Can something be done about the absurd about of inactive and fake accounts?

Replies

• CR

  

  Crackfox

  Oct 23, 2026

  Agree completely. So many of the groups have inactive moderators

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• CO

  

  ConnorJr

  Oct 23, 2026

  > ShawnMattW wrote:
  > This problem has plagued the website since I first made an account circa 2012 ... with inactive or fake accounts.

  Regarding:

  Inactive accounts - No

  Fake accounts - Yes but you need to flag them

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• SH

  

  ShawnMattWOriginal Poster

  Oct 23, 2026

  > ConnorJr wrote:
  > > ShawnMattW wrote:
  > > This problem has plagued the website since I first made an account circa 2012 ... with inactive or fake accounts.
  > Regarding:
  > Inactive accounts - No
  > Fake accounts - Yes but you need to flag them

  We have accounts that haven't been logged into since the year the site was created. What do you mean we should keep every single inactive account? If a person who created an account in 2008 was already retired, there is a strong possibility that they are no longer able to log into their account.

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• MI

  

  minimalist75

  Oct 23, 2026

  The problem with deleting an account is that when it happens, every thread started by that person and every post they made dissappear.

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• SH

  

  ShawnMattWOriginal Poster

  Oct 23, 2026

  > minimalist75 wrote:
  > The problem with deleting an account is that when it happens, every thread started by that person and every post they made dissappear.

  I'm not talking about just going scorched earth on inactive accounts. I'm talking about for example sending out an email for accounts that haven't logged in after 5 years and informing the user their account is either marked for deletion if there was no tangible contribution to the site or being filtered from the directory of accounts if they were a considerably active part of it. If they were like a group moderator, a transfer of management of the group would have to be made. If they don't log in after 60 days from receiving the email the account is either deleted or hidden.

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• RO

  

  Roadtravelled

  Oct 23, 2026

  Losing posts probably wouldn't be that much of an issue, considering that 95% of the people who registered on the site never posted on the forum to begin with. The bigger concern, is that the number of registered members would probably be cut by 90% or more.

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• SH

  

  ShawnMattWOriginal Poster

  Oct 23, 2026

  > Roadtravelled wrote:
  > Losing posts probably wouldn't be that much of an issue, considering that 95% of the people who registered on the site never posted on the forum to begin with. The bigger concern, is that the number of registered members would probably be cut by 90% or more.

  I'm just trying to figure out what value there is in keeping an account that hasn't logged in since 2008 and contributed nothing meaningful to the community the last time they logged in.

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• RO

  

  Roadtravelled

  Oct 23, 2026

  > ShawnMattW wrote:
  > I'm just trying to figure out what value there is in keeping an account that hasn't logged in since 2008 and contributed nothing meaningful to the community the last time they logged in.

  Exactly my point. The larger percentage of registered members on this site have never contributed anything other than annoy a great deal of us through private messages. Getting rid of them would be no great loss to most of us.  Unfortunately, it seem to be more important to the owners of this site to keep the registration numbers high to attract more traffic. However, I don't feel that works out quite as planned. In my opinion, it only seems to add more dead weight.

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