Inactive Accounts - Delete or not to Delete?

[Cuethelaugh]

For me personally I find that leaving up inactive member accounts is deceitful. There is a way to delete those accounts while keeping post count then if they ever rejoin all of their posts are there and everyone wins.

For me I HATED joining a site and being like.. "OH WOW 75 CHARACTERS" and then THREE are active. It's a let down.

But that's just my personal opinion about the matter

[URBAN]

I delete inactive accounts, mainly because it really does make the site look inactive. I mean if your a guest looking at a site with 190 members with only 6 who've posted I the past three months you're going to assume the sites on its last legs. The accounts aren't doing anything but creating clutter really.

Though on the other side of the argument, it shows patience to keep accounts and wait for people to return, plus in some really long threads important posts are made by account who later on may become inactive, and when that happens you don't wanna delete their account n see guest posts everywhere, but its not like you can always archive their threads without it being detrimental to the thread story.

I guess its situation dependent

[Himms]

Feb 27, 2015 16:38:04 GMT -8 URBAN said:

I delete inactive accounts, mainly because it really does make the site look inactive. I mean if your a guest looking at a site with 190 members with only 6 who've posted I the past three months you're going to assume the sites on its last legs. The accounts aren't doing anything but creating clutter really.

Though on the other side of the argument, it shows patience to keep accounts and wait for people to return, plus in some really long threads important posts are made by account who later on may become inactive, and when that happens you don't wanna delete their account n see guest posts everywhere, but its not like you can always archive their threads without it being detrimental to the thread story.

I guess its situation dependent

Bold is the reason why I don't do it. There are accounts on my site that are deleted and seeing the broken flow of this looks tacky.
account
account
account
guest
account


Gah! NO!! LOL

On top of that people have contributed....however little or big. Keeping accounts is like saying "thank you" and stops the inactive members from starting from step one should they choose to return. Or those who joined and up and left wanting to start playing.

[Cuethelaugh]

I mean... It's online roleplay. it's a hobby. You stop showing up to play on a soccer team you get removed no matter how good you are. I look at it the same way for RP. I have seen so many wonderful sites die because they keep these old accounts because they were friends despite them not being around for months and not returning even to say a quick hello. So for me I avoid it at all costs and within a certain time frame see no problem with deleting inactive accounts. They can always rejoin and reactivate.

[:~:Sarapha:~:]

I do a monthly activity check, where accounts that haven't posted in that month have a month period to post before they get deleted. (Example, this is March, so any accounts that didn't post in February have until the end of March to post). They have to be deleted for a variety of reasons in RP. Celebrity claims to be freed up, characters that plot with those ones tend to get inactive themselves while waiting to see if that member will be back, and a whole lot of other things to do with the plot as a whole.

That being said, with as old as my board is, I have a partialness to the "old" accounts. I'm blessed to have 3 of the original members of the site (all joined within days of me opening it in 2006). Sometimes, they get inactive, and I put off deleting them because I just simply can't bring myself to it. I get very emotional when it comes to those members, because deleting the account is like... Deleting them, if it makes sense.

Edit: I do have an absences board where people can post to say that they will be gone such and such amount of time, to avoid deletion, but if 3 or more months pass since the projected date of return, they'll be subject for deletion.

[Gator]

its truely depends on the case but in my case right now must my members our friends of mine so no i wouldn't remove there memberships in no case and allready no these people will fallow the rules. Now if some one is breaking the rules in this case i would say remove them.

[TVC]

I say delete them after a certain point because they start to clog your forum up. Also, it can make you seem inactive. For example, if you have 300 members, and only 150 members active in the past 24 hours, guest will know that half of your members are active. By deleting inactive accounts, you can balance out your members with your members active.

[Gator]

I say keep the members that stick by your side because true people are hard to find, so if you no there real people then they sould stay no mater what, just sayan.

[wildmaven]

Because mine is an RP and people's member names don't always match their display names, removing an account can make it very confusing when reading back over the old plots, which I do quite because many of our plots have arcs that reach far into future plots.

When a member leaves, their character bios are put into the Retired Character board, their member group is changed to either "Retired Character" or "Removed Due to Inactivity" so that I know easily if they want to return whether it was on good terms or not, their post count is put to zero so that the current members are not competing against post counts of long-gone members, and if I think they're someone who is going to be PMing members with competing sites, I block their PM capabilities.

Only accounts that are made and no RPing is done are removed completely, though I did do a huge clearing out 2 years ago which I regret now when I go back to read old threads.

I know that keeping members skews the member number and I wish there was a way to have it so that members in certain groups don't show up in the member count.

[Gator]

i like your way of thinking on things wild

[The Apocalypse RP]

I don't think I could ever delete an inactive account. I would archive their characters and label them "abandoned" just in case they came back, but I wouldn't go as far as deleting their account. Sometimes people need a break. Sometimes people come back months or years later to get going again. I've gotten irritated when my profiles have gotten deleted due to inactivity because then everything I've written was gone forever. It's not a good feeling.

[Former Member]

i deleted inactive accounts

[Former Member]

I delete inactive accounts.

[Mandoli]

Apr 19, 2015 21:48:48 GMT -8 @marti77 said:

i deleted inactive accounts

Apr 20, 2015 7:13:47 GMT -8 @womenonly said:

I delete inactive accounts.

What kinds of sites do you two run? I couldn't see people just getting rid of inactive accounts on a general/themed topic board. I've had people leave for a little bit, only to come back. I ask people on my board to not delete their account, just in case they find the time to return. There's always the possibility of adding a ton of new content that might be attractive to them. Or they just have busy lives and don't have the time to get on the board. What good does deleting inactive people do?

[Former Member]

Apr 20, 2015 10:16:27 GMT -8 Mandoli said:

Apr 19, 2015 21:48:48 GMT -8 @marti77 said:

i deleted inactive accounts

Apr 20, 2015 7:13:47 GMT -8 @womenonly said:

I delete inactive accounts.

What kinds of sites do you two run? I couldn't see people just getting rid of inactive accounts on a general/themed topic board. I've had people leave for a little bit, only to come back. I ask people on my board to not delete their account, just in case they find the time to return. There's always the possibility of adding a ton of new content that might be attractive to them. Or they just have busy lives and don't have the time to get on the board. What good does deleting inactive people do?

Inactive people are disinterested in being an active forum member.

They do not care if they are deleted or not deleted.

They do not know they are deleted because they stop returning to that forum.