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Ernst Fueloep · 04-13-2014, 07:16 PM

I have just now registered my user "Ernst Fueloep" again.
I was registered since dec 2013. But suddenly my user vanished from this forum.

Is there some automatic user deletion process active in this forum?
If the user doesn't post a message in a certain timeframe it gets deleted automatically?

Or can anybody answer why my user id vanished?

Thanks.

**Katie Wasserman** · 04-13-2014, 11:34 PM

Quote:Is there an automatic user deletion process active in this forum?

Not that I know of. I don't see any trace of you having joined nor posted prior to today. But Dave is the only one that can tell for sure what might be wrong here.

**rprosperi** · 04-14-2014, 12:41 AM

(04-13-2014 07:16 PM)Ernst Fueloep Wrote: I have just now registered my user "Ernst Fueloep" again.
I was registered since dec 2013. But suddenly my user vanished from this forum.

Is there some automatic user deletion process active in this forum?
If the user doesn't post a message in a certain timeframe it gets deleted automatically?

Or can anybody answer why my user id vanished?

Thanks.

There was an older forum on the MoHPC website (of an older, different style) which was in use (coincidentally) until about mid-Dec 2013. The older forum had different/separate user accounts, which were not automatically converted to this new forum. Perhaps you signed-up into the old forum just prior to this new one coming on-line? Just a thought that may explain the confusion.

**Dave Hicks** · 04-14-2014, 02:36 AM

Yes, the system was set to prune accounts with low post counts starting at 120 days. I believe that was the default, but I have just increased it to one year.

**Katie Wasserman** · 04-14-2014, 05:27 AM

(04-14-2014 02:36 AM)Dave Hicks Wrote: Yes, the system was set to prune accounts with low post counts starting at 120 days. I believe that was the default, but I have just increased it to one year.

According to the statistics page, only 53.39% of members have posted anything since the start of this forum, even with a 365 day window, there's going to be a lot of pruning. What harm is there in carrying a lot of non-posting users indefinitely?

Han · 04-14-2014, 02:59 PM

May I suggest that the pruning process considers logins instead of posts? I always have to log in if I am reading a post that has attachments embedded within. I am sure that there are users who post very infrequently but still log in so that they can fully read a post. If a user has not logged in for over several months, then pruning them seems fine. But I hate to see users removed simply because they don't necessarily post.

**Dave Hicks** · 04-14-2014, 03:17 PM

I suppose space, speed, clutter. Perhaps a smaller attack surface for spammers/hackers trying to take over old-established accounts that are no longer being maintained/monitored by their creators?

I goggled: why prune users

But the results I got were more like how to prune users or why is user pruning not working as I expect. I did find one thread that was really about "why". Oddly enough, some of the reasons against pruning were for having higher stats for sales/advertising purposes and having a bigger user base that you can send "marketing emails" to.

I'm not sure what to make of that stat. If we don't prune, then in a few years it could be 80%. If we do prune, then it might be 40%. I don't know which is "better".

**Katie Wasserman** · 04-14-2014, 03:42 PM

I agree with Han, if the pruning can be done based on last login date (last Visit Date, actually) would be preferable. I frequent several forums that I might go for over a year and not post anything and I've never been pruned. This might require a plugin to MyBB like this one.

Removing users because they haven't posted seems, errr.... dare I say it,..... Draconian!

Mark Hardman · 04-14-2014, 05:32 PM

(04-14-2014 03:42 PM)Katie Wasserman Wrote: Removing users because they haven't posted seems, errr.... dare I say it,..... Draconian!

HA! She said it--not me.

Mark Hardman

Han · 04-14-2014, 06:19 PM

One of the few times when "That's what she said..." is an appropriate response.

Sikuq · 04-14-2014, 10:23 PM

Hi Moderators Katie & Dave,

I experience a difference in log-in behavior depending on which way I do my portal entry:

If I use hpmuseum.com/forum my credentials open the portal but without actually logging me in even though it initially says that I'm logged in.

If I use hpmuseum.org/forum it works as expected.

(a) Can you reproduce that behavior on your end, and, if so, is this an intentional differential behavior?

(b) Can this be related - in parts - to the posts at hand?

Thanks for your great forum work.

**Dave Hicks** · 04-15-2014, 05:40 AM

Where did you find the .com/forum URL? .org/forum is the expected URL.

While there is a hpmuseum.com, all links from there, including the forum should go to the main .org domain.

The Janitor plug-in mentioned seems to be for deleting accounts which were never activated. That function is now built-in/automatic in the current base software. I don't see anything in the base software for deleting via some measure of activity besides activating and posting a few times. With current settings, you have to post 2 times sometime within the first year of activating. (used to be the default 120 days) If you don't do that and you get deleted, you can recreate the account. Draconian would be banned for life or maybe beheaded. Smile

Later versions may have more options and there is bound to be a new version before this forum has existed for an entire year. (I've already updated it once.)

**Katie Wasserman** · (This post was last modified: 04-15-2014 07:30 AM by Katie Wasserman.)

Quote:While there is a hpmuseum.com, all links from there, including the forum should go to the main .org domain.

While http://www.hpmuseum.com simply points to the http://www.hpmuseum.org ,
there does seem to be a different login associated with http://www.hpmuseum.com/forum , it's not simply pointing to http://www.hpmuseum.org/forum . I can't find any links to http://www.hpmuseum.com/forum but if you type it in you'll see the issue.

Quote: Draconian would be banned for life or maybe beheaded.

Hmm, perhaps just having to re-register isn't all that bad.

Just curious, What happens to a member's (very) old posts if this pruning kicks in. Do they get automatically deleted, stay around with a a grayed-out link to the member's name who posted them, or stay around with no member associated with them?

**Dave Hicks** · 04-15-2014, 03:41 PM

.com is the wrong URL for the forum, so your browser gets confused. Well not really confused - it just doesn't send hpmuseum.org cookies when it's pointed at hpmuseum.com.

If this is just an URL that someone typed/mistyped, then I'm not overly concerned about it. If there are bad links, then it gets more interesting.

Sikuq · 04-15-2014, 05:27 PM

Dave and Katie,

I was simply giving some credence to the user assertion that they assumed that they had registered and subsequently could not get back in despite. If you were to register at .org and then later use .com you would experience just such a user described event; and it would not leave you with a clue as to the incorrect entry path causing the user to remain somewhat frustrated. It happened to me!

It appears all the time that users unintentionally alternate between .org and the likely more frequently used .com so if this is not an intended portal entry (and since you control both domains apparently) you could consider to easily change that very early on in the start web page (like start. , index., default.) and go to the On_Load() event or similar and re-direct the address call to the .org. That would probably not require a BBS software re-design. Obviously that is your decision.

Personally, I would deal with this issue to avoid further confusion; I would never want to leave any unhandled (log-in) errors to be fixed in the future.

Thanks for looking into it.

**Dave Hicks** · 04-15-2014, 05:48 PM

The OP's account was deleted due to user pruning - a feature of the software. He then recreated his account - which is the correct response to a deletion and it would not have worked if his account hadn't been actually deleted.

rkf · 04-16-2014, 08:04 AM

I was also surprisingly kicked out from this forum, despite the fact of being logged in on a daily (!) base since my registration to the "new" forum end of last year. And yes, from time to time I also posted to this forum - but obviously not often enough :-(

BTW, what is the maximum tolerated timestep between two posts to stay within this forum, i.e. not to be pruned off again?

Kind regards,
Ralf.

@moderator: Please ignore my mail regarding re-activation of my account, I simply registered a third time with the very same account name. I hope not to be forced to register a fourth time.

Ernst Fueloep · 04-16-2014, 12:01 PM

(04-15-2014 07:29 AM)Katie Wasserman Wrote: ...
Just curious, What happens to a member's (very) old posts if this pruning kicks in. Do they get automatically deleted, stay around with a a grayed-out link to the member's name who posted them, or stay around with no member associated with them?

The old posts get deleted and vanish like the user.
This happened to me.
Because after I registered in Dec 2013 (in this new forum!! not the old one) I posted once in the Test forum to see if everything is working.
This post is gone too.

So, please change this pruning stuff to remove a user only when the last log-in is xxx days old. I was visiting this forum several times every week but did not post any new post except my first after I registered. And then I got removed.

I am registered to several different forums. And I usually only read and post rarely. But never have I been removed from a forum because I didn't post anything. Except now in the HP Calculator Forum.
This is not the right way how a user should be treated in a forum.

Thanks.

Ernst Fueloep · 04-16-2014, 12:05 PM

(04-14-2014 02:59 PM)Han Wrote: May I suggest that the pruning process considers logins instead of posts? I always have to log in if I am reading a post that has attachments embedded within. I am sure that there are users who post very infrequently but still log in so that they can fully read a post. If a user has not logged in for over several months, then pruning them seems fine. But I hate to see users removed simply because they don't necessarily post.

I fully agree.
Please change the pruning stuff.

Thanks.

Terje Vallestad · 04-16-2014, 10:09 PM

Quote:Just curious, What happens to a member's (very) old posts if this pruning kicks in. Do they get automatically deleted, stay around with a a grayed-out link to the member's name who posted them, or stay around with no member associated with them?

Hi,

If you look in the first post of this link, I think you will see a user that has been pruned due to the earlier 120 days no posting rule. His post seems to stay put (at least for the time being), but his user name is not clickable anymore so probably a dead account.

Cheers, Terje