As most of you know, Elsmar has been online since around 5 January 1996 with the first forums started during 1997. Over the years over 350,000 people registered in the forums. Prior to the 1 October 2018 migration from vBulletin software to Xenforo software, the decision was made to "prune" visitors who had not visited in 4 years and who had made less than 5 posts total. The decision was made to get a realistic idea of how many actual people were "active" in the sense of how many people were actually visiting. After the migration, it was decided to get even more realistic and people who had 3 posts or less and had not visited in the previous 16 months (since before 1 September 2017) were "pruned".
The "pruning" of inactive visitors has given a more real estimate of approximately 10,300 "active" (have actually visited in the previous 16 months) registered visitors. Please note that this is not ~10,000 active participants who are actually involved in discussions. As has been the case for years, most people register but do not actually post. And of course a small minority of people who regularly visit are actually active in helping others.
What this Means
A few (only 3 so far) people have contacted me with this question:
If a person has registered but:
Everything is open and free to non-registered visitors other than to be able to start new discussions and to actually be involved in discussions.
Why Do This?
I do not currently have plans to 'prune' registered visitor 'accounts' regularly. As much as anything else, this is part of the post-migration 'clean-up'.
If you are a person who has registered in the past but your 'account' here has been pruned/deleted, you can easily register again.
NOTE: If you were a registered visitor and you account was deleted / pruned, you definitely had less than 5 posts. Posts you did make have not been deleted, however. They are simply not connected with an existing account.
If you have any questions, simply Contact us
The "pruning" of inactive visitors has given a more real estimate of approximately 10,300 "active" (have actually visited in the previous 16 months) registered visitors. Please note that this is not ~10,000 active participants who are actually involved in discussions. As has been the case for years, most people register but do not actually post. And of course a small minority of people who regularly visit are actually active in helping others.
What this Means
A few (only 3 so far) people have contacted me with this question:
If a person has registered but:
1) Doesn't get involved in discussions by asking questions and/or helping others (at least 5 posts), and
2) Has not visited in more than 12 months
The account may be deleted. There isn't a reason to retain the information in the database, and it gives a false impression of actual activity here.Everything is open and free to non-registered visitors other than to be able to start new discussions and to actually be involved in discussions.
Why Do This?
1. One of the biggest issues was the number of people who would register and "subscribe" to forums and/or specific discussion threads. This not a problem in its self, but what I was seeing was the forum was sending out thousands of email "Notifications", many of which were to people who had not visited in many years, and many of those people had 'moved on', so to speak, so I was getting hundreds of "bounce" notices. As I said, there were over 350,000 people who had registered over the years. After pruning (deleting inactive registered visitors), the number is now approximately 10,200. While for 'bragging rights' a number of ~350,000 registered visitors is impressive for a small forum such as Elsmar, the intent here is not to impress anyone with a bogus number.
2. By pruning inactive visitors I have been able to cut costs - It takes a lot of server load to process so many accounts and send useless emails. This also has significantly reduced the time I have to spend evaluating bounced email notices.
3. Lastly - As a DISCLAIMER - Elsmar is not a 'profit' oriented website. Expenses to keep Elsmar online is solely from advertising (we aren't interested in trying to sell people junk like US$20 coffee mugs or over-priced t-shirts and other useless junk just to make a buck here or make a buck there). Advertising these days pays less and less. I don't mind providing a service, but if a person isn't interested in visiting the forum at least a few times a year, I have to believe they're not really interested.
I do not currently have plans to 'prune' registered visitor 'accounts' regularly. As much as anything else, this is part of the post-migration 'clean-up'.
If you are a person who has registered in the past but your 'account' here has been pruned/deleted, you can easily register again.
NOTE: If you were a registered visitor and you account was deleted / pruned, you definitely had less than 5 posts. Posts you did make have not been deleted, however. They are simply not connected with an existing account.
If you have any questions, simply Contact us
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