A thread to discuss naming threads, board policy, new thread suggestions, and anything else that has to do with board administration and maintenance. Guaranteed to include lively debate and polls. Natter discouraged, but not deleted.
Current Stompy Feet: ita, Jon B, DXMachina, P.M. Marcontell, Liese S., amych
I don't mean to be all doomsday, David, but this happens seemingly overnight.
During all the original voting discussion somebody posited, "Well, what if we get swamped by new registrants who come in and vote the stompies out of office and turn it into a creepy, anti-fun thread for the religious right and Hooters." And there was a general bullshit consensus that the voting was there for us to make decisions, not something that we'd allow people to use to make a parliamentary choke chain against us.
What makes you feel that way?
I need to think carefully on it for awhile. I have the quick no-tact response, but that'd cause trouble.
David, I don't think you're hearing what I'm saying.
I'm wondering though if it might be useful to turn off registrations that haven't been used for a year (to be re-opened upon request). I think it's freaksome to see 1300 users, but if we knew that 800 of them were people who had never logged in for a year, then we'd have a better sense of active community folks.
I think this is a good idea, if only because I like things to be tidy. I'm assuming we'd send an email to these people to let them know that their accounts were being zotzed?
I don't see the point of getting rid of existing registrations.
David, I don't think you're hearing what I'm saying.
goes back to re-read
I don't see the point of getting rid of existing registrations.
Not getting rid of them. Making them inactive. So we know how many people are regularly participating here.
I'm wondering though if it might be useful to turn off registrations that haven't been used for a year (to be re-opened upon request). I think it's freaksome to see 1300 users, but if we knew that 800 of them were people who had never logged in for a year, then we'd have a better sense of active community folks.
I think this is a good idea in terms of keeping our database as small as possible, but unless I have the wrong idea of how the board works, wouldn't the user numbers keep climbing up? I mean, let's say that we deleted users 500-1400, because they hadn't logged in for a year. The next new user would still be assigned # 1401 by the auto-increment thingy. I think.
So, yay database cleaning, but I doubt it'd have any kind of psychological impact.
I'd prefer slow evolution. Adopt other people into our culture, before they develop their own culture that is at odds with ours.
I totally get what you're saying, Allyson, though I'm not sure I can phrase it any better.
I keep trying to type out a good explanation, then deleting it due to poorly phrased suckage.
From a technical standpoint, (speaking as someone who manages a registration table) it is more hassle than it's worth. Not a lot of hassle if the person never posted, but if they did? Gonna require cleanup. Notifying people? Gonna require someone to code something. Again, possibly easy to do, but why? Coders have higher priority things to work on.
All it is for those accounts that have never posted is an entry in a table. There isn't m uch cost in that.
eta: to figure out the number of active posters is presumably simply a matter of a single query based on a cut-off a date that can be run by those with access.
Presumably.
Don't want to step on anyone's toes.
From a tech standpoint, "deactivating" users gains us nothing. It's just a "checkmark" in their profile.
Because the board is so quick to come down on folks who ruffle feathers, I think we can afford more leeway. In my opinion, that quickness to correct even minor transgressions may not be the best way to go, but that is how the board works.
I would agree with you on this David, except what seems to happen (in my eyes) is we end up getting ruffled at each other, after some of us come down on feather rufflers.
Sure, we do have a few people who will come down on feather rufflers (although I'm not sure why they would bother protecting us after the prior week's conversation). We also have people who get ruffled at those who get ruffled by the feather rufflers. For every person who was annoyed by Beej (I feel badly using her as an example, because I never even spoke with her), there seemed to be someone who was annoyed at the people who were annoyed at Beej.
I don't like the idea of being so uber-exclusive that we never get new blood. I don't think it would hurt us to slow things down, when something has happed to bring in so many new folks at once, and mostly for the reasons Kristen stated.
