Is Poly ever going to clean the 'members' list?

Sirotnikov · June 20, 2003, 08:09

We currently have about 31,000 users.

I would bet that around 50% of them are people who registered, never posted and forgot about this place.

We don't really have 31,000 members. We have something like 2 - 3 thousand active posters, and probably some 4 thousand more that were active but are no more.

The rest are people who registered and forgot, who registered DLs and who registered, forgot their password and made a new user.

I'm wondering are we going to keep using the 31,000 figure for publicity purpose ( mark to possible future employer: "hey, i have 31,000 members on my site man!") or are we going to clean it?

(not as in we the users, but as in the admins).

I think one could safely delete people that have 0 posts (not only 0 post count, but actually 0 posts in the system, since OT posts don't count) that have registered prior to, say, 2002.

If a person registered in 1997-2001, and never posted, he is unlikely to comback and post, or to even remember his password.

If it were me, I'd also delete members that had less than 20 posts and haven't posted since jan 2002. But I started with the more conservative option for mark and dan to think about.

Ecthy · June 20, 2003, 08:11

no board ever does that, iirc. what if one of the fellas decides to turn up and post?

he could register again though.

Aramis · June 20, 2003, 08:19

When I saw the 31,000 number I wondered (morbidly) if any had passed away. Their user names should stay, in memorium.

alva · June 20, 2003, 08:19

One word :

Advertising.

Adagio · June 20, 2003, 11:07

I agree... they should be deleted... what if someone comes over, to register a new user, but finds out that some non-active user has already registered the username he/she wants...

I have been registered at other boards with the name ADG_ or The-Real-ADG or such, just because somebody has already taken my nick... and the worst part is: That user has NEVER been active... at least not during the time I have been a member of the board...

The chances for me to keep staying at boards, where I can't have my own username (ADG), are pretty slim...

DarkCloud · June 20, 2003, 11:08

I think that MarkG once told us that the advertisers don't really care about the difference between 20K and 30K, etc.

IIRC, the reason for not cleaning it out is that people get annoyed when their usernames are deleted and start sending nasty emails.

at least that's the rationale I seem to remember.

I could be wrong.

Harry Seldon · June 20, 2003, 11:09

What significance does ADG have?

FrustratedPoet · June 20, 2003, 11:13

Cull the herd!

Quote:

What significance does ADG have?

Probably his initials.

Mercator · June 20, 2003, 12:05

Quote:

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
If it were me, I'd also delete members that had less than 20 posts and haven't posted since jan 2002. But I started with the more conservative option for mark and dan to think about.

I wouldn't do that... A 1970'er with only 3 posts recently came back to the civ2 forums.

And what is really the point? I doubt it takes much space or anything, so the only reason could be what ADG said... But new people will continue to register and never post, so should you keep deleting inactive users every week?

And if you want to know how many users are active, it's easy enough to find out with the member search, using whichever criteria you prefer.

Static Universe · June 20, 2003, 16:28

A lot of these inactive posters are probably active lurkers. Who knows, they may wish to post some day.

And if the original "Static" had been cleaned up, I never would have come up with the great nick "Static Universe".

Maniac · June 20, 2003, 16:40

Quote:

And what is really the point?

It's very annoying if I register at a new forum and I have to make my nick "Maniac123" to become accepted.

Quote:

IIRC, the reason for not cleaning it out is that people get annoyed when their usernames are deleted and start sending nasty emails.

Then send some mail to all non-active members asking if they want to keep their membership. If they haven't responded in a week, delete them.

Static Universe · June 20, 2003, 17:04

Quote:

Originally posted by Maniac

Then send some mail to all non-active members asking if they want to keep their membership. If they haven't responded in a week, delete them.

If their registration are that old, then their emails probably aren't any good. Perhaps a PM might work better if they have it enabled.

Or forcing people to be logged in to surf the forums, which I personally hate, but it might give a better picture of who is on the forums at any given time.

Doesn't anyone do what I do: find a forum you'll never post on, probably never even come back to, but register anyway just to secure that username? Diabolical, I know.

Adagio · June 20, 2003, 17:30

Quote:

Originally posted by Static Universe
Doesn't anyone do what I do: find a forum you'll never post on, probably never even come back to, but register anyway just to secure that username? Diabolical, I know.

Nope... when I find a new forum, it's for one reason: To post my oppinion on whatever the topic is about...

Ming · June 20, 2003, 19:02

I love how all the "solutions" require TONs of work...

Let's examine EVERY member and determine whether they are active or not...

Then let's send a PM or email to them...

Then let's delete them...

Yeah, I'm sure you could come up with a way to do it automatically, but then it would take time to create such a hack to the system... And there would still be people who got nailed by accident because face it, no program is perfect.

Let's face it... they have better things to do with the time they spend on this site... more important things

DrSpike · June 20, 2003, 19:03

The number of active users is certainly a more interesting statistic than total users..........but really the inactive users don't cause any harm.........it's not like they slow things down. The people that run the site have limited time, and usually react to actual problems more than inessential cleaning. At least I hope they react to the actual problems we face at the moment.

Tuberski · June 20, 2003, 19:27

I think we should start by romoving that "Sirotnikov" guy.

ACK!

Skanky Burns · June 20, 2003, 23:33

Quote:

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
Why?

They don't take up much space in the database, and being inactive they take up absolutely no CPU cycles of the server. There is also a problem with defining inactives as those with zero posts - it is possible to be an active off-topicer and have no on-topic posts. Add to that the fact that comparisons between Apolyton and similar sites will be skewed in their favour (unless they delete most of there registered users too). Finally there is the risk of deleting someone who registered but hasn't posted yet. There may be many a lurker that has registered just so they have access to the 2nd page of threads/forums.

Although apart from those trifles it is a good idea.

Tuberski · June 20, 2003, 23:35

Quote:

Originally posted by Skanky Burns

Why are you quoting yourself?

ACK!

Skanky Burns · June 21, 2003, 00:57

It mostly applied to this thread too. And saved me time typing all that out again.

ixnay · June 21, 2003, 03:17

No need to eliminate any users at all. They aren't doing anything, so we might as well leave them.

Ming · June 21, 2003, 04:27

So true... it's only a number. Why should any work be required to get rid of them

Static Universe · June 21, 2003, 05:40

Quote:

Originally posted by DrSpike
The number of active users is certainly a more interesting statistic than total users..........but really the inactive users don't cause any harm.........it's not like they slow things down.

Technically they do slow things down, since searching the tables in the forum database takes slightly longer if their are more entries in the user database.

Static Universe · June 21, 2003, 06:08

And here's an interesting thread in Civ II-General.

Dec 69 registration date, first post June 18 2003.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=89654