Inactive Accounts - Delete or not to Delete?

[kathy025]

Delete inactive accounts. No use keeping ghosts.

[acidrain98]

Delete the account, if they've been inactive for a long time, it's just going to stop making new members join because they think that it won't be worth it.

[criss]

Jul 20, 2012 20:19:10 GMT -8 @kathy025 said:

Delete inactive accounts. No use keeping ghosts.

I agree with what you say, better to have a true reading of what Members there are..

[kathy025]

Quality over quantity.

[criss]

Exactly right Kathy

[PFC Keller]

Delete the inactive accounts as it will look better for your board and your community. Showing more inactive accounts lets people believe that your board may be boring or not worth joining because there are members who do not participate as much.

[LDRPG dude]

We do a great deleting once per year. It's fantastic and fun for the whole board.

[smileyface60]

I don't think you should delete inactive accounts everyday or every month. Sometimes someone might of got hurt, so they couldn't come online. Who knows? That's why on my forum I do a big clean out once a year, because you never know what can happen. Just to make sure that I don't delete any of my good members too quickly, because I know a few forums where people have been deleted because they weren't active but they went to hospital. One forum someone broke a leg and a arm. Another forum someones house went on fire. And sometimes people go away on holiday.

[littlebabe322]

This is what I look for for inactive accounts.

1. After each person registers, we make sure that they do the sorting hat (it's a Harry Potter site) and if they don't do anythign with their account after registering for a week then we delete it.
2. We also do an activity check at the end of each month and anyone who doesn't reply to it will be given a weeks warning to get on their account and sign in and reply to the activity check. Then after that we put them on the "delete list"
3. If they haven't been on the site in at least a month we also delete their account. I also tell my members that if you aren't active that you will have to reregister your character for everything. That usually gets them to be active on the site lol.

I tell my members to login every day at the very least, it's up to them whether they decide to role play or not.

I also think that it's not really about how many members you have it's who is active on your site that counts. So if it's a small amount but they are active I think that's all that matters in the end. Plus it really does clean up a lot of junk and you can help move around old/dead threads etc.

[Crystal]

Personally I've always ran a "two" or "three" strikes you're out. I run an activity check once a month (or in some cases, once every three months). If you don't make the cut on the first activity check, I put you on a small list for ME to keep up with for the next activity check (or two). But three is the limit - if you aren't active enough to say "hey, I'm around" on the third one, you've got to go. I mainly participate in roleplay forums though, so this is the reason for this.

On this note, I do put a lot of consideration and thought into it. On all my sites before - and this one now - I do ask that you put an away message in the appropriate board letting us know you won't be around, if you can. You can also email me - and in some cases, like if I got to know a member extremely well, probably even text me. I check both all the time, so it's not like I won't get it - I do try to understand. Going beyond that, I still give you two or three strikes before I delete you, and sometimes I just don't delete a once active account IF they haven't been gone for an extremely long period of time - before I've been there before, where I couldn't get ahold of anyone but I was once a super active member.

=/ But that's my input. I try to give some "benefit of the doubts". I've almost never had a ghost account (0 post counts) that couldn't adhere to the first one or two activity checks actually listen to any others or actually come back on. If there's a message going "I can't make it on" - and I record all of these individuals - then at least I know. I find this more than polite - that's why I scrutinize a site without an away board very heavily. How do you know when someone's having a rough IRL problem but they actually love the community?

:/ I dunno, I just try to be caring and considerate. I hate deleting an account - I'd hate to delete a potential member. But for a roleplay site, it's harder to project it's activity if you've got "1000" members but only 20 sign in - even if the twenty that sign in daily post daily. It still skewers it, so you're basically just between a rock and a hard place then. And I choose the popular vote - I even asked my community what they prefer and they said to "at least" delete the ghost accounts.

[Kay]

Delete the accounts. Although I don't like activity checks as a member or staff. I will give a member an email warning them if they have been gone for awhile. If they are gone for months with no reason than I delete when I clean out the accounts.

[whisker]

If new members sign up and don't post, I will email them and ask them to introduce themselves, say Hello, or tell us how they found us. If they don't, then I don't bother with them. They will eventually be deleted.

[Boom]

I always think it looks better if the number of accounts match with the number of active characters on the forum. It looks messy in my personal thoughts if a forum has like 150 accounts and only say 20 people actually log in and post. I tend to never join a site if they have a lot of accounts and none of them are even around anymore. The only excuse admins have for keeping them is "incase them come back" Well I don't see how that is fair to other people that would be active with character playbys and such. And, if you just reopen the playby and then the person just so happens to come back well their playby is gone and could cause a fight. Or an admin is just too lazy too delete the inactive accounts making it look messy. But yea. That's my take on it. GRANTED admins should send people emails and give people a week or two to return but after that... really most people are gone unless they give warnings.

[Mickey Blue Eyes]

I regularly delete: un-activated accounts over 12 months old and account with less than 20 posts that have not been logged into for over 2 years, keeps things nice and tidy.

I do as others have said usually send a mass email before my regular account deleting spree.

[Nadine Noel]

I usually wait several months before I delete. I deleted one time because it had been 6 months. About a week after I deleted the person came back wanting to rejoin. They rejoined, never made a post. I feel like I was right in my orignal deleting of the account.