Branewave

Thork made an excellent post in the Lounge section that was effectively a suggestion about changing the forums that belonged up here, so I'll re-post it.

Below is Thork's 10 point guide to fixing FES.

1) Rebrand the site. New theme or something. Make it look new and exciting.
2) Break up the old boys club. Davis, Wilmore, Jack, James etc. They never post any more. We have 4 admins and none of them post. There is no point in them having all the 'power'. Give it to Parsifal, Lord Dave and people who are here. You might not trust them but if the site is dying because the old choices left, its no worse if you pick someone that busts it. I doubt they would at this stage. but anyway.
3) Archive all the old FES forums and start afresh. There is so much low-content crap from muppets like CET and TK. It is a turn off to new-comers. They think everyone must be as hopelessly dumb as they are.
4) New rules. You create a rule. People with over 1000 posts cannot participate in the upper fora unless its for the flat side. By 1000 posts you know what the society is about. You'll either contribute or leave. After that you're a waste of time. Then create a group and add FErs into it. They can then both post in FEB - unmolested by noobs, and in the upper fora to answer questions. If a pest like the knowledge creates an alt after 1000 posts then ban them. We shouldn't be afraid to exclude people who do their damnedest to prevent new people from joining. Its anti-social. All it takes is a couple of ClockTowers and its hard for noobs to get a word in edgeways.
5) Allow all the FErs to create new accounts if they need to. I made a dumb post in my first week here and 2 years later the trolls still quote it, despite not being here when I made it.
6) Get a new president. Shenton has failed. It has to be Bishop at this stage, surely? Just someone who promotes and pushes the site. Not Davis. He's only interested in being president. He doesn't actually want to participate either.
7) No RE mods in the upper fora. Markjo has sucked the enthusiasm out of untold numbers of FErs with his boring bloody questions repeated ad nausium.
8) Favour FErs. They are the reason people come to the site. Be biased, be unfair. This is the flat earth society after all. You don't go to a Manchester United site, slag the team off and expect to last more than 3 posts. The fans (in this case FERs) and club/society are protected. We've not done anything to protect the society. When some dull troll slags off all the FErs ban them. Tough. Helping to maintain integrity of the site's members helps maintain the integrity of the site.
9) Be more welcoming. When I came to this site I made thousands of FE posts. Wasn't allowed into FEB, still aren't in FEB, got held at arms length by the clique of James, Davis, Wilmore, etc. FErs stuck together, but only in that little group. When you get battered with 20 noobs, help is nice. Having someone like John Davis saying "well the earth is a trapezoidal dimensionless portal and Thork thinks differently, but is likely a troll" didn't help in the slightest.
10) Have an FE hidden lounge somewhere. Somewhere FErs can slag of RErs, can argue behind the scenes about things and where it doesn't all bubble onto the open fora for RErs to discredit them. That's all the trolls want to do. Discredit the FErs. So FErs need to stick together and with the mod team ensure that their integrity is maintained, fairly or not. Who cares?. I don't care if we lose a few of the autismals. Better than losing our influx of delicious noobs.

Voila.

Aren't many of these proposed rules designed to specifically deter posters of your style, TK?

TK is an addict.  He wants to stop posting but he just can't help it.

Anyway, I'm willing to see a dialogue opened up about it.  It seems that we thrived without such rigid rules for a long time.

Aren't many of these proposed rules designed to specifically deter posters of your style, TK?

As you know, I am all in favour of fairness and thus an open discussion about such obviously biased ideas should be welcomed.

No new thread goes unhindered by the countless RE permanoobs that lurk the site. Markjo, TK, CET, and the late ClockTower, along with various others absolutely ruin any new discussion. Either by posting directly afterwards about how everyone here is a liar or by posting "what about this" scenarios in every thread. Not a single thread stays on topic and each one becomes inconceivably muddled. As Thork has said before, this is a major discussion turn off for newcomers.

1) Rebrand the site. New theme or something. Make it look new and exciting.

This could help, but it isn't vital to renewing the site itself.

2) Break up the old boys club. Davis, Wilmore, Jack, James etc. They never post any more. We have 4 admins and none of them post. There is no point in them having all the 'power'. Give it to Parsifal, Lord Dave and people who are here. You might not trust them but if the site is dying because the old choices left, its no worse if you pick someone that busts it. I doubt they would at this stage. but anyway.

Yes. A site that has all of its administrators in a permanent state of "never here" is not going to deserve much attention. The only mod that regularly visits the site is Markjo and he is part of the problem.

3) Archive all the old FES forums and start afresh. There is so much low-content crap from muppets like CET and TK. It is a turn off to new-comers. They think everyone must be as hopelessly dumb as they are.

Yes. The forum needs a fresh start. Old threads should be archived in a section similar to a believers section. No new users should be able to view years old data.

4) New rules. You create a rule. People with over 1000 posts cannot participate in the upper fora unless its for the flat side. By 1000 posts you know what the society is about. You'll either contribute or leave. After that you're a waste of time. Then create a group and add FErs into it. They can then both post in FEB - unmolested by noobs, and in the upper fora to answer questions. If a pest like the knowledge creates an alt after 1000 posts then ban them. We shouldn't be afraid to exclude people who do their damnedest to prevent new people from joining. Its anti-social. All it takes is a couple of ClockTowers and its hard for noobs to get a word in edgeways.

This is a bit extreme and an overreaction to users like Markjo and his cohorts. A higher post limit perhaps. We'll have to personally deal with the ClockTower-esque subjects, rather than carpet bombing the user base.

5) Allow all the FErs to create new accounts if they need to. I made a dumb post in my first week here and 2 years later the trolls still quote it, despite not being here when I made it.

Not necessarily a bad idea, but we'd end up with our FE user base all having month long sign up dates.

6) Get a new president. Shenton has failed. It has to be Bishop at this stage, surely? Just someone who promotes and pushes the site. Not Davis. He's only interested in being president. He doesn't actually want to participate either.

Also an interesting idea but certainly not a priority. I believe Daniel may be on the site a great deal more than we personally think.

7) No RE mods in the upper fora. Markjo has sucked the enthusiasm out of untold numbers of FErs with his boring bloody questions repeated ad nausium.

Yes. A Chevrolet site would not hire a Ford sales rep on their forums just to "appear fair." Markjo ruins threads with low content, one line posts. No one can do anything about it because he is the only mod that logs on anymore.

8) Favour FErs. They are the reason people come to the site. Be biased, be unfair. This is the flat earth society after all. You don't go to a Manchester United site, slag the team off and expect to last more than 3 posts. The fans (in this case FERs) and club/society are protected. We've not done anything to protect the society. When some dull troll slags off all the FErs ban them. Tough. Helping to maintain integrity of the site's members helps maintain the integrity of the site.

Obvious bias should not be tolerated. However, RE'ers should be warned or banned more often. I'm tired of "lol troll u dum" after nearly every one of my posts in the upper forums. These posts always go unnoticed by our resident mod, Markjo.

9) Be more welcoming. When I came to this site I made thousands of FE posts. Wasn't allowed into FEB, still aren't in FEB, got held at arms length by the clique of James, Davis, Wilmore, etc. FErs stuck together, but only in that little group. When you get battered with 20 noobs, help is nice. Having someone like John Davis saying "well the earth is a trapezoidal dimensionless portal and Thork thinks differently, but is likely a troll" didn't help in the slightest.

No one joins FEB anymore. It has become a forum for random ass poems and Levee copy pasta. It makes the rest of the site look like a joke and it is quite frankly embarrassing. At least make it hidden.

10) Have an FE hidden lounge somewhere. Somewhere FErs can slag of RErs, can argue behind the scenes about things and where it doesn't all bubble onto the open fora for RErs to discredit them. That's all the trolls want to do. Discredit the FErs. So FErs need to stick together and with the mod team ensure that their integrity is maintained, fairly or not. Who cares?. I don't care if we lose a few of the autismals. Better than losing our influx of delicious noobs.

Voila.

This is a good idea. I'm tired of having normal discussions intruded on by RE noobs who bring the upper forum into the lower forum. "Why haven't you answered my posts!?" "mars rover? too bad earth is flat!" It is ridiculous.

Sorry for intruding. As a noob I don't have much weight, but I want to express my opinion about this forum.

To me, this forum is a lot of fun, I like to debate the theories and controversies with FE believers, and I like it particularly if the debate stays fair. There are special fora where flat-earthers can discuss among themselves, I haven't seen too much disturbance there, so I think this part is fine.

RE believers are guests on this site, and I'm glad I can be one of them, so I approach the subjects with an open mind and put my own thoughts into the discussions without quoting too many boring sources. I believe this should be the general tone. Bit of science, bit of philosophy, a perfect mix and a nuclear bomb 

So my appeal is, don't take out the fairness, make the board fun for everyone who is interested, and have fun yourselves.

The equatorial white man.

No new thread goes unhindered by the countless RE permanoobs that lurk the site. Markjo, TK, CET, and the late ClockTower, along with various others absolutely ruin any new discussion. Either by posting directly afterwards about how everyone here is a liar or by posting "what about this" scenarios in every thread. Not a single thread stays on topic and each one becomes inconceivably muddled. As Thork has said before, this is a major discussion turn off for newcomers.

Quote from: Thork on September 03, 2012, 02:34:41 PM

1) Rebrand the site. New theme or something. Make it look new and exciting.

This could help, but it isn't vital to renewing the site itself.

Quote from: Thork on September 03, 2012, 02:34:41 PM

2) Break up the old boys club. Davis, Wilmore, Jack, James etc. They never post any more. We have 4 admins and none of them post. There is no point in them having all the 'power'. Give it to Parsifal, Lord Dave and people who are here. You might not trust them but if the site is dying because the old choices left, its no worse if you pick someone that busts it. I doubt they would at this stage. but anyway.

Yes. A site that has all of its administrators in a permanent state of "never here" is not going to deserve much attention. The only mod that regularly visits the site is Markjo and he is part of the problem.

Quote from: Thork on September 03, 2012, 02:34:41 PM

3) Archive all the old FES forums and start afresh. There is so much low-content crap from muppets like CET and TK. It is a turn off to new-comers. They think everyone must be as hopelessly dumb as they are.

Yes. The forum needs a fresh start. Old threads should be archived in a section similar to a believers section. No new users should be able to view years old data.

Quote from: Thork on September 03, 2012, 02:34:41 PM

4) New rules. You create a rule. People with over 1000 posts cannot participate in the upper fora unless its for the flat side. By 1000 posts you know what the society is about. You'll either contribute or leave. After that you're a waste of time. Then create a group and add FErs into it. They can then both post in FEB - unmolested by noobs, and in the upper fora to answer questions. If a pest like the knowledge creates an alt after 1000 posts then ban them. We shouldn't be afraid to exclude people who do their damnedest to prevent new people from joining. Its anti-social. All it takes is a couple of ClockTowers and its hard for noobs to get a word in edgeways.

This is a bit extreme and an overreaction to users like Markjo and his cohorts. A higher post limit perhaps. We'll have to personally deal with the ClockTower-esque subjects, rather than carpet bombing the user base.

Quote from: Thork on September 03, 2012, 02:34:41 PM

5) Allow all the FErs to create new accounts if they need to. I made a dumb post in my first week here and 2 years later the trolls still quote it, despite not being here when I made it.

Not necessarily a bad idea, but we'd end up with our FE user base all having month long sign up dates.

Quote from: Thork on September 03, 2012, 02:34:41 PM

6) Get a new president. Shenton has failed. It has to be Bishop at this stage, surely? Just someone who promotes and pushes the site. Not Davis. He's only interested in being president. He doesn't actually want to participate either.

Also an interesting idea but certainly not a priority. I believe Daniel may be on the site a great deal more than we personally think.

Quote from: Thork on September 03, 2012, 02:34:41 PM

7) No RE mods in the upper fora. Markjo has sucked the enthusiasm out of untold numbers of FErs with his boring bloody questions repeated ad nausium.

Yes. A Chevrolet site would not hire a Ford sales rep on their forums just to "appear fair." Markjo ruins threads with low content, one line posts. No one can do anything about it because he is the only mod that logs on anymore.

Quote from: Thork on September 03, 2012, 02:34:41 PM

8) Favour FErs. They are the reason people come to the site. Be biased, be unfair. This is the flat earth society after all. You don't go to a Manchester United site, slag the team off and expect to last more than 3 posts. The fans (in this case FERs) and club/society are protected. We've not done anything to protect the society. When some dull troll slags off all the FErs ban them. Tough. Helping to maintain integrity of the site's members helps maintain the integrity of the site.

Obvious bias should not be tolerated. However, RE'ers should be warned or banned more often. I'm tired of "lol troll u dum" after nearly every one of my posts in the upper forums. These posts always go unnoticed by our resident mod, Markjo.

Quote from: Thork on September 03, 2012, 02:34:41 PM

9) Be more welcoming. When I came to this site I made thousands of FE posts. Wasn't allowed into FEB, still aren't in FEB, got held at arms length by the clique of James, Davis, Wilmore, etc. FErs stuck together, but only in that little group. When you get battered with 20 noobs, help is nice. Having someone like John Davis saying "well the earth is a trapezoidal dimensionless portal and Thork thinks differently, but is likely a troll" didn't help in the slightest.

No one joins FEB anymore. It has become a forum for random ass poems and Levee copy pasta. It makes the rest of the site look like a joke and it is quite frankly embarrassing. At least make it hidden.

Quote from: Thork on September 03, 2012, 02:34:41 PM

10) Have an FE hidden lounge somewhere. Somewhere FErs can slag of RErs, can argue behind the scenes about things and where it doesn't all bubble onto the open fora for RErs to discredit them. That's all the trolls want to do. Discredit the FErs. So FErs need to stick together and with the mod team ensure that their integrity is maintained, fairly or not. Who cares?. I don't care if we lose a few of the autismals. Better than losing our influx of delicious noobs.

Voila.

This is a good idea. I'm tired of having normal discussions intruded on by RE noobs who bring the upper forum into the lower forum. "Why haven't you answered my posts!?" "mars rover? too bad earth is flat!" It is ridiculous.

Pongo logs on a lot too.

For once TK has an actual suggestion. Though I'm not sure why he misspelled brain.

Daniel can stay president. What you need is a new coordinator and that's Tom Bishop. He can run the forum and Daniel can preside over the society offline.

I don't like the idea of limiting users to 1,000 posts in the upper forum. That would mean I wouldn't be able to make a quick post or two even if it's to correct and REer's math. What we can do is ban ad homonim arguments. First ad homonim, get a warning. Second, post get's deleted. Third, your post is deleted and you're banned for a week. 4th and its permaban with account deletion.

For what it is worth;

1) The site was sort of recently re-branded and a few changes made. Yes it could possibly be made more exciting and clear but I don't think that is really going to attract people.

2)Agreed, and agree with Rushy. The dialogue between the admin and FES visitors and members is poor. If those people can't get on board regularly to discuss concerns then we need someone who can discuss them and then make those changes needed.

3) I agree with this and think this would solve a large part of the problem. It may help that when starting fresh, and this goes in hand with point 1, that the FET fora be perhaps more clearly divided, or labelled. The sections are good now, but it would be ideal if there was a physics section, a geography section etc. I think this would appeal to noobs especially they don't use the search button but may find this more navigable.

4) Yes it is annoying 

6) Daniel does an ok job. He has just made the podcast, let's not judge it, so at least he is trying to promote the society. Tom could be an admin and have the power talked about in point 2.

7) Well they (RE mods) can be in the upper fora moderating it, but it should be via pm only so as to remain unseen. Also, Rushy, Pongo does log on a lot and does a good job as do Roundy and Gayer. We just maybe need 1-2 more.

You can't be obviously biased.

9) I think the majority of people are welcoming. But point taken.

10) Excellent idea.

tl;dr  I'm some insignificant with no power who somewho thinks I can voice my opinion and make changes. 

Daniel can stay president. What you need is a new coordinator and that's Tom Bishop. He can run the forum and Daniel can preside over the society offline.

This will never happen. Daniel has proven time and again that he is unwilling to relinquish any control over the site, even if that control is something he never exercises.

Quote from: Lorddave on September 04, 2012, 03:21:11 AM

Daniel can stay president. What you need is a new coordinator and that's Tom Bishop. He can run the forum and Daniel can preside over the society offline.

This will never happen. Daniel has proven time and again that he is unwilling to relinquish any control over the site, even if that control is something he never exercises.

I know. But I thought this discussion was because we were bored, not because we expect things to happen.

I feel that my suggestion from the original thread has merit:

I don't agree with trying to stop people from arguing for RET.  It completely goes against the goal of this website of providing a place for free debate of alternative topics.  However, something that I do think would be acceptable (and beneficial) to crack down on are repetitive discussions with the same people.  I have no idea how something like this could be spelled out in the rules, but basically it's that members of a certain post count need to stay away from the "beginner topics," so to speak, or the ones that they've already argued the RE stance on thoroughly.

And I really thought we were past the whole "Let's get rid of Daniel!" movement.  It's a waste of time and has no place in this forum.

Honestly of all of Thork's suggestions, I think archiving old threads in the FE boards is the best.

I think Saddam has a good idea too.  If you want to join the fun and argue from a FE stance that's fine, but I definitely agree (and I know that Thork said it too) that repetitive RE spamming only bogs the forum down.  It seems like there would have to be a line drawn somewhere; I'm just not sure where it should be.  I do think that cutting REers off at 1000 posts would be the wrong way to go.

Everyone seems to love this archiving idea, but I really don't see the benefit of it.

I like the idea of sort of starting fresh.

Everyone seems to love this archiving idea, but I really don't see the benefit of it.

The benefit is that everything seems news.  Instead of 100 threads of stuff that everyone has said before, it looks like untouched wilderness.  And you know that an empty page on a forum means it must be filled with threads.

We also need to do a member purge.  Anyone who hasn't posted in a year needs to go.  It's time for Spring Cleaning!

We also need to do a member purge.  Anyone who hasn't posted in a year needs to go.  It's time for Spring Cleaning!

Whoa there. A lot of good people have been gone for a year and come back.  People return all the time after long leaves.

Quote from: Lorddave on September 04, 2012, 06:15:20 PM

We also need to do a member purge.  Anyone who hasn't posted in a year needs to go.  It's time for Spring Cleaning!

Whoa there. A lot of good people have been gone for a year and come back.  People return all the time after long leaves.

If we know who they are, we can preserve them.  But we have 6,390.  How many of those post?  And how many of those may come back? 

We could probably trim it down to 100 and still have abandoned accounts.

Quote from: Vongeo on September 04, 2012, 06:19:09 PM

Quote from: Lorddave on September 04, 2012, 06:15:20 PM

We also need to do a member purge.  Anyone who hasn't posted in a year needs to go.  It's time for Spring Cleaning!

Whoa there. A lot of good people have been gone for a year and come back.  People return all the time after long leaves.

If we know who they are, we can preserve them.  But we have 6,390.  How many of those post?  And how many of those may come back? 

We could probably trim it down to 100 and still have abandoned accounts.

It seems like a wasteful destruction of FES history. Also would make us appear barren having only 100 people every want to join the site.
Who would go about deciding if we knew all these people? What if the earlier clicks of yesteryear comeback to a site looking of what they once had and it is gone? No one was here at the very beginning, with whomever Daniel's Friends and the regulars of the time.

Quote from: Saddam Hussein on September 04, 2012, 05:40:56 PM

Everyone seems to love this archiving idea, but I really don't see the benefit of it.

The benefit is that everything seems news.  Instead of 100 threads of stuff that everyone has said before, it looks like untouched wilderness.

How is that a benefit?  Do you really want to just rewrite every aspect of FET?

Honestly of all of Thork's suggestions, I think archiving old threads in the FE boards is the best.

I think Saddam has a good idea too.  If you want to join the fun and argue from a FE stance that's fine, but I definitely agree (and I know that Thork said it too) that repetitive RE spamming only bogs the forum down.  It seems like there would have to be a line drawn somewhere; I'm just not sure where it should be.  I do think that cutting REers off at 1000 posts would be the wrong way to go.

I don't think RE'ers should be cut off at any particular post count. Re'ers are good to have on here as long as they aren't obnoxious about it.The mods could use their discretion and bam these incessant spammers after a warning or two. They will learn their lesson or face longer  and longer bams.

Quote from: Lorddave on September 04, 2012, 06:15:20 PM

Quote from: Saddam Hussein on September 04, 2012, 05:40:56 PM

Everyone seems to love this archiving idea, but I really don't see the benefit of it.

The benefit is that everything seems news.  Instead of 100 threads of stuff that everyone has said before, it looks like untouched wilderness.

How is that a benefit?  Do you really want to just rewrite every aspect of FET?

The main benefit I see is in following the idea of trying to categorise debates or questions in the boards. You don't need to rewrite everything you could simply archive it all, hidden in the forum.  Again better if it could be put into categories and perhaps important posts put into a merged 'mega post'.

The current situtation is that you could go through pages of posts in say Flat Earth General to find related topics on, say for example the conspiracy. Then you could do the same for Flat Earth Q&A etc etc. There would be hundreds of posts. A noob generally doesn't even bother to look, but if they did, it wouldn't be an easy task. Granted they would find some, (I think there are 2 on the first page alone) but they can't really get them all together. By grouping them FEers could better try to hopefully unify theories or at least study ideas, and obvioulsy it helps REers too. By starting a fresh we could implement such a system. 

You could also ask why would someone want to read something written about the conspiracy 8 years ago when there have been 100s of topics done since then. At this point, none of those similar topics have been collated in any way leaving behind a messy forum. Imo it would be offputting to a noob, or at least one who wants to stay and try learn a little more. There are other benefits I think too (such as allowing a new discussion of ideas, helping to remove some of the stagnation, maybe enticing old people/admins to come back) but this is the main one.

Following what I said, Saddam does have a point. Writing that, I'm not convinced the benefit will really 'reinvent FES'. The problem imo is the culture, I guess for lack of a better word. I don't know how well I can articulate it but it is the way we deal with noobs, and people, in FES in general. Thork said we need to be more welcoming and that's part of it. I think perhaps a little less moderation could go a long way too, but I don't know how to word such rules either.

Here's an example of what I mean; A noob comes in and makes an angry rant in the upper fora and eventually it is moved to AR. Perhaps the thread should stay in the upper fora a little longer, maybe until the OP decides to leave (remembering a lot normally do after venting said anger). At least that way it may get a shot at some sort of debate, with a lot more moderation than AR, but perhaps enough to still allow some joking with it. By feeding a noob straight to the bottom feeders they are scared away. The same could be said I guess of the CN threads, the earth is square for example. That sort of thread could also perhaps benefit with a prolonged stay in the upper fora.

There also should be a lot more light heartedness on the whole in the upper fora. The strict moderation for the idea of debates is good, but it may be offputting to beginners and we should show a light hearted side. It would allow for noobs to see that yes, there are some serious beleivers on a serious website, but we also like to have a laugh and some fun. I'm not saying to turn it into a mockery either, still have warnings for people who step over a certain line or use personal attacks, but maybe let's move that line back a bit. Bascially allow for humour and good clean fun.We have funny people on here and we can use them to attract people rather than having them bullshitting on about some complex astrophysics all the time. I know this is in direct opposition to the current views but I believe even a short period of relaxation on rules, somehow, maybe in order to turn things around.

Quote from: Lorddave on September 04, 2012, 06:15:20 PM

Quote from: Saddam Hussein on September 04, 2012, 05:40:56 PM

Everyone seems to love this archiving idea, but I really don't see the benefit of it.

The benefit is that everything seems news.  Instead of 100 threads of stuff that everyone has said before, it looks like untouched wilderness.

How is that a benefit?  Do you really want to just rewrite every aspect of FET?

The suggestion wasn't to ruin your ability to necro hideously old threads. You don't do it in the upper fora anyway. It was for the following reasons.

1) It stops the bores endlessly quoting old posts to discredit FErs.
2) If someone asks about say, sunrise times, right now I have absolutely no motivation to answer it. Partly because the answer is already there and the people asking should know how to use the search function by now. However I would make the effort to do the subject again if it wasn't there already, discussed in every manner possible.
3) Without the crutch of old posts, the RE noobs can't just search a topic, find out its conclusion and then kill the thread or jump to the end of a thread in one post.
4) And do we really want to rewriet every aspect of FET? Of course. Rewriting it is discussion and interaction with new people. Leaving it all there is like saying its all been done before ... don't bother. It should be as new to someone coming to the site as it was to the people who first arrived (some of which are still here).
Its not about knocking down what has already been built. It can be stored somewhere. But its about allowing new people to build their own 'journey'. That sounded awfully Microsofty. But maybe a constant archive of anything over say 2 months allows people to ask something that isn't already there and spark discussion.

Quote from: Vongeo on September 04, 2012, 06:19:09 PM

Quote from: Lorddave on September 04, 2012, 06:15:20 PM

We also need to do a member purge.  Anyone who hasn't posted in a year needs to go.  It's time for Spring Cleaning!

Whoa there. A lot of good people have been gone for a year and come back.  People return all the time after long leaves.

If we know who they are, we can preserve them.  But we have 6,390.  How many of those post?  And how many of those may come back? 

We could probably trim it down to 100 and still have abandoned accounts.

We shouldn't delete accounts just because they've become inactive, but we should delete the spambots. There are probably thousands of them.

Quote from: Lorddave on September 04, 2012, 06:23:51 PM

Quote from: Vongeo on September 04, 2012, 06:19:09 PM

Quote from: Lorddave on September 04, 2012, 06:15:20 PM

We also need to do a member purge.  Anyone who hasn't posted in a year needs to go.  It's time for Spring Cleaning!

Whoa there. A lot of good people have been gone for a year and come back.  People return all the time after long leaves.

If we know who they are, we can preserve them.  But we have 6,390.  How many of those post?  And how many of those may come back? 

We could probably trim it down to 100 and still have abandoned accounts.

We shouldn't delete accounts just because they've become inactive, but we should delete the spambots. There are probably thousands of them.

SCG is smart.

Right. All spambot accounts are neatly tagged "spambot" so we can easily identify and delete them.

Right. All spambot accounts are neatly tagged "spambot" so we can easily identify and delete them.

Well no shit you'd have to have the slightest intuition finding them. Its a big job, but if you found similar patterns in posts and searched through you could get a large majority of them though most likely not get all of them.

Step 1: remove all 0 post with no login for 1 month.
Step 2: remove all 1 post with no login for 2 months.
Step 3: Go through the rest by hand.

Right. All spambot accounts are neatly tagged "spambot" so we can easily identify and delete them.

Most spambot accounts are easy to identify. Look at the most recent page of the member list  I know that at least 14 of them are spambots without having access to their ip addresses, based on the websites they are advertising. People with access to ips can compare them to Stop Forum Spam's database. Then there are programs like this http://www.spambotsecurity.com/zbblock.php

Also, i think it's safe to assume users with names like gynaecologistdelhi, and skincareindiadelhi are bots.