Do you ban or delete inactive accounts on your forum?

[hippiejo]

This has been a really informative thread.
When I ran a general forum years ago, I would always message inactive members firstly to check they were ok. If I still didn't hear anything after about 6 months, I would delete the account but now, thinking about it, I'm really not sure why. As said previously, it didn't really matter.

I wouldn't delete inactive members in my book forum. I definitely know I have one member that pops in very occasionally just to read reviews and I suspect in the future others will do the same. I don't have a problem with that. I don't want people to feel pressured to post although it is much better when they do.

I voted that no I don't ban or delete inactive accounts.

[Nscalerr 🐺]

I used to, but not these days.

[Pinky]

I have just deleted members with a 0 post count. If they are interested in my forum then they will have to sign up again.

[Former Member]

Im on the fence about this one. It usually depends on the reason they joined. Its like, I know of a guy who only joins forums to promote his own and not to truly contribute. Ive had people register, post only once, never acknowledge their welcome thread or even return back but were active in other forums. I dint use to delete inactive members but feel it truly depends. I try to give members at least a few weeks or months to establish their interest in the forum.

[:~:Sarapha:~:]

Running an RPG, I delete inactive accounts, but I cannot understand the thought behind banning them just for inactivity. Sure, if they were doing other things that violated the Proboards TOS or the site rules, banning would be considered, but banning them seems not only unnecessarily harsh, but also ends the possibility that the person may come back and be active in the future. Anything could be happening to stop a member from being active. Personal issues, deaths in the family, exams coming up, or just generally offline life getting to be out of control. Severing that relationship over something as trivial as activity seems super strange to me.

[Bones]

I'll butt in with my 2 cents.

(This only applies to my Trannsformers message board)

I only delete zero posters after six months NOT inactive accounts, nor do I ban inactive accounts.

As long as they've posted they're fine because they might always come back. I do the former to keep a true member count. As to why it matters? I've seen a general forum where the staff seem obsessed with their thread/post count but there's no actual conversations it's all one word stuff from word games - people talking at people, not to each other. Not really a general forum then, but they use these statistics to boost there forum. A little egotistical. Also ProBoards Support can't really compared to the average forum i.e. gaming/general/roleplay forum (The most popular ones) as it's a service forum and in a completley different league to the "Average forum" or niche forum.