Pruning inactive member accounts

[Cedric]

Do you remove inactive members from your forum? I personally believe that it is not a good idea to do so, as these members took the time to join your site and you never know if they might return. Many forums do this, but I don't agree with it. It's one thing to delete spam accounts, but deleting real people seems unfair. Additionally, it can decrease the number of members on your board which may not be ideal. I understand that there may be valid reasons for doing so, and I would be curious to hear your perspective.

 

[Strawberry]

It depends... if an account hasn't logged in since the day it registered and has made 0 posts then I think it's reasonable to go ahead and remove it as it doesn't really serve any purpose except from adding to your total member count. If the person was active and just stopped logging in, then I don't think it's a good idea as they may return one day and I would be a bit annoyed if I returned to a forum I used to frequent to find my account was removed.

 

[Cory]

I've never done inactive account pruning, because like you said, down the road, you never know if a user may want to return to your forum. I've been a part of boards where I was very active and disappeared for a few years and came back as an active member again. The only valid reason I see for inactive account pruning is to protect people's personal information if someone were to crack their inactive account.

 

[Shortie]

No matter how many inactive members I may end up with on my forum, I never get rid of them as you never know the circumstances as to why they registered and didn't come back. Some register with the intention of coming back and then life gets hectic and they don't have the time. There will always be a time they may come back and if they come back to find their account was removed, that can be off-putting for them and can result in you losing a member who could have been an active member of the community.

 

[Niko]

I always keep them! You cannot know if they will ever be back!
Also, having posts with the username "Guest" is not the best to see on a community 🧐😪😮‍💨

 

[Cedric]

I always keep them! You cannot know if they will ever be back!
Also, having posts with the username "Guest" is not the best to see on a community 🧐😪😮‍💨

Agreed. We’ve had a request to delete an account past week. I always hate that.

 

[Cory]

I think I've only ever had one request to delete a member and I did delete him because he was concerned about his privacy.

 

[Niko]

I had a staff member asking to be removed and deleted because "I wasn't replying to his posts in half a day"

 

[an0nym0us]

I would do it for two reasons

1. These members have not contributed to this community in any way.
2. We don't need only fictitious numbers, but values.

 

[Arantor]

I usually only do so subject to GDPR requirements; my experience is that it's usually people who have a grudge who want to stomp off in a huff anyway.

 

[Ken]

I remove the ones who are disrespectful to me and my members by bossing others around.

 

[Kyng]

No, I don't. I've had members come back after several months (or even several years), and they usually appreciate being able to pick up where they left off.

The only time I've deleted accounts for inactivity was after the move from ZetaBoards to MyBB. I pre-registered about 100 accounts on the new board for the people who were most recently active or had the most posts - and later deleted the ones that were never used. But that was a one-time thing with specific circumstances behind it.

 

[Heatman]

Well, if they used to be active but all of a sudden went off the radar, I wouldn't purge or prune them off the community. I will try as much as possible to reach out to them through emails and hopefully they will come back.

But in a situation where they never made even one post but just registered and disappeared, I will give them only 2 months grace before kicking them out.

 

[Reverie]

If I have sent out emails throughout the year - they've been a member for more than a year with no posts and they haven't been online since they first registered then I would consider it, otherwise I would leave them be.