Has anyone ever thought about...

[RecklessLeper]

... the possibility of "pruning" the database to get rid of the members that don't really visit anymore?

I was looking at the discussions page and there's over 40,000 members supposedly registered. I can guess that a large majority of these rarely or never visit this board anymore.

I don't really have an idea of how the vBulletin software works but am I right in thinking that the space taken up by the data could be detrimental to the performance of the database and the hardware running it?

Just one of my many random thoughts...

Jon

[RDX]

I did a search in the members section; this is what I came up with: About 89% of HWC members have not posted in over a year. 94% of HWC members have not posted in over 6 months. 83% of the members here have less than 10 posts.

A fair amount of people come to HWC to ask a few questions and then leave to never return, and there's nothing wrong with that. I don't think however, that it's necessary to keep all of these people in the database. Is there and option on vBulletin to automatically delete these "members"?

[MuFu]

It's not worth the effort or potential hassle in my opinion. It's not as if storage is a common, limiting factor when it comes to messageboards - I/O and connectivity are far more important.

MuFu.

[RDX]

Yea, MuFu you're probably right. It's not as though any of us spend much time searching through the member database. However, when you are trying to remember something that a person posted and can only remember the first letter or two of their name, it can be a mess trying the wade through the immense pile of members stored here (there are 72 pages of members listed starting with the letter "A" alone!) 71% of the members here haven't posted in over 2 years; surely those accounts can be deleted.

If vBulletin has a feature to automatically trim these unused accounts, it wouldn't really be too much of a hassle at all. If it doesn't have that feature, then you can ignore us.

Thanks for your time!

[Steve R Jones]

But surely you're not looking for a post that's two years old either.

Search for the two initials and restrict the date range.

Besides, the high member count helps sell ad space and keeps the site going.

[RecklessLeper]

ah right, I see

just a thought anyway...

[proKrastinate]

also, if you did delete accounts that hadn't posted in a long time, but had posted in some threads that are really benefitial and have not been pruned due to their content, how would you not delete their post but delete their name?

[Bink]

MuFu:

It's not worth the effort or potential hassle in my opinion. It's not as if storage is a common, limiting factor when it comes to messageboards - I/O and connectivity are far more important.

MuFu.

Agreed.

Besides, we get members returning after many months or even years wanting to retain their original user name and details as it is, let alone complicating it by saying, "sorry, we deleted you".

[ecross]

I agree with Bink there. Members return later after weeks or even months after they have registered. I'd think we would have pretty disappointed members if they returned and found out their account was deleted.

[RDX]

I can see where there would be problems with it. Still, the overbloated member database bugs me. 59% of the members here have accounts with 5 posts or less and haven't posted in over 2 years, I don't think any of these people will come back after being away for more than 2 years and demand back their <5 post account! Also did you know that 23% of the members at HWC have 0 posts!

[Bink]

RDX:

Also did you know that 23% of the members at HWC have 0 posts!

There are some members who are happy to lurk. I wouldn't be surprised if lurkers take up a large portion of the registered members here. On that note, just because someone hasn't posted in a long time, doesn't mean they haven't visited at regular intervals since

[RDX]

Yes, but do you have to be registered to read the forums? Last time I checked it was just to post.

[Bink]

...and to vote in polls and subscribe to threads so you can recieve notifications of new posts in particular topics/forums

[RDX]

Well maybe...possibly they....

Oh all right! just forget the whole thing!!!



BTW, I was a lurker here for over a year before I joined in the discussion.

[Shadowfax]

i don't post here that often, but i do read....


like MuFu said, it's not worth the trouble