Communities that remove fairly new users

md16185 · Post by **md16185** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 10:10 pm

I have seen a variety of forums, than ban ppl for posing too often, or just for being fairly new, even if they don't post inappropriate pics or flood with non-existant links.. That looks to me like they don't want users.

Another pet peeve of mine, is when people are "too busy" to create a profile...

Jim_UK · Post by **Jim_UK** » Tue Jan 01, 2008 12:12 pm

It does seem strange that anyone would ban a user for being "new" - as you say just like they do not want new users.
I wonder if the failure to complete the profile may be due to them not understanding that there is more to the profile than that they entered at registration. It may be that their only interest in discussion forums lies with the one they have just joined and so may not be familiar with their usage.
My son has the "country flags" mod on his site and it makes it look as though he has vast numbers of members from Afghanistan as that is the first on the list.

Jim

Post by **Brf** » Tue Jan 01, 2008 12:30 pm

I hardly ever bother with profiles. Most of my users do not bother with them either, or fill them in with humorous infomation, rather than the true stuff.

md16185 · Post by **md16185** » Tue Jan 01, 2008 6:00 pm

that's kinda lame, I would think ya would want ppl to get to know ya...

The Awesomest Dude · Post by **The Awesomest Dude** » Fri Jan 04, 2008 3:10 pm

md16185 wrote:I have seen a variety of forums, than ban ppl for posing too often, or just for being fairly new, even if they don't post inappropriate pics or flood with non-existant links.. That looks to me like they don't want users.

For real? I've never known that to happen but that's pretty lame. If they don't want users, they should turn off new registrations. They shouldn't be doing that to people.

Which site(s) did that, BTW, if I might ask?

md16185 wrote:Another pet peeve of mine, is when people are "too busy" to create a profile...

Some people have various reasons for not filling out certain things.

On my board (which can be viewed on my signature), I have found that most people fill in the Location, the Gender, and sometimes the Occupation and/or Interests.

The Birthday one came from a MOD which I couldn't get to do right for a long time. I recently got it fixed and a few people have since started putting that.

Website cannot be filled out at Registration, on my board. I installed a MOD that hides it to keep spammers out. Of course I'm still having problems with spammers but I'm about to install something I DL'ed here the other day that will HOPEFULLY put a stop to that.

The Name and Description are also not functioning at the moment although I know exactly what is wrong with them, I just have to find the time to finish fixing it...

Anyway, but then on some other sites, there are many people who don't fill out any of it. I guess it just kinda depends on what they want to do, LOL People can be that way.

Liquinn · Post by **Liquinn** » Fri Jan 04, 2008 8:06 pm

I wouldn't do this, since it stops the community growing.

md16185 · Post by **md16185** » Fri Jan 04, 2008 10:24 pm

Is that why the discussion forums is for things to talk about, not just general or ranndom stuff, or like 3-4 topics on multiple things..

webmastermarty · Post by **webmastermarty** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 4:27 pm

I guess they're just scared of SPAM, or something... That's silly though, then they wonder why there forum is inactive in the end lol.

drathbun · Post by **drathbun** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 6:43 pm

Jim_UK wrote:My son has the "country flags" mod on his site and it makes it look as though he has vast numbers of members from Afghanistan as that is the first on the list.

The first flag should be "Not Selected".

That's what I did when I wrote my own, and it works well. I use the built-in "spacer.gif" that comes with subSilver as the substitute flag graphic for those that have not selected one.

Back on topic; I have never seen a board that deletes new users. I have myself written code that deletes new users that never activate, but that's different. Anyone that activates their account remains as a user unless they spam the board.

Ryan_W · Post by **Ryan_W** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 11:41 am

This could probably be due to the fact that they are not too bothered about the growth of their community and they wish to avoid spam on their forum.

god0fgod · Post by **god0fgod** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 4:30 pm

They should alter the registration page to say "Go away!".

Ishimaru Chiaki · Post by **Ishimaru Chiaki** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:10 am

Deleting new users in a blind way is not correct. But on the other side, keeping users (even if they aren't bots and are activated) who don't post any message and who don't come back again is not better because it gives a wrong idea of the community's actual size.

Personally, what I do :
- If the user has the "spammer profile" (his timezone is set to GMT-12 and his email is weird) => deleted right away (I had only one spammer since I installed the RAC MOD)
- If the user doesn't have the "spammer profile" => deleted after a few months if he doesn't show himself after his registration.

The Awesomest Dude · Post by **The Awesomest Dude** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 5:17 am

That's a good point but sometimes it's not quite that simple...

On my board, many people have never posted but they PM each other (and/or me) and stuff like that. Before my board grew it was really just my personal board. That was really all I ever wanted it to be. Of course I'm pretty much famous on the Internet, so I should have known that board would grow. (It's actually still brand new, BTW. It will probably grow quite a bit over the next year or so.)

But then, I was having major problems with spam accounts, for a while. I just have installed a very nice Anti-Spam MOD that I got off this site. And it appears to have 100% WORKED! (You can read more about all that here. I've got to find that page so I can thank the creator, and post a link to that MOD on my site, in case any other Webmasters are having the same problem...)

And now the Memberlist has like 1366 users, but about 300 ~ 400 of those are spammers. So there are really only about 1000 or so actual users.

I could probably go through and delete them all, if I wanted to. It would be a good idea. I'll probably do that sometime in the future. Right now I'm just glad I've stopped them from registering anymore. There's been 6 accounts created since then, and those were all real people.

That's the main thing that's changed. Registrations have gone way, way down. But then again, if all they are is spambots, who needs 'em? LOL

Jim_UK · Post by **Jim_UK** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 8:28 pm

The Awesomest Dude wrote:Of course I'm pretty much famous on the Internet

OT(sorry)
Do you think I could trouble you for your autograph?

Jim

Tripp · Post by **Tripp** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 8:32 pm

Yeah, I think I missed something about you being famous...

Anyway, I don't delete new users. But I do prune my forum every so often to keep it neat, clean, and tidy.

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