Re: potentially contravirtial: should we purge the forum of 0posters

What exactly would banning those accounts accomplish? They're not posting anyway, and if you ban them, they'll still be in the database as unusable names. So you won't cut down on spam and you won't save space in the database. If one of the mods could provide even just one good reason for this, I'd be very thankful.

Deleting, meanwhile, seems more reasonable. At least that way the name will be available for use again. It can either be used by some new person, or the previous owner if it turns out they want to start participating on the forum. It's unlikely accounts take much space up on the server, but if there's plenty of them, it might still be a good way to save a few megabytes. Every bit helps, right?

However, I disagree with the criteria for banning. I personally think it shouldn't be based on when the account was created, since as posts #6 and #10 already pointed out, a person could create an account just to have the handy perks of being able to easily check new posts, having 75 posts on one page, giving thumbs up to posts they like, sending private messages, etc. I used to lurk for quite a bit before I found a topic I wanted to post in, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Instead, if mods have access to that info, they should check when the user last logged in. If that was a long time ago, then it's probably safe to delete the account. That time should be at least 6 months, though I'd prefer 9 or even 12.

This, of course, doesn't apply to spambots. Any account that's already banned stays banned and shouldn't be deleted. But we can probably assume that those accounts that have 0 posts but aren't banned aren't spambots, since they'd likely be banned otherwise. Of course, a spambot or two might end up getting deleted this way, but if they could make it this long without spamming, they're bad at their job anyway. So if they end up recreating the account to continue being a silent, useless robot, that's fine. I won't judge ... much.

Other websites that delete accounts after a long inactivity usually send the user a warning first. So if it would be possible to modify the forum's code so it would send an automatic email once someone with 0 posts has been inactive for long enough, that'd be cool. However, that seems unlikely to happen.

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