I'm unsure if a thread has been made about this yet, as results were inconclusive.

My question is, why don't we ban/hide/delete accounts that only take up site space and no longer have any obvious owner and haven't had any activity in xyz years? Granted, the images would stay as well as the comments and everything else, but aside from that the empty user accounts should be deleted to make more room for people who want to use their names as well as other purposes.

For example, a user called Kiba2500 who hasn't made a comment in 2 years. This is only one example.

Anyone got something to say about this?

In before someone says we should push ponies somewhere else.

MMOs don't do that, and some have literally millions more users than us. I haven't seen a case of taken names impeding on sign ups here. Plus, mistaken identity... (Ie someone signing up as edis krad..)

I think we should only do this for priv+ users but remove their status instead of deleting their accounts. We have like thousands of inactive Member accounts so that won't work but we can sort out the priv+ users because it's way easier and it's only a select few.

I also want to note that we shouldn't delete inactive accounts because some of those accounts are still being used but not in a communicative way. Some people just don't want to comment or post stuff.

TheHuskyK9 said:
I think we should only do this for priv+ users but remove their status instead of deleting their accounts. We have like thousands of inactive Member accounts so that won't work but we can sort out the priv+ users because it's way easier and it's only a select few.

Maybe just downgrade them to Inactive (Between Unactivated and Member ) after a time of not having absolutely any activity (logging in still counts as activity). Might aswell register some kind of "Last seen"

I also want to note that we shouldn't delete inactive accounts because some of those accounts are still being used but not in a communicative way. Some people just don't want to comment or post stuff.

They might use the blacklist too

Xch3l said:Might aswell register some kind of "Last seen"

Who says it doesn't already?

PopNotes said:

For example, a user called Kiba2500 who hasn't made a comment in 2 years. This is only one example.

Out of every website I've developed, the only time anyone's ever wanted to delete another user is when they want the account name. It's generally considered bad practice to delete a user, and besides, the system isn't equipped to handle user deletions. and probably never will be.

The only point to making accounts inactive or deleting them would be to free up names for other people who want to use them, and I've always been of the opinion that if someone got a username before you, it's theirs and you have no right to steal it from them because you want it more.

Apart from that, it's not like inactive accounts are cluttering anything up except the user list, and why are you worried about that? Plus, we'd have to rewrite a lot of things to not spit out constant 500s from missing users, so it's really not worth it.

tony311 said:
The only point to making accounts inactive or deleting them would be to free up names for other people who want to use them, and I've always been of the opinion that if someone got a username before you, it's theirs and you have no right to steal it from them because you want it more.

Apart from that, it's not like inactive accounts are cluttering anything up except the user list, and why are you worried about that? Plus, we'd have to rewrite a lot of things to not spit out constant 500s from missing users, so it's really not worth it.

See I think that is pretty unfair that some random person can take a really sought after username, register it, then never return to the site again. It's a waste of a good name if no one gets to use it

You don't have to outright delete accounts to free up a name; you can also just rename the account to something else.

I think if someone requests a name that's already taken, and it looks like the account has never been active or was active very little and has been inactive for a year+, changing the name to allow an active user to make use of it instead shouldn't be that big of a deal. You could also send the first user a message telling them that they have a week or so to respond in order to confirm that their account is indeed in use.

It's a judgement call though, really. For instance, you wouldn't want to give someone a popular artist's name just because the artist registered an account on e621 long ago and hasn't used it since. Usually these aren't the names people are after though, more like "Twilight_Sparkle" or "Bowser", or other popular character names.

I remember suggesting this before, but I'm sure if there is an inactive username and you want it, the mods probably would let you. But its not really deletion, but renaming.

Char said:
You don't have to outright delete accounts to free up a name; you can also just rename the account to something else.

I think if someone requests a name that's already taken, and it looks like the account has never been active or was active very little and has been inactive for a year+, changing the name to allow an active user to make use of it instead shouldn't be that big of a deal. You could also send the first user a message telling them that they have a week or so to respond in order to confirm that their account is indeed in use.

It's a judgement call though, really. For instance, you wouldn't want to give someone a popular artist's name just because the artist registered an account on e621 long ago and hasn't used it since. Usually these aren't the names people are after though, more like "Twilight_Sparkle" or "Bowser", or other popular character names.

Exactly my point, not fair for some username sniper to claim a name and not ever use it

Xch3l said:
Unactivated

Woah, I never knew this existed...only one person though.

Moon_Moon said:
Woah, I never knew this existed...only one person though.

Which is actually an account that Aurali made from what I can tell. Not sure what the point of the account was though.

Char said:
Which is actually an account that Aurali made from what I can tell. Not sure what the point of the account was though.

I assume that account, along with some unused admin ones were to test the site, once upon a time? Or is it a different case?

Char said:
Which is actually an account that Aurali made from what I can tell. Not sure what the point of the account was though.

You guys might not know this, but one of the last things I did in Ouroboros 1 was make the system be able to take email activations, no one ever did activate it.

Aurali said:
You guys might not know this, but one of the last things I did in Ouroboros 1 was make the system be able to take email activations, no one ever did implement it.

I remember that and bug them all the time about it

That was the only account created that was not activated by email when the feature was active for a short time