Member Sweep?

[Shiruba]

Okay, so I used to be part of Neopets a while back, and they had this thing that happened every once in a while that was unofficially called "The Purge," which would basically delete old accounts that were inactive to free up space and to allow other users to have the names that had been previously used. Just viewing the members page, it's easy to see the numerous people that haven't logged on in years. Could there be some method of wiping out older accounts that haven't been accessed in, say, two years or so to allow newer users to get the names [or established ones to change theirs, I suppose]?

 

[ryo yamada2001]

lol you actually played neopets?
And "The Purge" sounds good, making lots of good taken names untaken :D

EDIT: this shit smileys...

 

[a fairy]

there are users who have not been online in forever, but an account purge would be a horrible idea for - caelum, sonius, hazerider, et cetra

 

[hyperbeem]

I don't like this idea unless it only applies to members with <5 posts

 

[Limi]

the impression i got was that it only applies to members with 0 posts who haven't logged in in x months/years, and that's an idea i'd support.

 

[GatoDelFuego]

Neopets is pretty legit tho

I like hyperbeem's idea but there's really not too much to gain I think

 

[Shiruba]

Yeah, it was more for users that did nothing or next to nothing. People that contributed a lot or something would of course be left - they're naturally more likely to come back. iirc for The Purge, if your account was well built-up, you'd have to be gone for an exceptionally long time to delete your account - or they just never would. It was mostly the blank or barren accounts that got wiped. Sorry for not making that clear. There were a few bots that did this simultaneously - Cheetahbot, the fastest [it would go across the list more quickly] but least consistent, Pigbot, the middle, and Snailbot, the slowest and most reliable - I remember these the best because the method of how this would be accomplished interests me, heh. The exact methods and criteria the bots used was never revealed, however, as it's more of an under-the-hood thing that the community noticed and tracked to snatch up names, usually for their pets.
As for it not helping, well... Just judging from a few pages of the Members section, it looks like it'd apply to a lot of members honestly.

PS:

^ My neopet is pretty legit awwrite.
Too bad it's actually crying now because I haven't fed it in forever ahaha.
I finally left because I got suspended for saying that some person running a cheating bot was being aided by Jesus.

 

[Soul Fly]

I stopped reading at 'neopets'.

 

[sandshrewz]

Yea I agree with Gato. There isn't much to gain from this. And purging would also consume forum resources. If you're an active member and really want a name that an inactive user with like 0 post has taken, you could ask an admin if they could delete that account and give you the name. Of course it shouldn't be done on a whim and varies case to case.

 

[Toast++]

I hate to be the voice of disagreement, but I think this would be quite worth it.

Quite honestly, I think it would use pretty low amount of resources and remove a ton of unused and spam accounts. That could speed up queries, open up desirable usernames and get rid of some of the free advertising that some of the spam accounts get. Otherwise, we get a bunch of legit users like this and a bunch of unnoticed spam bots like these (left un-banned for effect).

You would obviously need to work out a bit of logic to combine post count, last-login and badge status but a basic 'cheetah' version of this wouldn't be hard and would run in no time at all.

That said, this would still be low priority with everything else going on.

 

[v]

smods can edit names atm too, this sounds like a waste of time

 

[Aerodactyl Legend]

I remember this being suggested a long time ago. Thread might even be in Trou...

 

[Limi]

smods can edit names atm too, this sounds like a waste of time

but from another viewpoint, you could say that having to edit names is a waste of time for smods.

i can see why it's low priority, but i think it would nonetheless be pretty cool if it was implemented in the future. certainly something to be worth supporting!

 

[GatoDelFuego]

Keep in mind there's a ton of users with low PCs--the introduce yourself thread makes that clear. We wouldn't want to just target users with low counts, but inactive ones.

For reference, about how many spambots do you guys deal with anyway?

 

[dcae]

I think the best option would be to wipe names gone for min 2 years and have under 25 posts. Thus you combine the aspects of both and get more names back this way.

 

[Toast++]

It doesn't really matter that smods can change names. That is a workaround for only part of the problem, not a solution. Gato, there are next to none as long as there's a certain type of security on registration. This was done on the old forums with some pokemon questions. As soon as the forums were opened back up without them, there were a lot. That doesn't really matter though since we're talking about a retroactive fix for spambots, not a proactive one. I think the security questions were already added back though I can't say for sure since I haven't registered recently..

Anyway, the logic of this can be worked out later when all the priority stuff is taken care of.