Dead Accounts?

In some cases, a member may sign up for your forum/website but never do anything. They might not even have activated their account or even logged in. They're dead accounts. Have you had them? How did you deal with them?

I've had them before. I really didn't do anything. I just left the accounts alone just in case they wanted to come crawling back.

 

Yea, every forum has them.. there is nothing much to do except for hoping that they will remember your site and come back as they most likely have forgotten. You best option would be a board wide email but still doesnt help if the people dont have an interest in coming back.

 

If you have email verification turned on, I usually would have a 30 day prune in effect for unverified accounts. Usually these were people trying to sign up w/ a fake email and never got the link.

But if someone is just sitting at zero posts, I'd leave them. They don't take up much space. Maybe 1k per member (zero post member, that is). And I've found that many people do log in to read and such, and might post months or even years later.

I'd send out an email to all members under 3 or so posts once or twice a year just saying you've missed hearing from them, let them know what is new on the board, etc. Also do this for members who have not logged in in the last 4 or 6 months.

 

Yea pruning is never a good option, its fine for unvalidated members, but not for 0 posters as you mentioned some people just like to read.

 

I got this alot, sometimes it was genuine members who had forgotten about the forum and other times it was members signing up to spam the forum but putting a false email in when registering and being unable to activate their account. I used to leave these members alone however after a while I decided to have a regular clean up of members who had not verified their accounts and only leave the members who had.

 

Dead accounts eh? Queue the user reminder mod to remind them every 28 days that they are a part of the forum

 

Yea, email reminders can be helpful, that's how I sometimes go and visit old forums that I forgot I registered on, but the emails are annoying.

 

well if users find them annoying, then they can always turn off the email options as 9/10 all emails are optional to receive...

 

Pruning accounts that have not been activated for 30 days is a great idea. I should use that. :3

The emails can also be a good idea, however, some people find emails like that annoying. -.- Some people don't even read those emails. (*cough* me *cough*)

 

Yea I usually dont read them either, but its still better than doing nothing about it.

 

I usually just leave them. If they are the ones that just like to read, you risk losing them by pestering them with e-mails. If you open up a notice at the top of the forum only viewable to the no posters, that should get a few of them posting. That is, the ones that are lurking.

 

Yea those type of notices can be of use to get people to post, I see alot of forums using notices for that and it does help, and its not as annoying as an email.

 

I still beleive that if users don't want to recieve emails any more, that they should disable them beforehand. Any admins dis-respecting that option and emailing them anyway need to be shot as that is when it gets annoying

 

Yea the users can disable it themselves, they have that option right when they join, or they can just go to "Preferences" and disable it. I dont see why some complain when they opted in to receive the emails. And about dead accounts, I would say an email reminder would be best, but not a regular reminder which will just get them annoyed.

 

That's the only thing I find handy about the email reminders. If it's a site that I haven't visited in a long time that I totally forgot about, the email reminder can be a friendly, handy tool that can remind me that I'm a member of that site. However, like many others, I too find those emails annoying.

We just leave dead member accounts. You never know when they might want to come back and post one day..

 

Yea I leaving them is the best option, dont know why anyone would want to prune inactive member. Members only take up a small space in a database.

 

I have a feature on my community that tells the users if they don't post, they'll lose their account. It works like a charm and has brought us in a few members that post frequently.

But, other words, what's the point of deleting dead accounts? The user may come back eventually, or you can delete the accounts after 6 months to a year. But, a huge member-base usually looks good to those who want to join.

 

I never bothered to consider deleting zero posters simply because I never saw any benefit in doing so. I only see the negative in not being able to contact someone who joined your forum at some point. There had to be some interest in your board if they are human and bothered to join,right?

 

I done this a lot actually; I am lazy and have to force myself to post UNLESS I enjoy the forum and its getting interesting then I will post and communicate on forums but for those forums who are dead and people force me to register I do not bother.