Users with zero forum posts have been deleted

[Amin]

Due to a very large number of spam registrations, I've deleted all of the user accounts with zero forum posts. Unfortunately, I forgot to exclude paid subscribers, some of whom have had buy/sell feedback.

If your account was deleted at the time of an active subscription, please message me using the "Contact us" link at the bottom of the page, and notify me of the email address that you used to send payment.

• If you have an active subscription associated with a recurring PayPal payment (eg, $10 per year, recurring), I will refund your most recent payment and cancel the recurring payment to avoid future charges. If you wish, you can create a new account and re-subscribe.
• If you have an active subscription associated with a one-time, non-recurring payment (eg, $5 for 30 days, $20 for one year, $100 for lifetime) and would like me to restore that to a newly registered account, I can do that. Or if you decide not to register a new account and would like a refund of your last payment, I can do that as well. Just let me know your preference.

The account deletions are not reversible. They cannot be reactivated or restored. I am sorry for any inconvenience or lost feedback and PMs.

 

[jimr.pdx]

How many accounts left us, Amin? Not all may be spam, but how does the new total compare to the former one?

 

[Amin]

A ton of accounts were deleted. I don't remember the total, but I think it was around 14,000 (almost half our total).

 

[Phocal]

Due to a very large number of spam registrations, I've deleted all of the user accounts with zero forum posts.

Unfortunately, I forgot to exclude paid subscribers. If you have an active paid subscription, and your account has been deleted, please message me using the "Contact us" link at the bottom of the page. Notify me of the email address that you used to send payment, and I will refund the PayPal payment which is associated with the current, active subscription.

Some of the accounts with zero forum posts may have had feedback in our Buy & Sell, which was lost due to account deletion.

The account deletions are not reversible. I am sorry for any inconvenience.

A ton of accounts were deleted. I don't remember the total, but I think it was around 14,000 (almost half our total).

thanks for not deleting me

 

[PakkyT]

thanks for not deleting me

Don't assume he didn't consider it!

 

[Vermont3133]

Don't assume he didn't consider it!

It could have just been the flip of a coin!!! ?

 

[DeeJayK]

I'm curious what harm these accounts were doing if they'd never posted. Seems like an ineffective way to spam.

To be clear, I have nothing against the decision or the cleanup effort. I trust Amin if he thought it needed to be done. I'm just curious what the perceived value is.

- K

 

[HenryBH]

It was probably spamming by messaging other members, rather than by posting. I'm one who was deleted. When I contacted Amin about the deletion, he fixed it right away. I've been a member for 2 years, but have never posted. I've enjoyed reading. Just bought an M43 last week, so I may do some posting. I'm very much an amateur.

--Henry

 

[ralf-11]

ok, so how many only have 1 post?

 

[KevinW]

I'm curious what harm these accounts were doing if they'd never posted. Seems like an ineffective way to spam.

It's usually a mix of reasons. Some folks will create an account on the fly just to avoid the 'Please register' type notices and never actually post or they think they'll participate but end up just being lurkers. The spammers on the other hand have a bad habit of creating a bunch of sleeper accounts so that if one account gets flagged then they have others available. A common tactic for spammers is to simply overwhelm a site - create a hundred or so dummy accounts and then use bots to to post from all of them in a short time so that the site staff can't keep up in real-time in cleaning it up. I've seen sleeper accounts come to life well after they were created; checking the IP addresses nearly all of them are from locations in the former USSR, Pakistan, India, or in the area around Vietnam.

To be clear, I have nothing against the decision or the cleanup effort. I trust Amin if he thought it needed to be done. I'm just curious what the perceived value is.

Besides getting rid of any recent likely spammers, purging old unused accounts is good for freeing up account names (eg: Somebody may have registered a short desirable name like "John" years ago and nobody else can use it now but "John" has never posted and hasn't visited in 5 years) and helping to reduce the chances of sending out emails to any accounts that will end up getting bounced [which could then cause the sending site to be flagged for spam]. A lesser benefit is reducing the perceived ratio of users-to-posts. A site with an extremely high number of accounts but with little content is not a healthy sign for a forum [of course that's not an issue here but, for forums in general, it's seen as a negative].





I think my account that got deep-sixed also was created in 2018 but had no public posts; when I got the error that neither my account name or email was valid my original thought was that I posted something really bad while sleep deprived and I didn't remember it. ?

 

[BosseBe]

It was probably spamming by messaging other members, rather than by posting. I'm one who was deleted. When I contacted Amin about the deletion, he fixed it right away. I've been a member for 2 years, but have never posted. I've enjoyed reading. Just bought an M43 last week, so I may do some posting. I'm very much an amateur.

--Henry

I think my account that got deep-sixed also was created in 2018 but had no public posts; when I got the error that neither my account name or email was valid my original thought was that I posted something really bad while sleep deprived and I didn't remember it.

So Welcome to the forum both of you @HenryBH and @KevinW !
Now that you have posted we can interact!
Please show us your images, we are a greedy lot and want to see as many images as possible.

 

[PakkyT]

Some folks will create an account on the fly just to avoid the 'Please register' type notices and never actually post or they think they'll participate but end up just being lurkers.

Registering, even if you don't post, has the advantage of keeping track of what you have already read and being able to go to a thread and jump to the new posts. So I am sure a lot of lurkers love to follow posts but don't want to have to figure out where they left off.

 

[DeeJayK]

It's usually a mix of reasons. Some folks will create an account on the fly just to avoid the 'Please register' type notices and never actually post or they think they'll participate but end up just being lurkers. The spammers on the other hand have a bad habit of creating a bunch of sleeper accounts so that if one account gets flagged then they have others available. A common tactic for spammers is to simply overwhelm a site - create a hundred or so dummy accounts and then use bots to to post from all of them in a short time so that the site staff can't keep up in real-time in cleaning it up. I've seen sleeper accounts come to life well after they were created; checking the IP addresses nearly all of them are from locations in the former USSR, Pakistan, India, or in the area around Vietnam.


Besides getting rid of any recent likely spammers, purging old unused accounts is good for freeing up account names (eg: Somebody may have registered a short desirable name like "John" years ago and nobody else can use it now but "John" has never posted and hasn't visited in 5 years) and helping to reduce the chances of sending out emails to any accounts that will end up getting bounced [which could then cause the sending site to be flagged for spam]. A lesser benefit is reducing the perceived ratio of users-to-posts. A site with an extremely high number of accounts but with little content is not a healthy sign for a forum [of course that's not an issue here but, for forums in general, it's seen as a negative].
...

The threat posed by "sleeper" accounts and the freeing up of user names make sense to me. You lost me at the users-to-posts ratio — I imagine that's how the pecking order is established at all of the forum admin soirees that I'm missing out on.

- K

 

[Mountain_Man_79]

Well ever since the purge of 2021, none of the threads are being marked as read for me on my mobile after I’m all caught up on them...they’re still emboldened as if I hadn’t visited. Also getting some notification goofiness. Anyone else experiencing this after the great August culling?

R.I.P. to all 14,000 potential CBD oil sellers

 

[bmhome1]

Same here on mobile app.

 

[John King]

Well ever since the purge of 2021, none of the threads are being marked as read for me on my mobile after I’m all caught up on them...they’re still emboldened as if I hadn’t visited. Also getting some notification goofiness. Anyone else experiencing this after the great August culling?

R.I.P. to all 14,000 potential CBD oil sellers

Just hit the refresh button on the alerts page as you read, Chris. Updates the list.

 

[Danny.]

You know when I first read this the other day, I was on post ............ 666 ..... so how lucky was I.