Should I prune users?

[Antrax]

It seems the latest modification to the board code is really giving spammers a hard time, as hoped. So, now may be a good idea to delete all the users who registered only to spam. The way I see it, the pros are having a more accurate estimate of the board size and making the memberlist browsable. The cons are that it means running a "DELETE FROM" query on the database, which is always scary, and also that it might get some legitimate users who haven't posted any messages.
Opinions?
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[Chuck]

People who aren't posting shouldn't be too inconvenienced. They can register again if they want to post something since the screen name will be available again.

[Neo]

I agree with Chuck.

You could probably put up a global announcement. Anybody with a low post count who is actually reading the forum should then see it, and be able to talk to somebody about it.
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[Nsof]

Doesn't phpbb have a feature for this?
If they don't perhaps instead of deleting the you can first move all 'candidates' into a temp table and after a month delete them. this way you can restore the entire profile in case of a mistake.
Maybe you can also prune users who haven't loggedin the past year (or so)?

[worm]

i don't like that last idea...lots of people leave for a while and come back. besides, folks like araya and paladin and murray would be on that list and deleting their profiles just seems wrong to me.

[MatthewV]

I don't think it would be too much of a challenge to get a list of users that were created only as spam accounts. Trimming the memberlist would be nice enough to put some effort into getting rid of the pig fat.

[Courk]

I agree with Chuck, Neo, and worm. We shouldn't delete old accounts just because they're old.

[MatthewV]

Lets start by deleting four known spammers...Courk, Neo, Chuck and worm.

[Courk*]

Hey!

[Antrax]

[Amb]

WHy not just set some rules - eg If you have been registered for 30 days and have made 2 posts or less you automatically get deleted.

After that just clobber any non recent account that isnt Daedalian. eg User hasnt posted for 1 year, and only has icarian status etc.

[Lepton*]

Almost any set of such "rules" will have exceptions. The idea of clearing the spam forum and then deleting all users with zero posts seems reasonable to me. However, I don't think that either of the two "pros" Antrax mentions are terribly important or advantageous.

[MacadamiamaN*]

don't prune just because they're old accounts!

[Samadhi]

I think that's the consensus.
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[Dented Ford]

FWIW I lurked for a while (several months) before registration, and then after registration I waited for about 3 or 4 weeks before first posting.
I think, if someone has registered with the intention of joining the board and hasn't made any posts, then as long as there is a notice page about the policy of old/inactive accounts then it should be OK to prune according to some fairly loose criteria (by which I mean not draconian, rather than non-specific), such as pruning accounts aged over 3 months with no posts, and pruning Icarian accounts where last post was more than 1 year ago.
[Edit: added "not" in following sentence:] That may end up not pruning very much, I don't know what activity levels some accounts are, but I reason that it isn't too onerous to either make a post or re-register once a year, as long as the policy is clear to those signing up.
I'd also wonder if there is a log that could be used of account log-in and log-off times? It might be more indicative of the account-holder's prune-worthiness to see whether they have actually logged on in the last six months than whether any post has been made.
I wouldn't advocate wholesale pruning of "old" accounts except with very non-draconian rules such as above, and always erring on the side of keeping in case, rather than deleting and worrying later. As long as I knew the policy, I don't think the sort of rules mentioned above would upset me.

[Samadhi]

Good point in re lurking.

It's been 3 months since Antrax implemented the new system though. I think we'll be ok if we eliminate any accounts with zero posts who registered before the implementation.
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