Topic: Nuking inactive brand news after x time (Read 245 times)

This can result in lot of confusion. For instance, an inactive member coming after some time and wanting his account back. However, if the servers are stressed with new registrations, this might help.

I disagree (although strictly you are right). The fear is only just when nobody acts upon it to prevent it from becoming a sliding scale and keeping it that way if needed.




That is what it's all about right? I don't see much wrong with administrative termination for a category of users that do not engage in similar activity but I realize that sounds really fascist too.




As far as I know the same posting restrictions for brand news (or any other rank) apply to pm's as well. Assuming it's true, is this forum for people who wish to send 1 pm every 360 seconds?




Well sure, marketing and who knows what else may pose valid points I do not know, have not considered and cannot speak about. Maybe it's a dud because keeping registrations serves a purpose that outweighs the usefulness of a periodic sweep. Then again, maybe not. Much is still unclear for me.

I was laughing about it when I wrote it, happy you enjoyed it, too.


It certainly could be, but my fear is that the same logic that would be used to implement such a rule in the first place would be the same logic to implement a sliding scale.


I knew I was the butt of a joke, I could just feel it. No offense taken, you have to be able to laugh at yourself. I should have known this already, and I could've easily just logged out and checked. This is a much more intriguing exchange than I had earlier; at least we are bouncing ideas back and forth, building off of something and probably both have something positive to take away.

I just remember being on other forums where there were developers, merchants and many users that never posted publicly and remained active within PMs; everyone approaches things their own way. Although, as you pointed out earlier it might be fair to just mark those that haven't been accessed at all since their registration. For example, we could potentially still implement what you're suggesting if we count PMs as activity for this one proposal. As you said, it's at their discretion, but I think it could be done with strict limits and fair rules.


As long as we're counting PMs in the equation, then I can't see much harm in this (unless we're both missing something); other than the total registered users, which as Jet said might affect marketing, but I would be willing to bet this would be minimal and most likely negligible. It might be something worth doing when we migrate over to the new forum software.

I gave you an extra merit for that.



The line could be drawn with brand new users that have not shown any activity six months since the moment of registration. Not nessecarily a sliding scale.
 


I may have been a little sarcastic and do not seek to offend you. The 'PM option' I have not considered. It's interesting. I guess it's at the discretion of the ones that run this forum. I don't really see the point but can imagine it's uses. It is of course true that nobody that moves within the limits of what is allowed on this forum should in any way be affected.




A brand new user that starts aspiring after six months can sign up again. I believe that is not unreasonable as a limit. I also think there is not much harm in removing older brand new inactive accounts.

Cut me some slack, I was trying to show my support without diving head first before knowing the facts.


That would depend on the restriction and who is defining "reasonable", but of course you are speaking of the restriction of a "mandatory minimum" and we are the ones defining reasonable. I would say that it probably is unreasonable in this context, because if we start by requiring just a single post (as that is what is required from Brand New > Newbie) to remove these bad-apples, then what is stopping incremental increases in this minimum requirement of participation? As these bad-apples get more savvy and start making their single post, wouldn't it be reasonable to increase this number in order to continue reasonable enforcement of this proposal? There would be no stopping this.


I am not entirely sure, this is what I meant by I need more information and research, because it might be the case that the forum is limited. If you are asking me sarcastically because you already know the answer is no, then I am sorry for missing that. The word "need" is something I have been disagreeing with people about all day, but if you mean it how it is defined then no, at face value I would say we do not need lurkers or almost anyone for that matter. I acknowledge that my anecdote wasn't in the scope of what is being proposed, so perhaps I should've kept it to myself, but there is the possibility that certain users only operate via PM instead of public posts. Since it is unlikely such a person would ever come forward, would it be fair to shun these people for trying to remain out of the public eye?


Fair enough, I can agree to that. You are right about the distinctions there. This still would inevitably put more of a workload on the moderators, whenever an aspiring user does have the ambitions to reactivate/renew. Although, I agree that this would help minimize the cost to our staff. That might be a fair rule if you signed up under that being the case, but then would it be fair to retroactively impose this on already created accounts that never agreed to such a thing?


I was building off an incorrect assumption, after I had failed to see the distinction between renewal and deletion, which was certainly my error. So, this would not be an agreement as you've pointed out. My mistake!
Assuming this is an end to it all, then yes the resources it would cost would be trivial; although, I can't say that I believe this to be the case.

Interesting. Where did you learn this?

Every idea might be a good idea if it needs more information and research.



Is it unreasonable to put restrictions on usage and leave the responsibilty for complying to these restrictions with the user, rather than anyone else?



Is the forum in fact restricted in terms of visibility for non-registered visitors, or: does the forum need 'lurkers'? (Your opinion on losing your account is apreciated but lies outside the scope of this thread.)



Renewal/reactivation implies the account remains active as a part of the forum and one could imagine certain (moderated) action following from this state. This is not the same state as being wiped from the registry. This has other implications which, oposite to not being wiped demand an action from a aspiring user rather than a moderator. Anyone who signs up is responsible for its own account and one of the terms for using this forum could be 'if you sign up and don't use your account for six months we'll delete your account'.




That's not a conclusion, that's rhetorical(-ish). I fail to see how we (me and him) agree here and moreover why it's identified as an agreement to go for the path of the least resistance and, more boldly, that not wasting forum resources is a trivial means to an end of it all.  

Not wasting forum resources is a good thing I think.

If the scammers tried to log-in in any of these 2014 accounts they will automatically banned/locked since accounts were created before or on 2015 were comprimised due the system breach in the forum resulting leakage of login information of all members in this forum.

And some brand new accounts were once an active account but they are nuked and banned by forum moderators for violating rules and regulations of this forum. I personally don't mind it though

I don't know how the forum finances work, but sometimes advertising revenue is based on the number of registered members, and the number of posts as well as the numberof banner impressions.

This very well might be a good idea, but we would need more information and research on the demographics and account usage of scammers/spammers/impersonators before we could implement this as a solution against those people. It is an interesting idea, but it comes with its own problems. For example, in the past I have went 6-months or more without touching my account here, because of family issues, traveling, things that needed my attention. It would have been a shame to come back to a deleted account.

I know you are talking about brand new accounts, not Hero's like me, I am just giving my input on how I would feel losing my account. There are many old-time lurkers that wouldn't be too happy about this, but then again they could just remake their brand-new accounts. This would add extra strain on forum resources, technology and personnel; strain that may not be worth it.


If an account is Brand New, and has not visited the forum in X amount of months it may be entirely fair to delete their account. Again though, this might alienate our longtime quiet lurkers that want nothing except their peace and quiet while they read around. They may have an impressive Watch Board, built up over years, set-up that would be wiped clean if they get nuked


I found it very interesting to follow this train of thought. You start by asking the question, which is a fair question, then you clarify some parameters for your idea, but then you basically shoot down your own idea and I think you do it without even realizing it. If users are nuked after 6-months of inactivity, this would effectively be the same as a 'renewal' period, except instead of an admin renewing your account it would be one simple post that effectively renews it. So while I agree that this renewal period wouldn't address the situation, I think your suggestion of nuking inactive accounts after X time fails to accomplish the same thing.


This is a wash as they call it. Both sides come to the conclusion that there is no difference going to be made from the proposal, and therefore we probably should go with the path of least resistance and not waste forum resources until we determine that it would actually accomplish the goal.

Could a blacklist offside this?

And if an aged account isn't particular popular, how could a reboot of it be any more effective? Especially with the merit system being in place?

It wouldn't make it that much harder for account farmers. If you were to nuke those brand news, they would just post a random post somewhere in the offtopic or something and they can effectively circumvent this restriction. As far as I can tell, aged account which isn't at least a full member isn't particularly popular anywhere, especially with the introduction of merit system.

They aren't noticed till they are brought to attention by either the victims or someone who isn't so gullible.

It's not so much freeing up as it is eliminating a possible entry for farmers. Yes, nicks can be reused to perpetuate possibly the scam the previous registered nick tried to purport. How realistic is that in regards to the ears and eyes that are everywhere?

Accounts like: https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/kncmining0p-494508

Deleting them would result in another person being able to use them and attempt another scam. There isn't a way to separate a brand new account and a nuked one.

Why would you want to free them up after a period of inactivity. I don't think getting a specific nickname here is that important. If anything, it would just add onto the forum's workload to implement something like this.

So nobody's hurt when they're nuked either?


Impersonate what exactly? An inactive account without any recognizable features other than a nick?

What opportunity stems from that?

The brand new accounts doesn't affect anyone in any way.

Some of those accounts could've been nuked before after say, a spam or an impersonation attempt. If they were to be freed up, then it would open up opportunities for others to impersonate that person.

How so? Nuking opens up for re-registering and when someone does wouldn't the same (restrictions) apply?

Providing 3 month 'renewal' periods wouldn't address the situation, it just divides it up time frames.

Marketing stats? Why is this important? (im not against it, i just dont know anything about that)

Deleting them might give some problems if the name was re-registered. It would also drop the member count, and that might affect the marketing stats for the forum.

I would sugest that an account needs to be re-activated by an admin if it has been unused for (say) 3 months. That might affect the farmers. By "unused" I mean no visits, and not just no posts.

another possible reason is they registered from bad ip address that has some evil points
they don't want to pay the amount, abandon the account and try register again from different ip

Well that's what I'm talking about: how about nuking brand news that have remained inactive for an X amount of time.

Is it unreasonable to wipe a registration after an inactivity of, for example, 6 months?

I suspect some of them are created by account farmers who want to give some age to the account. I'm not sure how you select those. Some valuable new members may sign up, and just read posts for some time before jumping in to add their own posts.

Today I looked up myself in the members section and got a whole list of results containing the letter combo which is essentially my nick.



What caught my eye was the amount of brand new accounts registering at some point but remaining inactive, some as far back as 2014.



I am wondering if it would be of use to the forum to nuke brand new accounts that haven't shown any sign of activity for an x amount of time.

Or would that simply entice scammers to register, post once and then let it dormant?

Thoughts?