Nominal Members

Discussion in 'THE TEMPLE' started by Hsing, Aug 23, 2005.

  1. Hsing Moderator

    First: Apologies if this is being discussed in another thread already, it escaped me so far.

    I have not an opinion of my own, but seeing how a huge part of the accounts on the old board were only nominal accounts with zero posts, what are we going to do with such nominal members?

    I know quite a few forums where you get deleted after half a year of existing as a nominal member with zero posts. In one case, it wasn't six months, but one. They emailed people before they deleted their accounts, though. I remember one where registering was tied to posting at least once.

    What should we do? Should we do anything at all? To prevent someone from registering nominally to be able to partake in votes, for example?
  2. Marcia Executive Onion

    To carry this to its logical extreme, does this mean that someone should have to make a minimum number of posts before they are eligible to vote?

    Is there much difference between someone posting zero posts, and someone posting a few times with questions about Discworld novels, then not posting anymore when there questions are answered?

    edit: I don't think you should have to post to be registered. I don't think we should discourage lurking. One of the problems we had on the old board was that people posted immediately, without doing any lurking, so that they posted without having learned how to fit in with the community, and then got angry when their posts were criticized. I would rather that people be encouraged to lurk without posting for as long as they want.
  3. Garner Great God and Founding Father

    you don't have to register to lurk, though, do you?
  4. spiky Bar Wench

    [quote:2d86b33520="Garner"]you don't have to register to lurk, though, do you?[/quote:2d86b33520]

    Some boards you do. Its a total pain in the cods but thats how its been set up.

    I think an account with no posts after 6 months is pretty safe to delete (with warning) cos if your not going to post in tat time you'll probably forget your login details and have to set up a new account anyway...
  5. Ba Lord of the Pies

    *Nods* If they haven't posted in six months, they probably aren't going to. Just delete the account. If they want, they can reregister. It frees up the name for someone else to use.
  6. Electric_Man Templar

    I think if you send a PM after 6 months or so, then give them a fortnight to reply to it. If they don't, then it's probably wise to delete it.

    We should put this somewhere in the FAQ so that anyone planning on staying long without posting will be warned.
  7. Buzzfloyd Spelling Bee

    I agree that it should be put in the FAQ. I think a PM warning would be courteous, but I'm not sure that it's necessary - at any rate, I think it warrants only one week's delay.
  8. Garner Great God and Founding Father

    I think one week is too much. clearly, after six months, we should send them a pm and then give them another six months to read that!
  9. Rincewind Number One Doorman

    I think 6 months is too long. If no-one has posted after 3 months, there probably not going to ever bother. I say after 3 months send them an e-mail (not PM) saying there account as been made inactive. The only problem I have with this is that who can be arsed going through the list every 3 months (went we get bigger it will be more often) e-mailing and deteling accounts.
    If mal is the only one who can delete accounts it's alot of work for him. An unfair about of work.
  10. Garner Great God and Founding Father

    it's possible this could be automated a bit, but we should definately wait six months before sending them a PM, and to take what rinso's said on board, that PM can notify them that in three months we'll send out an email and three months after that email maybe we can delete their account if they haven't come round for tea and scones yet
  11. Buzzfloyd Spelling Bee

    I wouldn't mind doing the job of trawling through the accounts and sending the PMs, keeping track of it etc. It doesn't seem that difficult to me.
  12. Electric_Man Templar

    That's quite a good idea actually.

    edit: that was to Garner, not the crossposting fiend (aka Grace)
  13. Maljonic Administrator

    I'm not sure about this; I know of three people on here that haven't posted anything, haven't voted on anything, but still read the stories and play the games. One of them has Discworld books that his dad reads but hasn't gotten around to reading them yet and feels that he's not qualified to post anything, but he still want to be a member in case we want to send him updates and stuff. We might even have a newsletter in the future? I've had a few inquiries in the past on Maljonic's Dreams from people who say they read the message boards but haven't posted anything and wonder if we send out newsletters.

    I've been wondering about people we don't know affecting votes for important things like bannings and thought that maybe we ought to do that the old fashioned way, out in the open yay of nay style, so it can't be tampered with.
  14. Buzzfloyd Spelling Bee

    That would be the point of the PM, Mal. They could send one back saying, "Please don't delete my account, I lurk!" And we'd go, "Oh, OK, that's all right then!"
  15. Rincewind Number One Doorman

    Why not, if possible, just deactivate there accounts, so they can lurk, but not post, maybe sending them a PM saying if you want to post just email. That way, any trolls can't mess us about, but lurkers can lurk til thier hearts are content.
  16. Garner Great God and Founding Father

    why go to the trouble of deactivating their accounts, making htem have to pm someone, and then reactivating it.

    let's not go overboard. After a set period (three months? six months?) we contact people and ask if they still lurk. After a set period (one week? two?) if they have not replied then we delete the account to free up the name for someone else.

    that's what seems a sensible procedure to me.

    the question is, is the whole darned concept sensible? as mal says, some people register just to lurk, for whatever reason. maybe they want to post in the future. i dont think we need to hassle them about it.

    as for voting.... if we voted openly, then yes, there wouldn't be any real concerns other than sleepers, but that's another issue altogether, and one we can combat easily enough now that we can check IP numbers.

    the bit that throws me is a newsletter. what in lord Ba's name would we say? "This week, we started X silly threads and Y petty arguements. Garner said this which was sensible, but also said THIS, that, those, and a whole heap of other stuff that wasnt. Rinso made N typos, Buzzfloyd made Q good points, of which, (Q - 1) were ignored, and credit for the other was given to someone else."
  17. sleepy_sarge New Member

    [quote:5c9d096621="Garner"]the bit that throws me is a newsletter. what in lord Ba's name would we say? "This week, we started X silly threads and Y petty arguements. Garner said this which was sensible, but also said THIS, that, those, and a whole heap of other stuff that wasnt. Rinso made N typos, Buzzfloyd made Q good points, of which, (Q - 1) were ignored, and credit for the other was given to someone else."[/quote:5c9d096621]

    Am I alone in thinking that this sounds great - just like it is there?

    I am?

    Oh ok
  18. Rincewind Number One Doorman

    Ironically,I made M typos, but someone made a typo on the amount of typos I made. :roll:
  19. Garner Great God and Founding Father

    heh. to both of you. HEH i say!
  20. colonesque10 New Member

    [quote:e76c671344="Garner"]let's not go overboard. After a set period (three months? six months?) we contact people and ask if they still lurk. After a set period (one week? two?) if they have not replied then we delete the account to free up the name for someone else.

    that's what seems a sensible procedure to me.[/quote:e76c671344]

    I agree with this because it would stop the memberlist from getting clutterted up with posters who longer post or haven't done for over three months. The only slight problem occurs when someone is gone for a long portion of time but wishes to return in the future. If they don't check the boards and have maybe changed their e-mail address then they won't know about the PM. But I would still be willing to risk this for the tidiness of the board. :)

    Also I was wondering if there were going to be intervals when new moderators would maybe be voted for in the future in a sort of election way. If this has already been discussed I apologise. :)
  21. Rincewind Number One Doorman

    Once we get things sorted, There will be proper mod elections. Then, i guess as the place grows more mods will be added as the need arises?
  22. Garner Great God and Founding Father

    Seeing as mods are basicly castrated "sweepers" anyway, I don't know what good having more of them will be. But, as rinso says, we'll settle on permanant mod appointments later on once we've actually got rules in place

    I'd like to ask, more clearly right now, do we NEED to tidy up our member list? The only pressing reason for it is to prevent voter fraud, correct?
  23. Rincewind Number One Doorman

    I say more later, becuase as the community grows there will be more 'sweeping' to be done. If there is laods of this, all the sweepers time will be spent doing these little crappy jobs instead of posting. But this is later once (if) we have a massive community.

    I, personally, don't really see the point in tiding up the list. We don't really need it to protect voting (and it wouldn't) it will free up names and make the member list more accurate, but for the effort involved i don't think it's worth it. But if people want to do it, I have no real objections.
  24. Garner Great God and Founding Father

    well, i don't have any major objections or any major reasons to go ahead with it. frankly, if we wanted to keep an active member list, why not just keep track of who's posted in the past three months and have that be the list?
  25. colonesque10 New Member

    [quote:c2994eb800="Rincewind"]I, personally, don't really see the point in tiding up the list. We don't really need it to protect voting (and it wouldn't) it will free up names and make the member list more accurate.[/quote:c2994eb800]

    This is kind of what I meant when i said tiding up the memberlist, so that we know what size of an active community we have.

    The point I was making about the sweepers (mods) was that if we don't have some kind of bi-annual or more frequent look at the current sweepers then it doesn't give anyone else who may wish to be a sweeper a chance at becoming one. Maybe people who have joined since the election or whatever. :)
  26. sleepy_sarge New Member

    [quote:1e0cbd8b1b="Rincewind"]
    We don't really need it to protect voting [/quote:1e0cbd8b1b]

    I posted this elsewhere - but are we sure anonymous folks can't vote? Reason I ask is that they can clearly comment on writing (Buzzfloyd Ch 3 today).

    It would make a difference between being an issue or a non-issue
  27. Maljonic Administrator

    [quote:60cf8e261a="sleepy_sarge"][quote:60cf8e261a="Rincewind"]
    We don't really need it to protect voting [/quote:60cf8e261a]

    I posted this elsewhere - but are we sure anonymous folks can't vote? Reason I ask is that they can clearly comment on writing (Buzzfloyd Ch 3 today).

    It would make a difference between being an issue or a non-issue[/quote:60cf8e261a]Why don't you just log out and see?

    Also, if we like, we can disable anonymous comments on stories?
  28. sleepy_sarge New Member

    [quote:92e508daff="Maljonic"]Why don't you just log out and see?

    Also, if we like, we can disable anonymous comments on stories?[/quote:92e508daff]

    :oops: errr I was just testing to see if you would ask me that.

    Well I did, and you can't vote. You just see the results
  29. Garner Great God and Founding Father

    Right. the question still stands, should we delete inactive accounts?

    I think it's unnecessary. If we want a list of the active posters, it won't be any more difficult to keep track of who HAS posted in the past three months than who HAS NOT.

    I know there's a risk of sleepers that could foul a vote, but there's just as big a risk of sleepers that could be actively posting but waiting to cause trouble at a later date (We've seen it happen before!).
  30. roisindubh211 New Member

    [quote:d7c18e510c="Maljonic"][quote:d7c18e510c="sleepy_sarge"][quote:d7c18e510c="Rincewind"]
    We don't really need it to protect voting [/quote:d7c18e510c]

    I posted this elsewhere - but are we sure anonymous folks can't vote? Reason I ask is that they can clearly comment on writing (Buzzfloyd Ch 3 today).

    It would make a difference between being an issue or a non-issue[/quote:d7c18e510c]Why don't you just log out and see?

    Also, if we like, we can disable anonymous comments on stories?[/quote:d7c18e510c]

    I dont' know how the comment thing works, exactly, but it did ask for my login. Thats why I was surprised it didn't show who commented.
    So you need a login to post, but it won't necessarily show who did it.
  31. Maljonic Administrator

    You probably ticked the box to post annonymously?


    I don't think we need to delete accounts that haven't posted anything.
  32. Rincewind Number One Doorman

    Yeah, seems like needless effort to me.
  33. Orrdos God

    I cant honestly see a any need at all to delete those sort of accounts.

    Seems pointless to me
  34. TamyraMcG Active Member

    I don't see all that much point either. As far as freeing up a nickname for another user, well what if a perfectly nice newbit chose a name that a hideous troll had worn? I think there is more to be gained by just letting the names build up for a while at least. I do think that the baldfaced paypal spammers should have their names removed along with their posts. If they actually want to join the community the least they could do is come up with a new name.
  35. Ba Lord of the Pies

    Eh, Ba can see the point of deleting accounts that have no posts attached to them. It wouldn't be all that difficult to do, and people actually planning on posting might want to use the names. If the person who originally made the account hasn't posted with it, then there's no reason to keep it around.
  36. Maljonic Administrator

    What sort of names are we talking about here that people can't be original enough to come up with a name nobody else has ever used? Do you mean like if someone wanted to be Ridcully but couldn't because someone else has already used it, or are we talking about things like David or Roger so they don't have to be David66 or whatever?
  37. colonesque10 New Member

    [quote:e07377973e="Ba"]Eh, Ba can see the point of deleting accounts that have no posts attached to them. It wouldn't be all that difficult to do, and people actually planning on posting might want to use the names. If the person who originally made the account hasn't posted with it, then there's no reason to keep it around.[/quote:e07377973e]

    I agree with Ba on this matter. :)

    How difficult and time consuming is it to delete an account Mal? Is it a long drawn out procedure or is it just a couple of clicks of the mouse? I think this should be taken into consideration if we were to wish to persue this thought any further.
  38. Garner Great God and Founding Father

    how difficult and time consuming is it to delete an account? automatically more time consuming than it is not to delete one.

    if people are going to burry unused accounts to foul a vote or similar, then deleting them after three months isn't going to matter. people are prepared to cause trouble and will do so whatever it takes.

    i dunno, i don't see any significant reason to go to any effort on this
  39. Maljonic Administrator

    And besides, it's not the deleting accounts that takes a long time - that takes about 5 - 10 seconds - it's the arsing about deciding who should be deleted, looking through the member lists all the time, sending them messages if they haven't posted, then deliberating on whether or not they should be deleted. For every single person that doesn't post after three months (or whatever), there could/will be hundreds of them eventually. I just don't see the point in creating all that extra work just to free up a few names? :)
  40. Marcia Executive Onion

    There are also people who disappear for various personal reasons and then return. Trollmother, for example.
  41. colonesque10 New Member

    I stand corrected :D

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