How About A Member Purge

[Gregg A 0]

I've noticed some other sites that I'm on have an annual purge of members from the data base of folks who havent posted within the past year, people that sign up and are never heard from again, and so forth. They do this so they can have an accurate count of active members on the board. They will send out an automated email to every member that has signed up to make a post or cyanara (sp). If the email address they used is no good, it's an automatic purge. If they dont make a post within the allotted time, they get the purge.

 

Just an idea.

[uncletube 0]

I am guilty of not posting in the last year however that doesnt mean that I dont come to this site and browse it fairly often. So I take it that you would still purge me as a member of FTF . Bite me!!

Tube

[Guest]

Yea, I am personally not a big fan of purging members simply because a big majority of people just browse the site and even more than that just post during the winter.

[Alex C. 0]

If Will were worried about the total number of members he would probably already be doing what you're talking about. But I don't think Will is too concerned with how many people are active or not. I think it's obvious to everyone who's been a part of this site for the past couple years that this site is growing at a rapid rate.

[Flytyer-1 0]

Gregg A,

 

I do not understand what difference it makes to you if "lurkers" are purged or not? The number of "non-posters" visiting the site doesn't matter to me. Obviously, they do not add to the discusssion. However, perhaps their greatest contribution is their silence!! Just curious.

 

Happy New Year to All!!

 

Best from Nasvhille-

 

Stack Scoville

[Gregg A 0]

I never said anything about lurkers. I am refering to the people who have registered and made a post or two and disapear, or sign up and have no activity since then, or no longer have a valid email address.

 

How friggin hard is it to make one post a year if you just lurk? Or even just log on?

 

And how accurate is it to say we have 7301 members but only maybe a couple hundred have contributed to any posts or even log in in a years time?

 

I wasnt meaning purge those who dont log on or post very often, I was refering to those who havent posted or logged in in a couple years. I dont think you can consider someone a member if they joined on July 1 of 2004, or 05, and havent done anything since? Can you?

 

If someone just comes to lurke and doesnt post or log on, what difference does it make if they are purged or not? They can still read the posts. And if they want to sign up again they can do that.

 

Besides, this is just an idea and my 2 cents worth. Will will do what he feels is appropiate for the site, and has done a great job at it. I'm just throwing the idea out there.

[Ephemerella 0]

[sounds of a good spam fight coming...]

There are only 2 reasons to purge the list.

First is the disk storage on the server for each user. I suspect that with today's outrageously cheap disk storage ($200 per TERAbyte) and only 7000 or so members this is not a problem. Plus, we really can't purge the member list completely as the avatar and poster info needs to be maintained forever, so that archived postings show this information (it is stored separately from the postings, and included by reference upon creation of the HTML for the page when viewed -- note the avatars change on old postings to the latest one for the poster)

 

Second is the accuracy of the member count. Not sure it matters, unless we are competing for members with other forums, say to sell advertising. Anyway, most internet site ad rates are based on actual measured visits rather than on estimated viewing rates like TV or radio, or actual auditable subscriber counts like print media. Since we have only 2 sponsors (J. Stockard, and FTF calender sales), neither of whom seem to be charged by viewing rate, but instead bear the entire cost of the operation, this means keeping the member roster accurate is only an academic exercise.

 

Certainly this could be done, given our forum admins make such a lucrative salary managing the site, and have so much spare time between board meetings, jetting off to the Cayman Islands, and wining and dining congressmen, ... oh, I was thinking of Donald Trump or Bill Gates,... anyway, I'd put member purge on the bottom of SmallieHunter's "list" of things to do.

 

My $0.02 worth.

Happy New Year from Cow Hampshire!

-E