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[Knezzen]

We have a huge number of users in the "Lurkers" category. Users who have signed up but never made a single post here. 98% of these joined before we had any type of SPAM user protection, so we can most certainly say that the vast majority of these are bots and other types of evil doers.
As a measure to secure the forum from potential bot spam and crawling of login-only data, I want to purge the users within this user group.
 
I now urge you, fellow "Lurker" who are not a bot, to make your first post on this forum so your account wont be removed. Introduce yourself in the New Member Welcome board or write something fun in Off Topic. Doing this will put you in the "1 MB" post group and your account wont be removed.
 
I will give this a month or so before starting the clean-out.

[Knezzen]

So we're down from a total of just above 7000 members to just above 2000 members. 5000 members who where more or less bots. Insanity. More or less all done with "the great purge" I guess

[alphaTECH]

Cool 

[GaryN]

So we're down from a total of just above 7000 members to just above 2000 members. 5000 members who where more or less bots. Insanity. More or less all done with "the great purge" I guess

Not that it really matters, because anyone who wants to be here can rejoin at will.
But, I suspect that a number of those alleged "bots" may well have been people who came to look and found some stuff to download without having a real "need" to maintain an active presence. I myself logged in more than a decade ago and downloaded a few things probably 2 or 3 times before posting anything. Now that there are a few hoops to jump through to join, that should help tidy up the mess.

I thinking it can be hard to tell the bots from the lurkers based on posts Malone alone…

[IIO]

i believe that after 1-2 years those human lurkers will have forgotten their password anyway, at least that is what would happen to me in such situations.

except in that funny police forum, where they usually delete my account after three posts - so that i have to come back and finish the arguments under a different name.

[smilesdavis]

i believe that after 1-2 years those human lurkers will have forgotten their password anyway, at least that is what would happen to me in such situations.

except in that funny police forum, where they usually delete my account after three posts - so that i have to come back and finish the arguments under a different name.

gearspace! i know that one

[IIO]

somehow it is no suprise that you get kicked out of audio forums every now and then, just as it is no suprise that i get kicked out of police forums. but comparing that would be nonsense.

[smilesdavis]

I have no idea how anyone could kick such a nice fella like you out of a forum

[Knezzen]

Not that it really matters, because anyone who wants to be here can rejoin at will.
But, I suspect that a number of those alleged "bots" may well have been people who came to look and found some stuff to download without having a real "need" to maintain an active presence. I myself logged in more than a decade ago and downloaded a few things probably 2 or 3 times before posting anything. Now that there are a few hoops to jump through to join, that should help tidy up the mess.

I thinking it can be hard to tell the bots from the lurkers based on posts Malone alone…

Yeah, probably so. I did write three months ago about what I planned on doing, so I somehow feel that people where informed. Of course, I could have done more. As you mention, people can rejoin whenever they want to. No posts where removed, only users with zero posts who hadn't been online in 365 days or more where removed. 5000 accounts where removed on that premise.

The database is happy, the forum will be faster and sless "spammy", and whoever feels like they where kicked out for no reason can rejoin again. No IP, username or email adress was banned.

[Rainier]

Thanks for exercising that finger to press "Delete." As on my computers, I believe forums should be lean and mean (figuratively mean. I much prefer kind and patient. You catch my drift!)
Thanks for your diligence in maintaining OS9 Lives.

[stompy]

hey, thanks for not purging me <3

i forgot i had an account here! i pulled out the ol G4 recently to play with. ill try to participate more!

[IIO]

hey, thanks for not purging me <3

haha, great to get feedback about that topic.

lurking is fine, leeching is too, but since the downloads have been moved to another place there is no important reason to subscribe if someone only wants to read.

and those who are affected can easily subscribe again. unfortunately bots can do that too.

[Randy]

I was a purged member... I typically don't post to forums unless I have something really "substantive" (as we used to say back on ARPAnet... yes, I'm old) to say. But I totally understand the need to sort out those who really aren't interested. I'm very interested, though — this is an amazing resource! So I'll pledge to participate! Thanks. — Randy

[akator]

hey, thanks for not purging me <3

lurking is fine, leeching is too, but since the downloads have been moved to another place there is no important reason to subscribe if someone only wants to read.

I disagree.  "Read Unread Posts" is essential.  I use that on many forums so I can keep up with what's going on, especially in topics that interest me.  It also allows me to clearly see new topics, something I would otherwise miss without this feature and it is most effective with an account.

I agree with others that I try to contribute when meaningful.

A much more meaningful method of pruning unused accounts would be to use your admin tools to look at user visitation history.  Obviously a user that is visiting every single thread is a bot.  I'm sure other patterns for determining real accounts would be easy to figure out by viewing your user statistics.

[Knezzen]

A much more meaningful method of pruning unused accounts would be to use your admin tools to look at user visitation history.  Obviously a user that is visiting every single thread is a bot.  I'm sure other patterns for determining real accounts would be easy to figure out by viewing your user statistics.

True in theory, but we don't log that kind of information for good reason. Enabling that level of log details would result in a massive increase of server load and data usage. I'd much rather use our servers to serve stuff to our users, so to say

[Slimes]

.

[chrisNova777]

im a part time lurker 

IIO is the original lurker