Members That Don't Post

Unfortunately, most forums have a large hand-full of registered members that never even make a single post.

What do you usually do with these members? Do you ignore it and just let their accounts rot, or do you periodically prune them, or even send out e-mails asking them to come back?

As for myself, I usually just ignore them and let them be. Maybe someday the person will come back and login to the account and begin posting. Occasionally I'll send out a e-mail as a reminder that they've registered and never posted, because there is the possibility they simply forgot.

 

some of my inactive members are most likely want to read thread/Posts but not posting

 

Yep. Especially then, when you have areas in your forums, where only registered can access.


When you delete an account and the user tries to login and sees, that he has been deleted, it might be possible, that he is angry and tells others. Its propably not a good advertising for your community, so since unactive accounts only cost a few bytes, there is no gain in removing them.

But the unactivated accounts, whose owners didn't even click their activation link and never have the chance to become active, are pruned as soon as they are older than one month because they are really useless.
Most of them entered a wrong email adress or don't have the registration mail anymore and can therefore be considered as "uninterested" in the community.

 

Well, since I have a bridge between my forum and my site, I restrict hires images and video streaming to members, so that makes me have alot of inactive members. But, it also makes it look like to PROSPECTIVE memebrs that is is more popular... I'm pretty sure I spelled that wrong.

 

my forum is sharing new video and music, and we have more than 1000 mem but only 18 - 20 of them access to the forum everyday and only staff are posting :| ...i tried to make reminder emails but most of the email is fail to send arggg

 

I have a decent amount of users who have never posted or verified their email address. I haven't done anything about it yet, but I may sent out an email reminding them they have an account on the site.

 

I leave all of my users where they are and never delete them.
There is an occasional e-mail sent to each group that still has actions to be taken with the relative message, but not too often.
Many members register just so they have an account and all they prefer to do is read the threads and such.

 

I don't delete their accounts, leave them as it is. But, I do send out some e-mails to just remind them that we still exist xD!

 

My Suggestion

Well, if they had five posts and below. I would usally just delete there accounts. But if they have more posts then five, I would let them sit there. Becuase, I would like to keep those Forum Post Counts. :rofl:

 

I think that if they had even one post, they shouldn't have their accounts deleted.

For those of you that delete non-posting members, how do you deal with the ones that have an account only to browse and read the threads? Or have you never encountered this situation?

 

If the automatic inactive member reminder emails fail to get them back and posting they are automatically moved into an inactive members group. They are still a allowed to login, but they won't be able to post links for a day or so until we see that they are not a spammer coming back to spam, edit profiles, create visitor message, etc.

-Raymond

 

I dont do anything with them. And why should I? You put your forum on the internet and its going to attract all kinds of people.

 

I prune them. Usually I'll give them a week to post around the community, then after that initial week; if nothing happens and the account still has no post count, I'll remove them.

As for Nick's question: I don't really know, to be honest. I don't disallow access to any forums or threads for guests, so most of the time the 'browsers' don't require an account. They know the only thing they're missing out on is posting and replying themselves and having their say. This generally leads them to create an account and begin their contribution.

So most of the time I'll just prune them periodically. Unless I see sufficient evidence to suggest they login regularly.

 

If advertising is part of the forum then I would not understanding pruning non-posting members who visit on occasion. There goes part of the market. And non-posting members are likely to refer the forum to non-members.

I'm personally acquainted with some of my non-posting members. They are just a different personality type, and some read more threads than those that post. If they are visiting only occasionally that's not a problem for me. Some with repectable post counts do the same. As best I can tell I have a fair number of members who visit and have never posted. And a fair number with only a few posts who have been logging in regularly for years.

The only non-posting members that I would consider pruning are those that did not log in again after the first couple of weeks of registration, if a year or so has gone by. They are truly not interested in the forum.

As far as I'm concerned a visiting, non-posting member is a member like any other.

 

I've once deleted about 80 activated but inactive members from my forum on Philippine education. Inactive was defined to be zero posts and less than five minutes browsing. I was attending a seminar where the speaker used to be a member of EduPhil.org (he was one of those I've deleted); the topic was on how some people may not voice out their moral convictions but they support those who do - and then he mentioned how he is a member of EduPhil.org, have registered only a few minutes on the board because he prefers not to login, and how the threads on the forum had helped him to see some things in a different light. I never got over my regrets for deleting his account.

So, lurker members have value. Don't ever delete them.

 

Isn't there a plug for VB to automatically send a note via email to members without posts in a certain amount of time?

For SMF there is a very nice MOD for it and I think is great cause sometimes when they do come back some say they forgot they had an account.

Usually it is a good idea to send that email cause the members come back for a look and if the board has improved they get more into it and start posting right away.

Juan

 

Yes, there are addons to mail them, move them into different usergroups, etc.

-Raymond

 

Yes, there are. I have an e-mail sent to members that haven't posted in I believe 30 days... and it's sent every two to three months.

 

Inactive Member Reminder Emails

 

Thanks for that; I've been using the older version, as I didn't know it was re-released by somebody else.