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Eriken
01-11-2004, 11:52 AM
Hehe, is it just me or does there seem to be some sort of automatic script somewhere that creates members on forums?

I guess it is some sort of advertizing stunt? but the member-list on this forum appears to be odd these days ;)

Good thing we don't welcome everyone.. it would look odd, now wouldn't it.. "Welcome to Golden Shower"

oh well :twisted:
_____
Eriken

Traveler
01-11-2004, 12:53 PM
No its not you, I noticed the same thing.

When looking at their websites, obviously most of them are not interested in our community, but only registered to get some traffic.
I doubt its a script though. Because, if that were the case, we would have seen a lot more registrants per day.

It is very likely though, that with the new PGDev we will clean up the database and remove all users that either have not logged in for an x amount of time or who have not participated in forums at all.

MikeS
01-11-2004, 08:56 PM
Yeah, something like if a user doesn't log in every 3-6 months they get their account up for deletion(e-mail warnings first of course ;)). That would be a good idea.

8)

Traveler
01-11-2004, 09:45 PM
e-mail warnings first of course

I realize its sort of a thing where the good suffer from the bad, but to notify spammers about the imminent removal of their account will mostly likely result in more 'bad' accounts.

When people have not been active for like 3 months (meaning not logged in) and have a total of zero posts then it's reasonable to assume that they won't come back at all.

Huehnerschaender
01-11-2004, 11:22 PM
I agree, but don't forget that there is a varity of discussions here in this forum. I always wonder why there are several newbies a week, but no one wants to post anything to my questions. I found out that e.g. my posts are not answered, but read by many people. Maybe the newbies are quite interested in learnig something, but are not qualified to give an answer to the questions "trained" people have.

So there we have to make a consideration, is it a user just reading to get information and learning (I always thought this is one of the reason why forums exist), or is it a user who is posting answers maybe no one needs.

Of course, an alternative is to say that a user who did not post a single thing in 3 months is a "useless" user. But I doubt that deleting them speeds things up !?!?!
So who cares about users who don't post? They are maybe interested in things other people post to learn something about special things!
If a user is absent for months, then I agree.... delete him. It's a thing of two minutes to register again if he is interested again....
Greetings,
Dirk

WILL
02-11-2004, 02:17 AM
Not to worry guys. I have noticed the many suspicious "members" signing up and will be taking action towards this. As for the non-posting members, those that have not posted at all since the beginning of 2003 will have their accounts deleted as they obviously don't need it and is just taking up space. As for maintenance, there will be assigned Caretakers that will have the power to deactivate duplicate accounts(ones that have the exact same name, but with very little variance and registered within the same day. ie. BobTheCoder911 and BobTheCoder69)

If this becomes a bigger problem then we'll have to build an IP blacklist and start cataloging offenders so that if the need arises to report anyone, we have suffecient records.

Robert Kosek
02-11-2004, 02:36 AM
Maybe the newbies are quite interested in learnig something, but are not qualified to give an answer to the questions "trained" people have. :) Like me ... though I do try to help. If you counted how many "unique" hits from me a day ... it would probably be around 15+!

It does seem to be ridiculous that someone would sign up and not post even once ... I only sign up if I may need advice/help. Even so, I wouldn't warn them ... just an "accidental" *CLICK* :wink: