Suggestion Deletion Of Inactive Accounts

[Dan-Kode]

Hey there.

So I've recently been noticing a lot of new Accounts that haven't posted anything. This also applies to Accounts that have been registered for a few months and have only posted one thing and vanish.

I think we need to deal with these Accounts.

What I was thinking of is implementing some sort of Warning-System. So like, if you've been Inactive for 3+ Months, send an Email to the User notifying their absence.

Something like that anyway.

The method I've mentioned should hopefully alert them and maybe increase their Activity on CF. Of course, there are plenty of other ways to deal with Inactive Accounts.

 

[Antero360]

Hey there.

So I've recently been noticing a lot of new Accounts that haven't posted anything. This also applies to Accounts that have been registered for a few months and have only posted one thing and vanish.

I think we need to deal with these Accounts.

What I was thinking of is implementing some sort of Warning-System. So like, if you've been Inactive for 3+ Months, send an Email to the User notifying their absence.

Something like that anyway.

The method I've mentioned should hopefully alert them and maybe increase their Activity on CF. Of course, there are plenty of other ways to deal with Inactive Accounts.

You realize that Life happens, right?

 

[Dan-Kode]

Do you think you could explain that?

 

[Antero360]

Do you think you could explain that?

Lol. The word "life" speaks for itself...also known as, things that keep us away from our machines. Even when we are at our machines, there are other things that take precedence. Speaking from personal experience, and for myself, I may be at my machine for a good portion of the day, but I am usually busy working that I don't bother to check emails, unless it is from work/client/ or of any sensitive nature. As far as life is concerned, I have had instances where I may be away from my machine for quite a while.

As far as new accounts are concerned, you may want to have a system in place that would verify if the email provided is in use, to minimize the amount of spam accounts, thus reducing the amount of new accounts that do not post.

 

[Antero360]

3 months should be a good filter, but do keep in mind about Life

 

[Dan-Kode]

Lol. The word "life" speaks for itself...also known as, things that keep us away from our machines. Even when we are at our machines, there are other things that take precedence. Speaking from personal experience, and for myself, I may be at my machine for a good portion of the day, but I am usually busy working that I don't bother to check emails, unless it is from work/client/ or of any sensitive nature. As far as life is concerned, I have had instances where I may be away from my machine for quite a while.

Well, yeah. I know that people aren't at their Machines 24/7 and that isn't possible. They could be away for any reason.

But what if there isn't really a reason and they just left. Without a reason, then that's when it'd probably be okay to delete the Account.

 

[Deleted member 65]

CodeForum will decrease its number of registered users. Life happens. I say just leave it alone.

 

[TheUninvited]

I would say better put a status on it (NotActive) instead of deleting their accounts. People would want to come back after years or something you never know.

If(userMissingFor3Months){
putTag(notActive}inb4hisusername
}else{
guesswhatHe'sTillHere
}

Congtz if you can read this ^^

 

[Malcolm]

Thank you for your suggestion!

I'm not if this is a good idea because let's say if the member did come back? Perhaps we could put a limit where if you are more 1 year inactive then your account will be marked inactive and will require you to do additional steps to reactive your account. I believe a simple sign-on would reenable it but not 100% sure.

 

[netsavy006]

What I was thinking of is implementing some sort of Warning-System. So like, if you've been Inactive for 3+ Months, send an Email to the User notifying their absence.

I agree with something like this. If a user has not been on the forum for a period of time, than maybe we can send an email to remind them of their registration to the forum. This may help get some inactive users to come back and post.

 

[Deleted member 65]

Thank you for your suggestion!

I'm not if this is a good idea because let's say if the member did come back? Perhaps we could put a limit where if you are more 1 year inactive then your account will be marked inactive and will require you to do additional steps to reactive your account. I believe a simple sign-on would reenable it but not 100% sure.

Sounds good to me.

 

[Dan-Kode]

Thank you for your suggestion!

I'm not if this is a good idea because let's say if the member did come back? Perhaps we could put a limit where if you are more 1 year inactive then your account will be marked inactive and will require you to do additional steps to reactive your account. I believe a simple sign-on would reenable it but not 100% sure.

Yeah, something like that could definitely work. It would prevent the Account from actually being disabled or deleted and so CF keeps its current Member Count.

CodeForum will decrease its number of registered users. Life happens. I say just leave it alone.

Yeah, it will decrease the amount of Users but who would want a Forum filled to the brim with Inactive Accounts? Having a way to deal with these Accounts would probably be best.

 

[Ghost]

In my opinion, this is something a forum should do maybe once per year. There isn't enough data to slow the database or website down so there's no major downside to having some inactive accounts. We can notify them and attempt to get them back here to engage in the community.

 

[Deleted member 65]

Clean up: once a year. Sounds good to me.

 

[Malcolm]

As of right now, nothing will be done with inactive accounts. However, I do believe that perhaps a system that will remind you to come back online should be implemented. I will look into this but no guarantees this will happen.

 

[Dan-Kode]

As of right now, nothing will be done with inactive accounts. However, I do believe that perhaps a system that will remind you to come back online should be implemented. I will look into this but no guarantees this will happen.

Hm. Well, if that's what you want to do then that's what you want to do. I just Suggested it due to how many Accounts weren't active. A System that can remind you to come back could do but it probably wouldn't be effective. But hey, your choice.

 

[Ghost]

Hm. Well, if that's what you want to do then that's what you want to do. I just Suggested it due to how many Accounts weren't active. A System that can remind you to come back could do but it probably wouldn't be effective. But hey, your choice.

At the end of the day, decisions should always be based on their positive or negative effects. Removing inactive accounts has the benefits of freeing up some database space, and maybe making members feel that an account here is something to use and cherish rather than leave an account with no activity. The downside to this is that there IS a chance that some currently inactive members will come back and find that their account is missing. I myself have been a member on numerous sites with hardly any or even 0 contributions. However, I enjoyed lurking and reading members only content or at least having the opportunity to reply. Every morning I log into Reddit to browse and I usually do not reply to anything. I like subscribing to different topics I enjoy. I would be annoyed if my account was deactivated simply because I chose not to share anything for months at a time.

So the pros and cons can vary, but I believe the upside to allowing these inactive members to come back is worth it. Accounts here are a privilege in a way (follow the rules), and so while it's odd to have inactive accounts, we are still very new so it's not as if they are many years old. As far as database storage, the inactive accounts would need to grow to be about 100,000+ users for us to have to worry about database speeds and efficiency. That's pretty far away, so I don't think inactive accounts are impacting CF enough for us to delete them at this time.