Total Members: 9466 Yeah, sure!

[+ Lucky]

When I mentioned "Today's Birthdays" in another thread, @Charlie replied that he didn't recognize the names. So I have been checking it out more lately, the birthdays. And guess what? Hardly any of them are still posting! Some only visited the one day when they registered, never to return.

It's the same with today's birthdays. @jeffOHhasn't posted in ELEVEN YEARS! Yet he is still a "member?" I know that the admins have been busy since @Daddy's death. But soon we might think about clearing out the names of "members" who have long forgotten this place.

[jjkrkwood]

Yeah, I hate it when I wish someone "I dont know" a Happy Birthday, and they dont acknowlege it and Thank me ?      Where are their manners ????  😏

[RadioRob]

I can certainly prune inactive members and remove their accounts.  IPB makes it pretty easy to do...  most likely only about 15 minutes worth of work to be honest.  However there would be a few issues that I would have to address:

• How far back do I go?  Anyone not active in the last 5 years?
• If I do this, it will delete accounts such as Hooboy and others that were critical to the founding of the site even if they're not active anymore.  Is that something we as a community are willing to accept?
• What do we do with content posted by people who are no longer members?  Does that get deleted also?  Does it get linked to a profile that does not exist?  
• What happens if the person decides to come back?  

Those are just a couple of questions that come up off the top of my head.  I'm sure there are others that will come up along the way.  Nothing here is impossible to address, but this is also not something I would do without more heavily considering the impact.

[+ Charlie]

Deleting posts by someone who is no longer a "member" would certainly free up a lot of room, but it would destroy a lot of useful, interesting and even beloved content; e.g., what would become of the "Friday Funnies," which were started by jackhammer, who has been gone for more than six years? (R.I.P., Ray😢) Some people disappear for long periods, but then return, including Lucky.

Would it be possible to group members in two different categories, "active" and "inactive?" I would suggest that someone who has not posted within the past three years belongs in an "inactive" category, and should be labeled that way on their profile.

[RadioRob]

57 minutes ago, Charlie said:

Deleting posts by someone who is no longer a "member" would certainly free up a lot of room, but it would destroy a lot of useful, interesting and even beloved content; e.g., what would become of the "Friday Funnies," which were started by jackhammer, who has been gone for more than six years? (R.I.P., Ray😢) Some people disappear for long periods, but then return, including Lucky.

Would it be possible to group members in two different categories, "active" and "inactive?" I would suggest that someone who has not posted within the past three years belongs in an "inactive" category, and should be labeled that way on their profile.

What are we actually trying to accomplish here?  The original post was around requesting removing inactive members so they don't show up in the member list and the birthday list.  While I could create a new member group called "inactive", and move members into it that have not been active for more than X years...  it would not prevent them from showing in the member list because they would still actually be a member (just in a different group).  

[+ Lucky]

My concern is that the site reflect active members. I would start with deleting those who signed up and never posted. I have not advocated deleting any content. If content is there, is it not simple enough to say "guest" rather than member?

I find the logic less than compelling that removing a member from an active list only moves him to another member list. That's why guest works better than inactive "member".

[RadioRob]

1 minute ago, Lucky said:

My concern is that the site reflect active members. I would start with deleting those who signed up and never posted. I have not advocated deleting any content. If content is there, is it not simple enough to say "guest" rather than member?

I find the logic less than compelling that removing a member from an active list only moves him to another member list. That's why guest works better than inactive "member".

So I ran a few queries on the database...  there are approximately 1700 accounts that have a "0" content count.  Now if I further filter that list to remove accounts that have signed up within the last year, that number falls to 358.  

As a separate query, I looked at accounts that have not logged into the site for the last 12 months.  There were 3,978 that have not logged in since this date in 2020.  68 of those accounts have not logged in for the last year have a 0 content count.  

[+ MysticMenace]

30 minutes ago, RadioRob said:

What are we actually trying to accomplish here?

+1 on the question. also, here are my thoughts:

• folks use this forum for different purposes and at varying frequencies. the term "active" might be harder to define.
• if you go to the online users section and filter by "members" you can see an estimate of how many members are online (e.g., right now I am seeing around 58 members of 160 online users, majority of which are guests)
• the statistics at the bottom of the main page already shows most members that are online for a certain day, as of today, 5/25 was poppin' with 239 members online
• let's say we define what "active" is and say @RadioRob makes the update to reflect a point in time count of "active members". how will that update be used and what percentage of the forum will actually utilize the update?
• unless we anticipate storage challenges, I do not think there is a need to delete content posted by deceased or inactive members.

[+ Charlie]

I wonder why so many people would sign up as a "member," but never post any content (btw, does "content" include reactions as well as actual posts?), since if all one wants to do is read the site, one could do that as a "guest."

Since this thread started as a response to the birthday list--I don't even know where that is--couldn't members who have not logged in for a certain period of time, such as two years, simply be flagged as "inactive," so no one wastes time wishing them a Happy Birthday?

[+ MysticMenace]

I am probably in the minority here, but I probably won't greet someone I do not know or have not interacted with a Happy Birthday. And TBH not really sure if the majority of members in the forum actually put their actual birthday in their profile. If the display of birthdays of several 'inactive' members is the issue, maybe just remove the view from the home page altogether. Perhaps it might be more useful if there is a view in an individual's profile of the birthdays of members the individual member follows, so he can be reminded of when to greet the members he cares to greet a Happy Birthday. Heck it could even include major milestones - like being a member for 10, 20, 25, 30 years - but similar to my suggestion, just at the individual profile level for the folks the member follows.

Edited June 3, 2021 by JoeMendoza

[+ José Soplanucas]

This is a non issue. This is a problem only for someone who has nothing to do and is looking for problems. 

[RadioRob]

1 hour ago, Charlie said:

I wonder why so many people would sign up as a "member," but never post any content (btw, does "content" include reactions as well as actual posts?), since if all one wants to do is read the site, one could do that as a "guest."

Content does not include reactions. It’s a forum topic or post, an article if enabled, a gallery image, a review once it’s actually ready, a club post/image, or a file download if we were making use of that feature (which we are not). Think of it as something new/unique. 

Regarding why someone signs up without actually posting, on many sites guests cannot see many areas of the site.  It’s limited only to those who register and have a valid user account. 

1 hour ago, Charlie said:

Since this thread started as a response to the birthday list--I don't even know where that is--couldn't members who have not logged in for a certain period of time, such as two years, simply be flagged as "inactive," so no one wastes time wishing them a Happy Birthday?

The Birthday tool does not differentiate between member groups. There is no actual “inactive” status. Any group would be included. I can prune the member database and delete members who have not signed in over XX days/years. Since I started looking, I’ve found a way of deleting accounts and just making Tanya content posted appear with the original name even though there is no actual account/profile. 

Like I said earlier… nothing is “impossible”.  The question is making sure whatever I do does not cause more problems than it fixes and making sure I understand the full impact of the change. I can’t just make a knee jerk changes unfortunately. 

[rvwnsd]

1 hour ago, JoeMendoza said:

I am probably in the minority here, but I probably won't greet someone I do not know or have not interacted with a Happy Birthday...

I doubt you are in the minority. Probably more like the vast, vast majority.

3 hours ago, RadioRob said:

What are we actually trying to accomplish here?  

Make unnecessary busywork for you, it would seem.

 

[big-n-tall]

2 hours ago, Charlie said:

I wonder why so many people would sign up as a "member," but never post any content (btw, does "content" include reactions as well as actual posts?), since if all one wants to do is read the site, one could do that as a "guest."

There have been quite a few people who have come out and said they signed up and just lurked. Some read the forum and not posted because they weren't (yet) comfortable with posting on this forum. I would also hazard a guess that some of those who signed up and never posted are escorts monitoring any mention of themselves. How many times have we seen talk turn negative about an escort and the escort changes his ad handle or ad content in anger or to avoid negative press finding its way to him

Edited June 4, 2021 by big-n-tall

[MikeBiDude]

I feel like we can leave well enough, alone. A non-issue 🤷🏻‍♂️

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

12 hours ago, RadioRob said:

 

• How far back do I go?

 

If you haven't posted a reply in this thread, you get deleted.

[Walker1]

All sites have lurkers. People may log in and just read or may like posts . I am not sure it is worth the effort for the admins to go through all that and decide to delete and then the lurker may just have to create a new account etc. Having a few extra accounts is not going to hurt anybody?

[+ poolboy48220]

I'm very much on the "Leave it alone" side.  This is not a problem.

[lonely_john]

Same here. If database space is not a problem, then don't try to fix something that is not broken. Many forum members are just lurkers looking for valuable information in this forum. Some people just don't have the cojones or language skills to write a post. Moreover, by removing inactive forum members and their content altogether, we don't know how much would be deleted, thus having a negative impact on relevance of results pages when external users are searching for topics related to this forum, on Google.

Edited June 4, 2021 by lonely_john

[jjkrkwood]

9 hours ago, Benjamin_Nicholas said:

 

If you haven't posted a reply in this thread, you get deleted.

I think the more timely word should be Cancelled ?   🤣

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

33 minutes ago, jjkrkwood said:

I think the more timely word should be Cancelled ?   🤣

 

Dude, you are so woke

[+ Lucky]

22 hours ago, RadioRob said:

I can certainly prune inactive members and remove their accounts.

17 hours ago, rvwnsd said:

Make unnecessary busywork for you, it would seem.

 

 ...most likely only about 15 minutes worth of work to be honest. 

 

 

Having accurate counts of active members seems basic to me.  And only 15 minutes to do so.

But if it is not important to others, se la vie.

[+ Autumnal]

22 hours ago, RadioRob said:

What are we actually trying to accomplish here?  The original post was around requesting removing inactive members so they don't show up in the member list and the birthday list.  While I could create a new member group called "inactive", and move members into it that have not been active for more than X years...  it would not prevent them from showing in the member list because they would still actually be a member (just in a different group).  

Sounds like we can an accurate count of "active" members without getting rid of anyone. You never know when a longtime lurker will make the move to be active - it took me about 4 years before I signed up, and then longer before I posted anything.

[+ westldnguy]

Whilst it may be reasonable to delete accounts that haven’t logged in for several years and which have never posted, personally I think it would be much better to keep any accounts that have posted at some point...

Having been a lurker on here since the time of hooboy there are several members (including at least one person I’ve met in person) that are no longer active but whose posts I’d like to be able to search for,  and there is always a possibility that one of them might return at some point. It could also become confusing if a username of a previous prolific poster was reused by someone new, and having posts belonging to inactive members deleted or reattributed to “guest” would make older threads more difficult to follow

If anything I’m more concerned about the birthday panel making it possible to work out someone’s date of birth than the fact it shows members who are no longer active. (Indeed seeing members pop up who are no longer active is a potential advantage of keeping the birthday list if it might occasionally trigger a memory of someone I haven’t thought of for a long time)

If having an accurate count of active members is thought to be important then as radiorob has already illustrated there are far less destructive ways for him to work this out

20 hours ago, Charlie said:

I wonder why so many people would sign up as a "member," but never post any content (btw, does "content" include reactions as well as actual posts?), since if all one wants to do is read the site, one could do that as a "guest."

For me it was initially so that I could change the viewing preferences after daddy changed the default theme a few years ago..  creating an account also let me follow threads I’m interested in and keep track of new posts.when switching back and forth between an iPad and laptop

[+ WilliamM]

How many people know how in sign in "guests,"    -. I would be lost signing in as a guest on the other site where I am no longer a member.