Thread: Deleting member accounts due to inactivity

Have you ever done it? I have. I had a bunch of new members joining in my site and not even logging in after doing so. Why keep them? Just to increase my member count and make my site appear more active than it actually is? I have to confess I was completely against doing it at first but, as my forum grew, I no longer was. Now I do it every month, and warn members before that through a newsletter... that nobody ever reads, lol.

I've never deleted a member's profile. I'll usually just ban spam bots and keep their accounts. Though, I may start deleting their accounts.

Originally Posted by Arariel

I've never deleted a member's profile. I'll usually just ban spam bots and keep their accounts. Though, I may start deleting their accounts.

I have deleted a few members' accounts instead of banning them (if they were first time posters and probably just spammers). Hitting the 'Delete' button was a lot easier than going through the whole banning process. Ah, laziness.

I've never physically deleted anyone, no.

Personally, I wouldn't delete members profiles. Some of them are spambots, so if you can identify that, then delete them. If they are not bots, they may log in at a later date, so I would keep all users that aren't spam bots

Unless you are running out of space, I don't see the reason for deleting them. I find that running and promoting a forum keeps me more than busy enough without the additional effort of checking out users and then deleting them. However, that is just me. Others might like the work of keeping their forums sleek.

Originally Posted by jasserWeb

Unless you are running out of space, I don't see the reason for deleting them. I find that running and promoting a forum keeps me more than busy enough without the additional effort of checking out users and then deleting them. However, that is just me. Others might like the work of keeping their forums sleek.

^ This. I don't delete inactive accounts because what happens if they decide to return to the forum? All their posts and such would be gone. I'd imagine they'd be very unhappy about that.

Oops....double-posted. Sorry.

Originally Posted by YIPFolio

I've never physically deleted anyone, no.

How come? Do you just ban?

I only deleted accounts that were registered like months and months before that still had 0 posts. Those are spam bot accounts were deleted every once in awhile.