To Many Members?
 

As we all know there's a lot of new members coming. Witch is good, but their are many members who have been here for about 3 years or so. But lot's have'nt posted once in years, shall we get rid of them?

No, not them atleast. There are alot of members (and I mean ALOT) that have joined years ago and haven't posted even once. Their accounts should be deleted. The others who are slow posters still deserve to be members because they actually have posted their inputs. Even if it takes them months to post something new, they're usually loyal forumers, like Lampion.

But a waste of names. There might be someone who will post, and might want a decent name.

oddish I made a thread exactly like this on another forum and I got this answer

uhm, there are someone who are known as "lurkers" they just hang around and read the stuff people write. and they join the forum so that they'll know when new posts are made. So if you kick theese guys out, and just stick with the rest your going to get an angry mob after you (not litteraly (Ihope)). So leave the lurkers alone

No, actually you won't believe the number of user names I see in the members list that are never on the 'Who's Online' list. Plus, what are these 'lurkers' going to do if we do kick them off? Half of them no longer exist and the other half can't do jack about it, so why not just dispose of the cleavage and shut up?

cos they dont have to log in.I think asl ong as you have an account you can see which posts are new

No. You have to log in to see which posts are new.

Although I think that there isn't a point in deleting old members just because they're not active, you do have a point with the name thing. But whatcha' gonna do, you know? I'm sure everyone will be able to come up with some half-assed pseudo-Oddworld name eventually.

Actually, I was thinking of a name change so someone else could have a "Sea Rex" name (because a new member did at one time), but then Death got his name changed, which got a bunch of new people curious as to why they couldn't have their names changed, so I've just decided to wait a while.

Besides, I just got a custom title. I don't want to seem greedy by making a bunch of "special requests" in such a short time...

Damn! I want a custom title so bad! Am I not worthy? I'd do anything for one (except for the usual mod-handjob handouts).

There isn't much reason to delete non-active members, if a person cannot come up with an original name then that's their problem.

I found out a little bit after I joined that there is another oddguy.

"oddguy 999"

I'm so glad he added those stupid numbers afterwards, because I like the way my name is now...perfect.

-oddguy :happy:

The reason we don't delete the members is because of two things.

1. More members shows that we have been online for a long time. Plus if we deleted them we would only have like 100 members or something [well maybe not that less].

2. By deleting the ones that post a few posts, their posts turn into "guest" and it looks really funny having all these guest posts. A forum I visited once did that and it was weird.

Plus, they don't take up much database space anyways.

Abe Babe...

Threads like this one have been posted over and over.

There are two arguments.

One says that we may get visitors who come here with the potential for becoming a very good, active poster, but turn away because their name is already registered. Therefore we must keep as many good names free as possible.

The other says that the people who registered but didn't post anything may come back here one day, remember they made an account, and start posting. This is not an unusual phenomenon, and has happened here quite a few times. But that said, so has the evidence for the first argument. Quite a few users have signed up and found they couldn't use the name they wanted, so they had to make up something a bit different.

The problem is, neither side is more correct than the other. Which direction a forum chooses to take depends on what they want, and how their personal beleifs sway them.

It is best if we just keep the members online wether they are old or new.
I left a forum for about 2 years and i was happy to know that my name had not been deleted or even touched.

You're missing the point.

It's not best, it's just one way of doing things. Both deleting the account names and keeping the account names have their advantages. You have experienced the advantages of keeping the account names, and I personally have experienced the advantages of deleting them and keeping them.

This forum has chosen to keep the accounts. It is a personal preference issue, and either way is equally as favourable. No side is better than the other, therefore it is not worth arguing for or against either.

Now lets move on and eat some happy happy micro-muffins. :D

Ha, cleavage...lol. Sorry bout that...

Stupid numbers? I like my numbers, my numbers are there on purpose. Although the 999 was probably just because your name was taken...

I dont think we should delete memebers, I went away for a while and would've been pissed if I came back to find it deleted...

"oddguy 999" was actually here before I came along.

-oddguy :cool:

but think about it.it would take a while to do all that deleting.plus what if someone got that name straight after it was deleted.a mod would think ''I thought i deleted that'' and got rid of it again.plus what if they delete one of the active peoples accounts and it would be straight down to o posts with ya :D but there is no need.Just let the names stay.plus if someone else did join its not likeley for them to post either.The only real people I see posting are :sligslinger,oddguy,xavier,all the mods,will the wander,oddish,oddfan,jacob,some other people and there are about 1000 other names.Even those who do join hardly post.So if you deleted them ait would come back soon enough.

Damn right there's too many! The members list is packed with people who never post! The most is on the S section. Out of two whole pages the only people who post were Shinjara and Sligslinger! We should ban anyone who does not post anymore!

And SeaRex. ;)

Searex still postes? I've never seen him lately.

Yeah he's been quite active recently. Check out OT, you should see some of his posts around...

Hmmm intersting. A comment though. I come on here just about every single day. I don't always post...sometimes I'm checking in on my lunch here at work...sometimes I just don't have anything interesting to say.

I think rather than looking at post count...perhaps a better way to gage (if old user account deletion is what is going to happen) is the "last visited" feature. But even then, sometimes things happen in people's lives that keep them away from their online haunts. IMO, it'd be better to just leave the accounts as is.

I really don't know why this discussion persists when everyone has made it perfectly clear that what Jen said here is the moral that the forums work by in terms of deleting (or rather, not deleting) old and apparantly unused accounts.

Let's just leave it here yes? Save your energy for a discussion that will actually go somewhere or achieve something.

We can actually set the members list so it only display's a member if they have posted a certain number of posts. I think we currently have it set to 1 post ... but we could easily change it to something like 10 or 20 to reduce the clutter.

Abe Babe...

Set it to 20 and discussion over :p Everyone is happy

I think that only if someone HASN'T posted anything EVER and have been registered for about... 6 months, the account should be deleted. If they then come back, they would only have to re-register.

I agree with Codek, that deleting an account with a few posts, or that has been dormant for a long time, isn't fair. But if the account is open and not being used, I think it's time to remove it. I recently tried to register as Adder at deviant art. The name was taken by someone with no submited work, no comments, and only ONE page view! The account hasn't been used in years.

So we get the best of both worlds... delete quite obviously dead accounts, but keep the ones which might be used again.

Good idea Adder.

Why dont the mods just send out emails to people who have been dormant? Its basically their job to take care of the forums, so I suppose this would be included.

Erm, technically none of the discussion on the forums DOES achieve anything
(apart from helping people with their own personal problems eg. they need an image or information)

Actually I had never thought of that ^. Sending an email would be an good way to see if people actually still want their accounts.