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I 100% agree.  Report this post must be an earned right and all the no posting ids should be deleted due to lack of activity.

Agreed!!

I think that is one tool that should be placed in the "fight the abuse" toolbox 

If "report this post" was an earned privilege, it would not affect any of the "lurkers" with an account or not.  The "lurkers" who do not have an account would not be affected in any way by deleting the non-active accounts.  I have found elsewhere on the internet that if you don't use an account it gets deactivated after a certain amount of time of non-use, so that would not really affect a lurker that takes a while to post as long as the amount of time was reasonable.  Perhaps six months is reasonable.

I agree so much Pat, but I am not advocating for their accounts to be disabled - just accounts with no posts at all.  I do look back at the kind words of the angels we have lost and miss them as well.

I do agree that the right to hit the "Report this post" button ought to be earned, just as the right to unlimited posting has to be earned.  Each should require time and activity on the Boards.  Perhaps the two ought to run in parallel:  a new member does not gain the right to "Report this Post" until he/she has also reached the end of the 5-posts-per-day period.

I hesitated when I first saw ADK's suggestion about deleting inactive accounts.  There are many reasons why a BCO account might be inactive.  I would hate to lose "old-timers" who disappear for awhile and then wander back to join us again.  I've also seen members who were involved on the Boards during their treatment phase, drifted away once their lives had turned right-side up, and then came back when they discovered their cancer had recurred.

But it does make sense that, if someone registers and never posts at all, their account could be deleted after a defined period of time.  The trouble with that is it would be easy to circumvent.  All someone would have to do is register under a different username, post some nonsense on one or two threads, and fade into the darkness.  I've seen that happen.  I've even seen some spammers do it, just to try to make themselves look legitimate.  But, a carefully crafted "inactive account" policy would clean up the member list, and might release some server space.  Whether it would solve the problem of unwarranted deletions, I don't know...

otter

Amazing.  I just looked at the first 3 pages of the Member List ... only about a third of those names have ever actually posted anything.  

Wonder why they are all registering?  You don't have to register to lurk and read.  Strange.

I wouldn't want to see accounts that had ever been used deactivated.  But those 0 posts - haven't been seen for years names are just taking up space. 

I lurked for awhile & a lot of the time I was just reading without logging in. I usually log in now so I can use the "Active Topic" tab.  NJ