resquest: ban lurkers

upso

i would love to be able to ban people who only lurk
or who havent logged in and posted for say 3 months
is there any way to set something up like this?
it would make sense for you to be able to customize your ban search

this make sense? sound useful? i could see it encouraging a more robust community,
and also make regular posters feel more secure that they we'rent being watched by strangers

alnokta

"or who havent logged in and posted for say 3 months" This is interesting .. how would you know that they are lurking without logging in? they may have forgotten all about you ... the only way I can see that is that if all of your users have fixed IPs in which you can track them by it... On the other hand, I'm totally against this one(that of course doesn't mean that you should not have it or make it....... just my opinion) because I'm one of those lurkers ... I don't like to post spam .. I only post when I really have something to say(useful or not!) and I tend to leave forums for months but I always come back ... This is something similar to the stupid thing of yahoo's mail ... they delete all of your emails if you leave the inbox for 3 months or something near that ... These kind of extensions makes me feel like I'm tied or chained .. I don't know ... like the 'Invite only system' .. its not inclusive ... just like any non oss licenses .. oh .. sorry I'm getting a little off-topic here ...

NickE

Why ban lurkers? Just because they don't login and/or post dosn't mean they're not getting anything out of the community. I myself lurk on a few forums simply because I like reading the discussions and the answers to posed questions. Someone may also just tire of a forum for a while, and come back a few month later. I don't really see a need to ban somebody who just appears to be inactive, as it won't clear up the sql database in any way and could only inconvience people.

upso

for example, i run a closed community full of artists sharing works in progress that they don't want the outside world looking at. i require people to request admission to the site, and i of course try my best to judge who i let in (hopeing they will add to the community) but i find some people register and then never post. for this specific board, if you don't participate I don't want you to share in the resources the board offers (downloads of custom photoshop filters for example)

i would suspect there are other people who run boards and feel the same way
im not looking to ban lurkers from the internet, as i myself lurk on a few boards. but it would be nice for a closed community to kick out the people who don't contribute dont you think?
some boards are for public dicussion (like this one) and some boards are for making and maintaining friends. to me it seems odd to lurk on a board like that.

upso

i guess another option is to show who is online, because at least makes it obvious who is lurking and not participating.

Minisweeper

I love the *massive* irony in you posting this upso. Obviously you have your reasons for it and you've said yourself that it has different cases where it is and isnt useful. But as user #3 who's posted 17 things since the beginning of time.... :D I shouldnt think it would be that difficult to make though.

upso

yeah, i don't ever come to this board
but mark suggested I make a request here, when i asked him if an add on like this was possible

WallPhone

Rather than ban, I would suggest a type of a probationary role. If there are no posts by a user in three months, they suddenly become limited to posting and viewing only one thread--Hall of Shame--if you will. Now the only thing they can do is plead their case in the hall of shame (for all to see) to have their normal privileges back.

Dinoboff

I see 2 options:

1. You delete users who has not post anything or ban the one that has post so few and so long ago (EDIT: or change thier role). That just a new postbackcontrol to create for the setting page like the cleaner extension of mark.
2. You create a new authentificator that look for a session or check the remember me cookies, and add a check for the participation of the user and delete him or ban him (EDIT: or change their role) if needed
I am busy and can't do it right now, I hope someone else can do it.

upso

i DO like the hall of shame concept quite a bit.
and i guess it wouldnt be as permanent as banning.. not as agressive
(im not looking to piss people off. i just personally have users who feel uncomfortable posting their works in progress when they think people might be lurking and stealing their ideas)

Krak

I would rather like to send an email to a user that has not posted or logged in X amount of time instead of delete/ban. I am a member of a few forums that I had to register to just read some posts to get an answer I was after or to post a simple question, and then have forgotten all about it. Then i get an email saying they were sorry for the downtime, then I remember that I had an account.

"Hey, have you forgotten about us? Just reminding you that you have an account at X Forum, we noticed your account has been inactive for X time. Just reminding you to stop by..." type of thing.

Wanderer

Great idea Krak, I do this manually, it would be fantastic to have an extension that sent out such an email at a pre-set interval, maybe bi-monthly?

alnokta

Yes , I second Krak's idea ... that is something nice .. not deleting the user(vulgar!) or hall of what?(I just don't like it- too complicated) ...

upso

to be honest, id prefer both! the email doesnt stop the lurking it just reminds those that arent visiting at all that they should but i do think the email reminder would be appreciated by many