What to do about ghosts?

I don't do anything. I just focus on creating more content and try to lure them into posting. Have you ever private messaged them and see why they don't post? That would be a good start. I have a plugin on my forum that tells posters with under 0 posts that if they don't post, their account will be deleted. It works like a charm.

 

I do nothing with ghost members as I do nothing with members who have 0 message.

As long are they are not spamming, I'm ok


I've checked my competitor and 40% of his membership has 0 post

 

i always say that. this does bug me.

It's like why take the time to register and sometimes feel a profile out and upload an avatar if you NEVER have posted.

 

That means they're not doing enough to turn those lurkers into posters. A simple contest could turn those lurkers into posters fast.

 

I will not tell them

And the forum is owned by Internet Brands...

 

So, what did you do in the end? Did you murder their account or let them live on?

 

Me? Well I deleted all zero posters

 

Well if you have good resources on your forum they could be a "leecher" were they are just taking your stuff and resources but not giving back. I don't think you should do anything because unless you knew he was leeching for sure he's really not breaking any rules in most cases. Also it could be a banned member on a VPN, and if he's on a good private VPN there is no way to figure out he's using one.

 

Do nothing. I don't mind lurkers. You should just focus on building, and maybe the member will start posting when they see other members getting involved.

You can also send them a private message to interact with them, and see if they respond. I wouldn't ask them to post though.

 

At the moment I don't do anything about 0 post users/ghosts because I'd rather my numbers stay as high as possible. I had a handful of people who never posted but regularly came online, but now they've started to post on an intermittent basis.

Aside from introducing competitions with prizes and generating more content, there's not a lot you can do.

 

My site is less than three months old so it makes no sense to delete 0 posters all the time, because they may come back. In a year or so I'll be removing them, but not now.

I'm not trying to be dishonest, because if that were the case I'd simply ban all the spam bots I've had on my forum and keep the user count at 2000+.

 

Well demands i have a mod which allows me to check pms sent to people so if theres a ghost ill check the pms they have sent and if i see advertising automatically ban them for 2 weeks and then if there not they will come back and be a normal member.

 

After, how long though?