Inactive Accounts - Delete or not to Delete?

[Bones]

I only delete the zero posters, if they've posted they're safe.

I like accurate member counts, it can seem like you only care about numbers than the forum itself if you don't and that's not way to run a forum. And as mentioned looks ugly in the members lists for new members.

Everything is taken into account with the zero posters - when they joined, when they logged in last, have they activated their account? I clean out every six months, but high priority goes towards ones who haven't posted or even logged in after joining six months ago. They get emails but I've never had one reply. Most of my forums are viewable but any arty related ones are not, the reason to have an equal number of boards viewable by guests is so they can look around and get a feel for the place.

The emails should never be demanding, I've offered the tried and tested practice of acknowledging there might be trouble getting into/activating the account. I ask them instead what we can do to improve the forum and accommodate them. You won't make any friends of them by being aggressive about it.

Close off too many forums and it makes it seem restrictive, cold/uninviting, the only exceptions being obvious ones like coding/graphic forums etc. In the almost six years i've been making ProBoards I've found you need a reasonable amount of boards to be displayed to guests, they can get a feel of the place, read some topics, and get a clear view about whether they want to join or not, or what the atmosphere/community is like. Whether it's friendly or has strict staff. etc.

[HoudiniDerek]

Feb 17, 2008 16:18:31 GMT -8 Bones said:

I only delete the zero posters, if they've posted they're safe.

I like accurate member counts, it can seem like you only care about numbers than the forum itself if you don't and that's not way to run a forum. And as mentioned looks ugly in the members lists for new members.

Everything is taken into account with the zero posters - when they joined, when they logged in last, have they activated their account? I clean out every six months, but high priority goes towards ones who haven't posted or even logged in after joining six months ago. They get emails but I've never had one reply. Most of my forums are viewable but any arty related ones are not, the reason to have an equal number of boards viewable by guests is so they can look around and get a feel for the place.

The emails should never be demanding, I've offered the tried and tested practice of acknowledging there might be trouble getting into/activating the account. I ask them instead what we can do to improve the forum and accommodate them. You won't make any friends of them by being aggressive about it.

Close off too many forums and it makes it seem restrictive, cold/uninviting, the only exceptions being obvious ones like coding/graphic forums etc. In the almost six years i've been making ProBoards I've found you need a reasonable amount of boards to be displayed to guests, they can get a feel of the place, read some topics, and get a clear view about whether they want to join or not, or what the atmosphere/community is like. Whether it's friendly or has strict staff. etc.

I concur. I post and email my rationale for the deletions and a time frame that is very liberal in my mind. I also ask generally if it is a problem with the site, staff, content, etc. to see if there might be a specific reason they are not active anymore. I have had good responses the time I did it. A number of members returned and became active again or emailed me to bid me adieu. I agree though that being demanding is useless.

[Michelangelo "Spike" Scarlatti]

I was for some time giving members a month when they join to start posting or they would be deleted. Still nothing happened then I ended up deleting alot of members.
Now Ive bumped it down to one week from the date joined to post and to be active or be deleted.
They may however rejoin at a later time.
But for me member count doesnt matter its whether or not their active.
Id rather delete a bunch of inactive roleplayers than have a high member count.
Whats the point if you have a high member count and not enough posts to show for all the members you have there.
I do contact them and remind them they had joined the board at such and such a date and they have until whatever date to become active or they will be deleted.
Sometimes I get a response back saying something on why they havent been on and other times I get nothing.
When I get no response by email I usually delete.

[fashionexperts]

Yup.
That's my pet peeve, inactive members. They deserve at leaast account deletion, if not a permanent ban from computers everywhere. Lousy scum.

[Enchant]

Feb 18, 2008 9:22:23 GMT -8 fashionexperts said:

Yup.
That's my pet peeve, inactive members. They deserve at leaast account deletion, if not a permanent ban from computers everywhere. Lousy scum.

Please make sure that when you join in these discussions that you post at least 4 sentences with constructuve thoughts. What experience have you had that makes you feel the above way?

[HoudiniDerek]

Feb 18, 2008 9:22:23 GMT -8 fashionexperts said:

Yup.
That's my pet peeve, inactive members. They deserve at leaast account deletion, if not a permanent ban from computers everywhere. Lousy scum.

So members that have come to the forum and signed up are lousy scum because they may have been prevented from posting? Why should they be banned from a computer? Maybe they joined and saw how the admin really was and decided that it was not worth the effort to even delete.

I have to say that I am amazed that you would call inactive members "lousy scum." Do you dictate how much and how often they have to post as well?

[VanillaOrchids]

I had a Proboard forums for about 5 years before I decided to delete un-used and non-active accounts. I had a member count of over 2000 but only a small number of people actually participated. And I didn't mind that there was only a small number of people that participated. But at times there were people who wondered why there wasn't more people participating since there was such a high number of members.

After having a look through the members list I found a lot of AOL email users ... some of which where activated accounts while others were not. And we probably all know the troubles of AOL members registering with their AOL email addresses. I found a number of people who made multiple accounts, probably due to not being able to activate their accounts or because they forgot their login information and just decided to make a new account.

I'm not entirely sure why I decided to clean out the members but I did and once I was done there was probably less than 500 members left.

I figure that I would do a clean out once a year, if I think to. lol

Upon reading some of the other replies, I feel the need to comment further. ;D

I have never had a rule or told anyone that they needed to post, to actively participate on my forum. In fact, not too long ago someone who I thought was new began posting only to find out that she had been a member for some months but never posted. She wasn't really familiar with posting on a message board and she even admitted that she read the posts but didn't really have anything to add. But now, once she finally got up the courage to make that first post, she feels more comfortable with it and she actually posts more.

Also, it probably is a good idea to mass email all users to inform them of the account deletions in advance. I didn't even think to do that though. I did, however, put up an announcement after the fact to let everyone know that I deleted accounts in case someone that I deleted did come back wondering why they can't login. I only had two people come back ... and not right away either.

[eh oh]

Personally, I go through my forums once a month and do my business I let all members know in the rules that sometime in the first few days of every month I will go through and delete people who haven't logged in in over a month or who have a post-count of 0. However, before I do so I send out a Mass Email telling everyone to sign-on or be deleted, and that is sent about 1-2 weeks before the Account Deletions. That way they get a warning.

On the other hand, if a member has made a post in the Leaves Board or done something of that sort and stating they will be gone, then I will let them keep their accounts. The same goes for people with high post-counts and veteran members.

--And if you can't log-in once a month, or atleast give notification of absense, I don't want you ^__^

[📚 Dianne 📚]

I'm wondering if the reason why we have pretty much drew a line in the sand between those with boards who delete inactive members (when I say inactive, I mean those members who have signed up and never once came back) and those who don't delete, is because of they types of forums we all have. I'd be curious to see if RPG forums, Chat forums and Info forums, et al - how they all feel and how they handle this. If this is just at the whim of the ADMIN running the board or if there are valid reasons to delete unused accounts.

As for AOL - yeah, I've heard of the problems but I've never encountered any on my site. At least not that I've heard about. ;D


Thanks for the idea Aoshi - I'll have to stick a new area in for departures.

[corwo]

Don't delete eventually they'll get on!

[Michelangelo "Spike" Scarlatti]

I do have rules for being active especially on roleplay boards
some of the major characters are needed more if we have some sort of plot going on so I expect them to post at least once a week
but Ive decided to lower my deleting members that arent active time down to a week
with the trouble makers Ive had on my board the last few weeks myself and my staff chose they have one week to become active or be deleted
maybe later on we will change that rule but for the time being we're leaving it
and I always email the unactive members a few times as a reminder before I delete
if by then I dont hear from them then their gone
I leave it where their more than welcome to rejoin if they want to

[Enchant]

Feb 18, 2008 17:01:09 GMT -8 corwo said:

Don't delete eventually they'll get on!

If you wish to particpate in the discussion, you will need to follow the rules. Post must be at least 4 sentences long with something that contributes to the discussion. Backing up comments would be appreciated as well. Thank you

[Will]

If I ever took and deleted every inactive account on my forum, I'd loose nearly every member. I have a few that pop in every few days or so and see whats going on, and then there are some that haven't logged in in months. Every once and a while, I send out a mass email to everyone, just to remind them that after all, they did join my forum. In my opinion, the least they could do is login.

[fashionexperts]

(Off-topic: Well, sorry. Some people keep it short and sweet, y'know)

Why do I feel this way? They make the site unappealing. How do you feel when you go to a site and nothing has been posted since (insert date of six weeks ago)? It doesn't look good. HoudiniDerek, it's different with RPG's; you do dictate how much and how often members post. And of course I am not saying that those who have a legitimate reason why they can't log on are lousy scum. But those whocjust don't because they are lazy or don't care in my opinion are. I'm exaggerating in saying they should be banned from computers, but they're definitely no buddies of mine.

[Michelangelo "Spike" Scarlatti]

I dont get whats the point of having this wicked high member count then you look at the boards post count and its no where even close to what amount of members you have
I prefer deleting than trying to look good