Spring Cleaning

[Curtis]

I fully expect to get shot down for this one, so be my guest.

Like everyone else, I check the number of registered users every time I blink into the Forum, and it's always gratifying to watch the numbers rise (and to check out the handles of the newbies).

It has occured to me, however, that a fair number of these registrants are never heard from again, so (being obsessive/compulsive), I began wondering if there wasn't an easy way to sort through the list of registrants on the first of every month.

Those who have had no activity in their account (registering, PMs, reviews, stories posted, postings to the forum, or dues paid) in the past twelve months would be sent an inquiry e-mail, asking them to confirm their continued interst in being registered. If they had not responded by the first of the next month, their registration would lapse.

This would give a more accurate count of real users, which may or may not be of any real utility, but accuracy is always to be strived (striven?) for.

Thank you, and I will now duck and cover.

[redEva]

Now, given in account that would be extra work for Jin, but yes, i agree user list could be somehow maintained. Lets say if you do not log on within a week from the first registration – be deleted, if there is not activity on the account for 6 months delete. Just give the warning to the users at registration time.

Jin – if you need help – ask, there will be volunteers to help you with site!

[boccaccio2000g]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Curtis
[B]I fully expect to get shot down for this one, so be my guest.

Like everyone else, I check the number of registered users every time I blink into the Forum, and it's always gratifying to watch the numbers rise (and to check out the handles of the newbies).

It has occured to me, however, that a fair number of these registrants are never heard from again, so (being obsessive/compulsive), I began wondering if there wasn't an easy way to sort through the list of registrants on the first of every month.

==========
I'm not sure I understand the point of this. Should we subtract former users' 'hits' and delete their reviews, too, because they are no longer 'active'? I like to follow some of the numbers on the site, too, but this one doesn't seem worth monitoring. I imagine that a number of people have multiple user ID's - one for reviewing, one for posting, one for writing etc. Others may have forgotten their passwords and come back under another name. So achieving a single active and authentic list would be impossible, unless we were somehow to outlaw such harmless chicanery.

I have no objection to doing this, if there were a way to wish it into existence, but if it were to involve more than a few minutes of Jinn's time, I'd say it wasn't worth the trouble -- because the numbers would still be subject to question.


Boccaccio

[redEva]

All is of course subject to Jin’s agreeability and his time constraints.
I did not have a feeling that Curtis is proposing getting rid of anything but inactive user names/accounts.
Thinking a bit more on the subject – I would never suggest to have any reviews removed for as long as the story is on the library shelf. But, from the practical point of view (apology to Curtis and any other immaculately curious members) long deceased treads could be deleted (this would save database space!?) with the exception of FAQ and similar treads.

[Curtis]

Intelligent discussion! What did I do to deserve this?

Okay, to try to cover your points in order:
Unless hits are tied to registration in some way (I don't see how they can be, since unregistered people generate hits), hits should not expire.
Should the reviews of deleted members be deleted themselves? There is a better argument for this, but I still wouldn't unless it was difficult to program around.
I am reminded that a few members' memberships have been terminated when they were discovered to be underage. Their posts remain, however, listed as "guest" status. Expired memberships could be treated the same way (and, for that matter, reviews could be treated the same way, I suppose).
I hadn't thought about people registered seperately for stories, reviews and the Forum. Any suggestions would be welcome.
As far as people who forget their password and register again under a different name...I know of at least two semi-regular posters who changed their pseudonyms when their relationships changed. It's my opinion that such people should be given the option of having the things done under their old pseudonyms switched to their new ones. This same procedure could be used for people who decide at a later time that they SHOULD have reviewed (as an example) under a different name and wish to have the reviews they had done previously listed under their new names.
Long deceased threads move farther and farther down the queue and, eventually, onto subsequent pages, which puts them out of sight and mind but NOT out of memory storage. I suspect the amount of memory consumed by dead threads is miniscule in relation to the memory requirements of the rest of the site, but the same principle could apply (ie. that threads inactive for twelve months be deleted, or archived to a place where only paying members could access them).

Thank you both for taking this so seriously. Does anyone else have an opinion? Jinn?

[Tiger]

I think I agree with Boccaccio. It's not that to remove users is hard. It's quite easy, actually, and shouldn't take more than a couple minutes because the function is included in the forums scripts. But I seldom used it and I never do any mass removal of users.

I don't like the idea to remove a user unless it's a must (one example is removal of the underage users). First, it's not necessary at all. It doesn't cost anything for a user to keep his/her account. And I won't use his/her email to send spam messages or sell it. And it's not very uncommon that a user comes back to this site / forums after 6 months or 1 year. And do we really want to force users to post messages here by threatening the cancellation of their accounts? I don't think so. And I don't think they can be threatened by that. We should encourage them to stay by some other ways.

Thank you for your concern about the hard disk space and the memory usage. But that's not the most costy part. The most expensive part of a site is the traffic. You might have only one small file and use only a very small fraction of disk space. But if there are tons of people download it, the cost is still high. If no one reads the old threads of this forum, it will cost nothing (well, almost) to keep them there. And this forum is still far, far from being called "big". Several thousands users are not that many for the server. The database can handle millions records.

If you really want to get a more accurate number about active users, you can use the "advanced search" link in the member list page. You can specify the join time, post number, last post date etc. to search for members. Here is the link:
http://www.bdsmlibrary.com/forums/memberlist.php?action=search
I think the search function will be able to give the info you want.

Jinn

[Curtis]

Thank you for the complete and thorough explanation of both the logistics and the economics of the situation.

Obviously, there has been no ground-swell of support for my suggestion, so I assume that the status quo shall be maintained.