user names

[kleinma]

I would suggest deleting user names of members that have not logged in in.. oh i dont know.. a year???

so many people make 1 stop here.. register.. maybe dont even post.. and thats it...

it would open up more common names for new members, as well as clean up to give an accurate number of the real member base we have... although i dont think this will happen since I am sure the higher ups want an inflated member base to attract more people

[Memnoch1207]

I agree...considering the member count shows almost 40,000 and the most ever online at one time shows 156....inflated indeed.

[kleinma]

its pretty sad.. i just checked some numbers...

We have 39,995 registered members...

of that (and this is give or take with a range of about 5 to 10 members)

Members with 0 posts: 11,100
Members with 1 post: 8,820
Members with 10 or less posts: 32,570
Members with 100 or less posts: 38,060

that means out of 40,000 members only a little under 2,000 post over 100 times... and only about 7,500 post more than 10 times. that is pretty sad... and it very much misrepresents the member base of the forum...

[MartinLiss]

Originally posted by kleinma
its pretty sad.. i just checked some numbers...

We have 39,995 registered members...

of that (and this is give or take with a range of about 5 to 10 members)

Members with 0 posts: 11,100
Members with 1 post: 8,820
Members with 10 or less posts: 32,570
Members with 100 or less posts: 38,060

that means out of 40,000 members only a little under 2,000 post over 100 times... and only about 7,500 post more than 10 times. that is pretty sad... and it very much misrepresents the member base of the forum...

While we definately have many (probably thousands) of non-active users you need to keep in mind that a lot of posts were lost last November(?) so the stats you show are not accurate.

[kleinma]

Originally posted by MartinLiss
While we definately have many (probably thousands) of non-active users you need to keep in mind that a lot of posts were lost last November(?) so the stats you show are not accurate.

i think a good amount of people that lost their posts got them reset to the correct amount (which were the people that had a lot of posts) people that didnt ask were inactive members that probably didnt have any posts to start with

in any event.. do you see them doing anything about this?I just noticed that I didn't answer your question. However I can't speak for the admins but I assume one of them will see this thread and post a response.

[MartinLiss]

Can you determine the number of users that have posted this year and the number of posts they have made this year?

[MartinLiss]

Originally posted by kleinma
i think a good amount of people that lost their posts got them reset to the correct amount (which were the people that had a lot of posts) people that didnt ask were inactive members that probably didnt have any posts to start with

in any event.. do you see them doing anything about this?

In your stats did you count actual posts or did you add up the listed post counts? The former will be less than the latter because no posts were actually restored.

[MartinLiss]

I just noticed that I didn't answer your question. I can't speak for the admins but I assume that one of them will see this thread and post a response.

[kleinma]

Martin. I did it by going to the members area.. and clicking on top 10 posters.. because that sorts the member list by post count.. i got the totals in there by finding where the posts went from 0 to 1 and subtracting that from the total pages.. and multiplying by 10.. because there are 10 members on each page...

[MartinLiss]

Originally posted by kleinma
Martin. I did it by going to the members area.. ...

I don't know the basis of those counts. I assume it could be either of the two ways that I mentioned. In any case, yes, I agree that the VBF member count is considerably overstated.

Also there's always brand G where people for whatever reason carried over their VBF post counts

[kleinma]

our top 2 posters arent even active members anymore

actually a good amount of the top 20 are no longer active members

[MartinLiss]

I know, and one of them was a Moderator.

[The Hobo]

I too think this would be a good idea. I think it'd be safe to delete users who haven't posted since like 2001. I think two years would be enough to assume they're gone for good.

You could even send a warning email to the email addresses of the individuals giving them 30 days notice.

It might actually help bring some members back who may have forgotten about the site.

[NotLKH]

I think that unforeseen problems could pop up by "deleteing" Users, since I assume what is actually being discussed is deleting user accounts.

Not that it would happen, but since their posts would remain, the database might get screwed up, similar to the glitch from last year, when users got corrupted.

Also, there would seem to be the chance of Human error creeping in, whereby a currently active user might get deleted accidently, either by having a similar name to that of an inactive user, or by just bad luck.

Personally, I'd like to see a special User Status pop up Automatically, perhaps "Inactive", and there would be a counter displaying all the counts of User Status.

[The Hobo]

It would leave a lot of blank posts (like we have now (just user name)), but why would that be a problem? The content of the post would still be there.

And there wouldn't be human error if a script does it. Simularities would not matter.

[brad jones]

There are a number of issues raised in this thread. Martin touched on answers to some of them. The database reset that was done before Jupitermedia obtained the site, plus the manual reset of posting numbers really mess up a lot of the stats on who has done what. The fact that posts were lost also messes up the real historical information for the site in regard to posts and posters.

This issue of deleting accounts is one that is not easily addressed. There are reasons for deleting accounts and reasons for leaving them.

Deleting an account that has posted would remove the historical information from the poster. You'd no longer know who originally posted the message or what their profile was. This is information I personally believe worth retaining.

It is actually surprising how many people do come back after being gone for a year or more. I see this all the time on CodeGuru. I see it less here, but then the technical sections of this forum aren't as active as CodeGuru.

One thing that wasn't mentioned in this thread is the concept of lurkers. There are a number of lurkers that visit this forum as well as the CodeGuru forum that I oversee. In fact, I've talked to people on some of the key Microsoft development teams that lurk in the forums I oversee. They generally don't post; however, they read the key forum threads and review the questions being answered. There are lots of other lurkers as well. Because they haven't posted, doesn't mean that they aren't members. These are accounts that shouldn't be deleted.

I generally look at "new members" and "new posts" for a feel of how the board is doing. Even these number can be misleading; however, they are good indicators of how the board is doing.

I don't know if I've answered the questions that were posted. Once this board is upgraded to version 3 of vBulletin (not sure when), then I'll see if we can do some clean up of the database and membership IDs.

Brad

[Edneeis]

Originally posted by kleinma
its pretty sad.. i just checked some numbers...

We have 39,995 registered members...

of that (and this is give or take with a range of about 5 to 10 members)

Members with 0 posts: 11,100
Members with 1 post: 8,820
Members with 10 or less posts: 32,570
Members with 100 or less posts: 38,060

that means out of 40,000 members only a little under 2,000 post over 100 times... and only about 7,500 post more than 10 times. that is pretty sad... and it very much misrepresents the member base of the forum...

The math on this doesn't add up, is that just from the DB flop? I mean it says 39,995 members but then you have add up the members with X posts you get 90,550 members.

[MartinLiss]

Originally posted by Edneeis
The math on this doesn't add up, is that just from the DB flop? I mean it says 39,995 members but then you have add up the members with X posts you get 90,550 members.

Well it may not be exact, but you need to realize that for example the 38,060 people with 100 or less include the 32,570 with 10 or less, etc. so you can't add up those figures.

[Edneeis]

Ok I see I didn't realize that the one was inclusive of the other.

[kleinma]

Originally posted by Edneeis
Ok I see I didn't realize that the one was inclusive of the other.

oh well.. i guess its not going to happen.. although i bet even with "lurkers" there are still thousands of users that have not logged in in some time