Hard Light Productions Forums

Site Management => Site Support / Feedback => Topic started by: niffiwan on August 01, 2011, 09:40:24 pm

Title: How long before user accounts are deleted?
Post by: niffiwan on August 01, 2011, 09:40:24 pm
I've managed to sign up three new accounts (all called niffiwan) since the 20th July because they keep on getting deleted  :)

What's the criteria for getting your account deleted?  Is it if you haven't logged in for a certain time period? 

Thanks
Title: Re: How long before user accounts are deleted?
Post by: Zacam on August 01, 2011, 09:54:21 pm
The first one, was a mistake. In fact, it's posts (on Blue Planet) have now been attributed to this one.

HOW the first one got deleted, is still a mystery. All I can suspect is that it was during the beginning of my "War on Spam" while I was still sorting out processes and the like, for which I do apologize.

I personally have not however gone and deleted any additional accounts under that name since the first one accidentally on 07-25-2011, 12:52:56.

No worries though. The process for ban trigger establishment is now such a way that you won't have to worry about being accidentally banned (since it will now actively check against existing members, especially those with posts and login activity), and even then, since you have posts, you should not be getting deleted. (of course, you never were supposed to be deleted in the first place).
Title: Re: How long before user accounts are deleted?
Post by: Zacam on August 01, 2011, 10:03:07 pm

To address the question outside of your account suspifically, however...I am not aware of any policy regarding how long non-posting accounts are kept, really. I honestly think nobody cares just so long as it never get's used for spam. The choice to post or not is up to the individual, but until recently, the check system never bothered looking at the PM Messages count either, which was another flaw I had to address.

Spam. It's messy and annoying, and not just in regards to the posting of it itself, but the sort of things that happen when one tries to combat it and mitigate it.
Title: Re: How long before user accounts are deleted?
Post by: niffiwan on August 01, 2011, 10:09:28 pm
No worries - that explains it.  I thought I was going crazy when I tried to login and it said "account does not exist"!  :)

Also - thanks for the fast reply!
Title: Re: How long before user accounts are deleted?
Post by: Goober5000 on August 02, 2011, 02:45:41 pm
I think a couple of times Fury and I have deleted accounts with 0 posts and 0 PMs who haven't been active in over a year.  But that's the extent of it... we would never purposefully delete the account of anyone who is not a spammer and who has at least one post or one PM.
Title: Re: How long before user accounts are deleted?
Post by: Mobius on August 04, 2011, 06:44:13 am
Out of curiosity, Goober, how many inactive accounts have been deleted that way? Last time I checked the number ranged from 1.000 to 1.500.
Title: Re: How long before user accounts are deleted?
Post by: Goober5000 on August 05, 2011, 02:40:46 am
That sounds about right; it was in the same order of magnitude.  I carefully specified the conditions and then randomly sampled the list of users that satisfied those conditions.  All were spam accounts, and the vast majority had gibberish usernames.
Title: Re: How long before user accounts are deleted?
Post by: Colonol Dekker on August 05, 2011, 03:50:04 am
Quote

suspifically



 :mad:

Headsplosion.
Title: Re: How long before user accounts are deleted?
Post by: Black Wolf on August 05, 2011, 12:38:14 pm
I'm assuming this is related to Zacam's spambot purge?

http://www.sectorgame.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=4658