Non-posting/inactive members?

[familyman34]

In an idle moment recently, I clicked on the "members" link at the bottom of the forum index page, and then did a sort by the numbers of posts. In all, there are just under 21 pages of members (N=1527).

While there are some prolific posters in the first few pages, only two and a half pages suffice for the elite posters, those with more than 100 posts; the remainder are classed as "active members" (between 30 and 99 posts), "members" (between 10 and 29 posts), and "junior members" (between 0 and 9 posts).

I was surprised at how many of these "junior members" have never posted a single time, or have posted just once, even though some have been members of the Café for many years, some up to 20 years!

Now, while many have only joined recently (perhaps thanks to the publicity from the Glasgow meet-up - thank you Stevie), some others of these inactive members may unfortunately be deceased (and forgot to inform Carl before their demise); still others may have lost their interest in the purpose of the Café or have originally joined without any such real interest.

Inactive membership does not really enhance our voice in trying to normalise the wearing of skirts by regular men, even though non-registered users do not have access to the membership list.

Could Carl, if he has the time, produce an estimate of the ACTIVE membership, however defined?

And should we have a recommendation in the Introduction and Summary of the Rules that, after the first two years (or some other reasonable initial period), members are expected to post at least once a year (or some other reasonable minimum), perhaps attaining the status of "member" (10 posts) after five years?

[crfriend]

Could Carl, if he has the time, produce an estimate of the ACTIVE membership, however defined?

Every so often I will purge the membership of accounts that have never logged in and never posted anything for about the last 2 years. I forget when I last did this, but I'll usually indicate a week or so before I do it. I'll find the precise criteria as I have it somewhere and post it.

Off the top of my head, I suspect the truly active membership is slightly less than 100, but that's just a WAG and may be wildly inaccurate.

[crfriend]

For the curious and technically inclined, here's the actual SQL query I use to periodically purge the database of "deeply inactive users":

Code: Select all

CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE foo
SELECT user_id
FROM phpbb3_users
WHERE user_posts = 0	-- NO posts, ever
 AND username NOT like '%[%'	-- NOT a known "bot"
 AND user_regdate >= UNIX_TIMESTAMP(date_sub(now(),INTERVAL 10 YEAR))	-- less than 10 years old
 AND user_lastvisit < UNIX_TIMESTAMP(date_sub(now(),INTERVAL 1 YEAR))	-- NO logins in the past year
 AND user_id > 50 ORDER BY user_regdate ASC;	-- preserve deep history; the ORDER BY is superfluous for this use

DELETE FROM phpbb3_users
WHERE user_id IN (SELECT user_id FROM foo);	-- do the deed

DROP TABLE foo;	-- clean up after yourself

Using the copy of the database I have in my lab which is a couple of months old, if I ran that now on the Production database the cull would amount to 5,986 usernames. This sort of shows just how thin on the ground we are.

[Bill]

I've been involved with forums (fora?) for many years, at one time being a mod of the largest affiliate marketing forum in the world. Everyone had a common interest and we grew the forum by encouraging engagement with new and/or seldom-posting members.

I've been here for only a few weeks and have only a couple dozen posts but it's like posting in the wind. But I'll keep at it for a while and see if I can gain any traction. It may be tough because I am only (thus far for about 10 years) a kilt-wearing old fart. Fortunately my wife gets it; in fact she bought me the kilt shown as a Christmas gift along with two others because she like the tartan colors.

[Warren]

I personally think that blokes wearing skirts is not an issue for most folk nowadays and with Social Media with it's ego boosting 'likes' etc giving instant gratification why would somebody type away on an old fashioned keyboard?

[crfriend]

I personally think that blokes wearing skirts is not an issue for most folk nowadays and with Social Media with it's ego boosting 'likes' etc giving instant gratification why would somebody type away on an old fashioned keyboard?

Because typing away on an old fashioned keyboard is going to be the best way to hash out the difficult questions of "Why?" and "What are the detractors focussing on?" rather than instant gratification?

[FranTastic444]

SQL is not my strong point, but…. don’t you need some sort of insert into foo before this query would do any record cleansing??

[Myopic Bookworm]

I've been here for only a few weeks and have only a couple dozen posts but it's like posting in the wind. But I'll keep at it for a while and see if I can gain any traction.

I know what you mean. Some of my carefully crafted posts vanish like the morning dew.

Nice tartan!

[crfriend]

SQL is not my strong point, but…. don’t you need some sort of insert into foo before this query would do any record cleansing??

In MySQL there's a shorthand in the CREATE TABLE syntax that allows implicit insertions into the new table via a concatenated "SELECT". I made use of that in this query.

[Barleymower]

I've been here for only a few weeks and have only a couple dozen posts but it's like posting in the wind. But I'll keep at it for a while and see if I can gain any traction.

I know what you mean. Some of my carefully crafted posts vanish like the morning dew.

Nice tartan!

Same here MB. I feel like I've written some inspiring stuff only to be greeted with a wall of silence.
I've looked at the alternatives eg r/menskirts and there's no discussion. Just photos followed by comments.

[Coder]

Same here MB. I feel like I've written some inspiring stuff only to be greeted with a wall of silence.

Silence could mean something - maybe folks agree in general with what you wrote, and don't have anything to add. Or they don't know what to add or how to continue the conversation.

I've looked at the alternatives eg r/menskirts and there's no discussion. Just photos followed by comments.

And a lot of the comments are creepy. I refuse to post photos in that sub, but I will engage with text posts. The moderation is screwed up, half the time you can't tell if it's a woman posting or not (it never is, of course) and people cross-post with CD subs which that sub is not supposed to be part of. Don't get me started on that sub, because it could be a wholesome place and a force for change, but as it stands right now it just reinforces unhealthy stereotypes.

[crfriend]

Same here MB. I feel like I've written some inspiring stuff only to be greeted with a wall of silence.

Silence could mean something - maybe folks agree in general with what you wrote, and don't have anything to add. Or they don't know what to add or how to continue the conversation.

Coder has it dead to rights with that statement -- silence can have several meanings, and quite a few of those are actually good. Some, of course, are bad, but if somebody vehemently disagrees with someone's thesis he's highly likely to say something -- which is usually good because it gets things aired out. And quite unlike many of the cesspits I've seen on the Internet, this place has some astonishingly good behaviour and civil discourse on it.

And a lot of the [Reddit] comments are creepy. I refuse to post photos in that sub, but I will engage with text posts. The moderation is screwed up, half the time you can't tell if it's a woman posting or not (it never is, of course) and people cross-post with CD subs which that sub is not supposed to be part of. Don't get me started on that sub, because it could be a wholesome place and a force for change, but as it stands right now it just reinforces unhealthy stereotypes.

That's a typical problem with image-centric forums in general: they're not conducive to proper textual interaction. It's prose-based here for some very good reasons, and for some historical accidents as well. This site is also pretty tightly focused, which is also by design, but we try to cast a reasonably wide net to gather as much interaction as possible. However, I suspect that with the overall decline in literacy, we're becoming a bit of a backwater because of the focus. Now, that having been said, I think that what we have here borders on magic, and diligent readers who bother to look through the history will find a trove of information that is simply unavailable in any so-called "modern" forum format.

I've been cursed out before for not being more like the other forums, but again that's by design -- I don't want this place to sink into the morass that is the modern 'Net. I'm also strong enough that I don't worry about occasionally getting cursed out. As often, and likely ill-attributed to Winston Churchill, "So you have enemies. Good. Because that means that you've actually stood up and taken a stance on something at least once in your life!"

[Barleymower]

I know and I agree. It was more for Bill's benefit who hasn't had many replies. I've grown used to the ebb and flow of the forum. Sometimes you post something meaningful and it seems that nobody gives a ... Nods are hard to put into words.

As for r/Reddit I'm not keen. I wasn't able to fully articulate what was wrong without insulting or being unsupportive. That said there is a lot of CD there or trans. Don't get me wrong it not that I don't support their struggles. Isn't CD nothing more that getting a bit more into the character? Women do it all the time.
Trans? Help, sympathy, support, accept, welcome. What I don't want to do is tell someone else they look great when they look atrocious or tell them they look like MIS when actually (IMO) they look CD (trying to look as female as possibe).

[Coder]

I know and I agree. It was more for Bill's benefit who hasn't had many replies. I've grown used to the ebb and flow of the forum. Sometimes you post something meaningful and it seems that nobody gives a ... Nods are hard to put into words.

I sometimes wish we had a "like" system here... but then I start dreading the consequences of such a thing. I feel there are far more negatives associated with a ratings system than positives.

[crfriend]

I sometimes wish we had a "like" system here... but then I start dreading the consequences of such a thing. I feel there are far more negatives associated with a ratings system than positives.

Once again, the term "by design" creeps into the conversation. I'd contemplated putting in such a modification quite a while ago, and then contemplated what the eventual outcome would entirely likely be -- and rejected the idea. This place is not supposed to be an "echo chamber" in which one speaks merely to hear his own words repeated; it's intended as a place where problems, challenges, and detractors can be hashed out publicly for the good of all involved, not to gratify one or two super-egos. Because what usually happens is that the ones who should not have their egos stroked are precisely the ones who do in such a "rating" system. It's the Law Of Unintended Consequences in action.