Members That Don't Post

I don't see not posting = inactive. To me inactive = no visits for, I don't know, maybe a year.

I realize that posting members make the forum go. All for encouraging them.

But why are admins down on lurkers? Lurkers are real people, not ghosts or secret agents. They refer others to the forum. They probably spend more time looking at ads and following links to advertisers and linked sites because they are not spending time posting. Lurkers are valuable members. I would not pester them solely because they aren't posting.

Reminding people who haven't visited at all for a certain period of time, lurkers or posters, does seem valuable to me.

I guess one reason I support lurkers is because ... I'm a lurker. On most of the forums where I have membership. The ones that don't make me feel unwelcome for lurking.

 

Lurkers are ghosts. They don't leave a trail. You can't be sure if Lurkers are clicking advertisements, reading threads or harvesting emails for Saturday night spam sessions with their friends. In the world of CPC (cost per click) advertising, eyeballs don't pay the bills. This is all great if you run a site as a hobby and don't worry about any financial return. However many try their hand at content sites and communities to make money. They either sink or swim on getting people to participate. Advertisers won't pay for Lurkers. They pay for active participants. The more active your site is, the more viable it is. No one wants to invest money into a dead community.

On the other hand active participants provide content, provide suggestions and advertise your site through their own networks. This in turn helps it build. While they say that Search Engines provide 80% of the traffic on the Internet, most searches are for the hot news stories of the day, celebrity gossip and people looking for information. You have 10 seconds to win these people over to your site. However if your active participants tell their friends to join, you have up to several minutes to convince them your site is worth joining. MySpace and Facebook didn't grow to the size they are because of web searches. They grew that large because someone suggested them to their friends over drinks at the local pub. They grew because they were mentioned in a magazine or on the 11:00 news.

You have to decide what you want...

Transient traffic with little value from Lurkers

or

Valuable content generation leads from Active Participants.

For a vibrant community you need the later. There is no way to get rid of Lurkers but there are not enough Active Participants then the community dies. Lurkers are fickle and will go elsewhere and vanish into thin air, just like Ghosts.

 

What exactly do you gain by deleting these dormant accounts?

 

What exactly do we gain with leaving them?

 

Well, like someone stated earlier, they may be members that log in on occasion and when they see that their account was deleted, they will turn away from the site and never return.

They also may be waiting for a topic that suites their fancy.

 

You never know what might convert them from non-posting lurker to active member. One of my best members signed up years ago when there wasn't much action, then happened to drop by after a Christmas email to all forum members.

 

I'd say it's best to leave them. I've had quite a few people start out inactive and only post quite a time later, and to just delete the accounts basically turns away anyone who doesn't instantly start posting.

 

Members.

There are members of my forum who did not post for over a year after joining. Had we deleted them for being inactive, they would never have become active later.

There is nothing at all to be gained from deleting inactive accounts.

 

I've got a couple of really good members that started late in posting. It took one member over 3 months to make his first post. Now he post semi regularly. So I wouldn't delete members for that reason alone. Then I can't help but think the membership numbers make your forum look good to new people. I could be wrong but who knows.

 

Nothin just real-time stats?

 

We dont prune or delete them, we use the reminder email addon and it does seem to work pretty well

 

I don't delete members either...like said before...some of my best members didn't become active til one or two months after joining. A reminder email once every two months or so is a great forum$ builder!

 

I Use The Inactive Reminders Thing.

 

No point in deleting inactive and/or 0 post accounts!

After all, what if they come back to become a active member?

They would be a bit mad if they come back to realize that their account has been deleted...