Inactive users
- Thread starter datoneer
- Start date
ForumsGroup
Resident
You have that, people have an interest for something on your forum, they sign up, once they lose interest they're gone. I don't see a point in deleting them either. I don't delete them on my sites because believe it or not, some of them return after so long, or a random email gets sent out about an update to the forum.
I have in the past deleted inactive users. I want people to come to my forum, see the member count and then see how many people have been online and posting within the last 24 hours. I don't want 140 users with 2 active users if that makes sense. I usually wait up to 60 days for accounts to become active before I delete them though.
I reserve the right to delete accounts that haven't made at least 1 post after 90 days.
I picked 90 days simply because, in my experience, if someone is going to join and become an active member they will usually make an effort within the first few days. If someone joins but doesn't become active after a month the chance they're going to return is pretty slim. (They might not even remember they registered for that site, let alone the username and password...)
I don't often purge accounts because I have other, more important, things to attend to. And those accounts can, for the most part, be left alone without too much issue. I mean they aren't exactly hurting anyone by sitting there. It might increase my member count some, but I'm not too worried by that.
In terms of sending out mass emails, I've tried that... And in my experience that's never actually worked. I've had cases where people return, post an "I'm back" message then vanish again. So it might work better for you and you can try it, but just don't get your hopes up.
I picked 90 days simply because, in my experience, if someone is going to join and become an active member they will usually make an effort within the first few days. If someone joins but doesn't become active after a month the chance they're going to return is pretty slim. (They might not even remember they registered for that site, let alone the username and password...)
I don't often purge accounts because I have other, more important, things to attend to. And those accounts can, for the most part, be left alone without too much issue. I mean they aren't exactly hurting anyone by sitting there. It might increase my member count some, but I'm not too worried by that.
In terms of sending out mass emails, I've tried that... And in my experience that's never actually worked. I've had cases where people return, post an "I'm back" message then vanish again. So it might work better for you and you can try it, but just don't get your hopes up.
There's bound to be inactive users in every forum. Those who signed up just to read things, not posting anything, and when they get busy they forget about the site and never logged in anymore. In my old forum I gave inactive members one year time before I pruned their accounts. But honestly it's not something we really need to be concerned. Since like VZ said, it doesn't hurt anyone by staying there. People view statistics differently; I personally don't care that much about statistics so yeah. XD
Demon_skeith
Paragon
JoshSmith said:
what do you then if the inactive person has a inactive email account?
Demon_skeith said:
Leave the registered user on the site.
To be quite frank if the memberbase is complaining about inactive users, the bigger problem is to get activity on the site since this probably means they have nothing else to complain/suggest. If one member complains about it, you cant just cater to the one member.
Its good to inflate stats for a owner, why wouldn't you want to? It makes your site look better.
It's not something I'm going to concern myself with particularly, but we did have a bit of a problem with them on the large forum I used to be a moderator on. New members were on 'moderated posts' for 10 posts or so to stop spammers and sock puppets of banned members getting through, but some of the members getting banned realised that once accounts were open for 6 months they were no longer subject to that even if they hadn't posted, so they created a number of 'sleeper socks' ready for when they got banned (because they were serial troublemakers). As mods we had no control over those software settings, so we just had to watch out for members that had been inactive for months or years but suddenly started posting - we had to check them out, and they often turned out to be sock puppets.
In the end we started banning any account that had made less than 10 posts and had not been active for over a year, just in case. Since they were banned (just as an 'inactive account') not deleted (which we couldn't do anyway) they could always be reinstated on request if necessary.
In the end we started banning any account that had made less than 10 posts and had not been active for over a year, just in case. Since they were banned (just as an 'inactive account') not deleted (which we couldn't do anyway) they could always be reinstated on request if necessary.
How do you deal with zero post members?
Sometimes friends will sign up to my sign and not post anything. They will send private messages but never get around to posting. I try not to pressure as they are not spamming. But it's a little annoying they won't even post an introduction. Other times, I see a new person (who i don't recognize on forum) sign up but never make posts. When I check their profile page, I find they've bothered to fill out the signature line and website backlink space. So I'm assuming that is just a bot. Anyway, I always delete those accounts as those people don't really intend to post and just want a backlink. I'm still in a quandary as to how to deal with friends who sign up but never post. Any ideas?
Sometimes friends will sign up to my sign and not post anything. They will send private messages but never get around to posting. I try not to pressure as they are not spamming. But it's a little annoying they won't even post an introduction. Other times, I see a new person (who i don't recognize on forum) sign up but never make posts. When I check their profile page, I find they've bothered to fill out the signature line and website backlink space. So I'm assuming that is just a bot. Anyway, I always delete those accounts as those people don't really intend to post and just want a backlink. I'm still in a quandary as to how to deal with friends who sign up but never post. Any ideas?
Pruning inactive members
Is it a good idea to prune inactive members on a forum? For instance, if you have recently relaunched your forum but only half your forum membership returned. Would you prune the other half, sending out an email inviting interested members to rejoin at their earliest convenience? Or, would you leave everyone on the forum membership list, active or not?
Is it a good idea to prune inactive members on a forum? For instance, if you have recently relaunched your forum but only half your forum membership returned. Would you prune the other half, sending out an email inviting interested members to rejoin at their earliest convenience? Or, would you leave everyone on the forum membership list, active or not?
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