Rebuilding the user list. Anyone who has posts and writes to me, gets kept. Anyone who doesn't have posts and writes to me, gets kept. Anyone who has posts but doesn't write to me, gets kept but will have to write to me if they ever want their damn password. Unless I can track down their e-mail through some other means, that is.

But the people who have no posts and don't write, those are judgment calls. Delete them? Reserve their precious usernames so they can have them back someday?

What I'm trying to say is, do I hang on to MrBigCock or not?

And how come I never knew we had such a well-endowed gentleman lurking around underfoot? Make yourself known, MrBigCock! I'm sure we'd all love to meet you.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2002

Answers

I think it's a judgement call. Keep MrBigCock in reserve just in case he wants to come back. MrLittleCock? Not so much.

Actually, the trouble with reserving usernames of people who don't post and don't write you is that if they ever do come back, how will they know that their name is reserved and they can get it from you? I guess you'd have to have a big 'ole note somewhere, but that seems to be a lot of trouble for you.

It's like the big pile 'o papers in the back of the closet that you really need to go through but have been putting off because the pile is so daunting and overwhelming. Once you do tackle it, you look at every little piece and say, hmmm, I don't need this now, but what if I do someday? Maybe I should keep it. And then you realize that you haven't needed it for seven years and it's just taking up space. And you've moved it four times across three states. And paid to have it stored. And let it add to your "this pile 'o papers is overwhelming me to tears" frustration. And then you can't throw it away fast enough.

Or possibly I'm projecting.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2002

Yes, it's exactly like that. I've already written a big explanation for the FAQ, but I envision this being a pain in my ass for a long time to come.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2002

Honestly, if they've never posted and they don't write, I'd say dump 'em. It would just be more hassle for you to keep them, and it's not like the registration process is so time-consuming and difficult that no one will ever register again.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2002

Do you have any information on when users were registered and/or when they last logged in? If so, I would say the ones who did either in the last few months get reserved, and the rest get deleted. If not, I don't know. My initial thought is to reserve them for a period of time and then delete those who have not come forward, but that sounds like it would be a huge pain for you (in which case, I'm against it).

In the case of MrBigCock, he may have never posted just because he suspected y'all would ask him to post photographic proof. Poor man, isn't life hard enough for the Big of Cock in this world?

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2002

Well, if you've got a pile of papers that's sitting around for a week, some of them might be urgent and important. But if they sit around for ages without you ever needing to look at them, then you can probably ditch them without losing anything too vital.

I'd say hang onto the user info for some period of time, and give people a chance to claim them. Plenty of lurkers might not check in for a month or two, but still consider themselves involved in the forum. After, say, four months of not hearing from them, you can do a sweep and clear out all the ghosts.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2002

You know what we have? Usernames. That's it. We pulled them off of posts and from the private message table (senders and recipients). We have no data whatsoever as to who has logged in when, when they registered, etc. The only reason we are saving the usernames and not making everyone start over is that the usernames are still linked to posts, so if you re-register as Ashley and then someone searches for all posts by Ashley, it will pull up new ones AND old ones.

But yeah, my inclination is to delete anyone who has no posts and does not write to me in the next couple of days. (The one problem with this: some of them may have had posts in the past that have since been deleted, which could be kind of confusing if anyone remembers those old posts.) It's just that MrBigCock seems sort of special, so maybe we want to keep him around.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2002

(Addendum: if keeping those users requires active effort on your part, then I'd say just don't bother, and let them rename themselves if and when they do check in.)

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2002

Better yet, I can keep the old usernames and sell them. Surely someone wants to be Rob or Acanit or someone equally famous, right? For that matter, Curtis and Rudeboy haven't actually written to me -- who wants to be them?

I can auction off the MrBigCock name right now. I know a lot of you must have been disappointed that you didn't get that one. Let's start the bidding at five bucks ...

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2002

I used to post quite a bit to the forum, but not as much now. I'm happy that you are allowing me to still have my username. however, if you had told me I had to pick a new one in the future because of a server crash, that would be fine by me, too. I'm sure everyone isn't as understanding, but you are the one who does most of the work maintaining the forum; you should do what's easiest for you.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2002

Ahh... Since you don't have any way to know what lurkers just registered and who registered ages ago and never came back, I say dump them if they don't say anything. I'm pretty sure most people will understand 'data lost in server crash'.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2002

I used to post more, but over the past couple of months or so I've fallen into lurking, due to time some real time constraints and laziness, too, I suppose. I was pretty surprised at my disappointment when the forum temporarily disappeared, and I am happy that Beth and Jeremy are making such an effort to reinstate it, and when finances improve, I hope I can contribute, or at least offer up something to auction.

As for my user name, I really am not that attached to it even though I had 180 or so posts.( I'd prefer just -Jo-) So as a non contributor, whatever happens to my ID is OK with me. I'll just be glad just to have a place to lurk again, and maybe I'll even get the nerve to try to contribute occasionally.

Thanks for your efforts.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2002

It makes the most sense to me that you just go ahead and wipe them out if you have no posts or email from them. Anyone rational is going to be disappointed that they lost their username but will understand that at least the board and the old posts weren't lost in the Great Crash of Ought-Two. If you're not reinstating them, can they just sign up with the same name when they come back? If so, then their old posts would match their new posts. The only concern then is if someone else shows up first wanting the name, in which case, they just need to get a more original user name. (No offense to any of the Mikes, Michaels, or Karens.)

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2002

I'm not deleting anyone who has posts. It would be too confusing. (That means current posts, not counting posts that have expired.) I've got an e-mail address for almost everyone who has more than 50 current posts, though, so that's not too bad. We were able to snag all but 130 of the usernames from posts and from people who had private messages in their inboxes, but we're going to delete almost 400 inactive users, I think. I know a lot of those people lurk, but since we've lost all their preferences and settings and stuff, they won't really have lost any more than they're going to lose anyway. And it is so much easier to register again from scratch than to have me edit your profile by hand to give you a new password and an e-mail address.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2002