Memberlist Pruning

[Arcada]

This morning I was asked to delete a user who had a link to an undesirable website in their user profile.

I of course did this straight away but it raised an important issue - even although we (the moderators / admins) strictly moderate first posts to make sure no spammers get through, any information they submit on their profiles remains visible. Not to the general public, as only members can view the member list and profiles, but other members can still see them.

So, I took the decision to purge the memberslist of all members with 0 posts. This reduced the memberslist from 670 to 375, keeping only members who have actually made a post.

Unfortunately there were a few names which looked real and could have been actual people, who had registered and never got around to posting (i.e. "lurkers"). Such users will always be casualties of such purgings, and will have to re-register if they wish to post.

Purging the memberslist in this way is something I'll probably start doing on a regular basis, to keep the memberslist clean and also so that the members figure reflects an accurate figure.

[smitbar]

Good idea Marc

Could you not set up a>>"membership requires approval by a moderator / admin"<< like some other forums have? You can then vet prospective members before they get an activation link.
That really sorts out the undesirables. I joined here very easily, with only a '1st post requires approval'..

[smitbar]

Thinking about it, even enabling a 'membership requires approval' cannot really fully vet a prospective member as they can add links to their websites, good or bad, at any time. It is a tricky one..

[B.J.Weston]

Nice to know we're being looked after.Well done Mark.

[Arcada]

Could you not set up a>>"membership requires approval by a moderator / admin"<< like some other forums have? You can then vet prospective members before they get an activation link.
That really sorts out the undesirables. I joined here very easily, with only a '1st post requires approval'..

We could, but that would be a lot more time consuming (and it's already a lot to do just approving first posts).

For every spammer that tries to post, there are 20 that try to register. It's a lot easier for the admin team to stop the posts becoming public, than to try to vet prospective members as part of the registration process.

As it is registration is a 2 step process, requiring verification through a valid email address, which weeds out quite a lot as well. There are always quite a lot of inactive members, i.e. tried to register but not yet clicked on the activation email.

There are a host of other options, for example suspending viewable member profiles and inclusion in memberlist until first post approval, but again these are modifications which would be a) time consuming to implement and b) would require testing / updating every time the forum software was updated.

[Admin]

Good action Marc, It was getting a bit thick for sure, 16 pages of members is much easier to deal with than 29!!! Zero posters are not a worthy compliment to the site, so 'win it or bin it' is a good idea!! Regards, from snowing London! Bob

[Donny Johnston]

Well done guys. I wouldn't want your job. Thank you.

[Arcada]

A further 106 zero post users have been pruned this morning.

[Arcada]

A further 158 zero post users have been pruned today.

Our newest member Zgwqkmmmza.....?
Really?
oh yeah, our passports all have yesterdays date on them.