that people are always eager to join large forums.

I'd therefore like to add a few hundred fake members to my foundationist forum simply to boost into attractice member numbers - but without having to resort to joining individually on the actual forum paeg.

Ideally, I'm looking to be able to compose member info in a text file or similar, and then be able to manually add this to make db.

Trouble is my forum db is seen as a .zip file by my PC, and CPanel gives express warning not to open using WinZip.

I'm therefore wondering if there's a feature in MyPHPAdmin that can help me achieve this objective? Or whether there are any other methods I could use  - just so long as I can avoid running through my forum registration process hundreds of times.

I appreciate that an active board is one way to attract members, but I see member numbers also as an important marketing feature.

Any helpful comments out there?

[Spaceman-Spiff]

it will be more complicated than just inserting a query in phpMyAdmin

u'll have to write a script for that, or create them one by one
but what's the use of 100 members that never post anything
the board will still look quiet

[I, Brian]

Hm...sounds like I'm back to add member by member through the usual registration process.

I really do believe that a prospective member will more likely join a site with 1100 members, than one with 100 members - absolutely regardless of site activity.

I've added 100 so far to the foundationist board, but it's a little laborious on a modem.

[Spaceman-Spiff]

you can change the member total in the settings table if u want, it's for the stats, also total boards & topics

[David]

This wouldn't be a very complicated PHP script.