Offer to help with moderation

[Qwerkey]

Membership Secretary:

Some time ago I noted that some enrolled members are "one-hit wonders" - they appear once (usually with one specific request for help) and then we never see them again, and I suggested that Odin might review (& remove) members who have not contributed for 18 months.

Then recently I noticed that a bot-sourced appeared entry in one of my posts (advertising some on-line casino site) which Odin quickly removed.

Our team has asked for contributions to the Wiki pages, a very good idea if you are able.  My understanding of the coding fundamentals is so poor that I could not contribute to this activity, regrettably.

However, if useful to the team I could look after membership and deal with such issues as described, and could (after a small amount of training) remove such boring tasks from Odin to leave them to work on the important stuff.

As an aside, we could also enrol Pete as Social Secretary.  With his all-round gregariousness he could organise the annual charabanc outing to the Hillary Clinton Appreciation Society AGM.

[FellippeHeitor]

You offer is sure appreciated, Notley.

However, how would it be decided whether an account should be deleted? If one created theirs and would like, after some time, to come back and check their replies out, even if to a single enquiry, would it be fair to have had it deleted?

About spam posts, those surely need deleting, as swiftly as possible, and although there have been a few, they are minor since the forum implemented our current spammer barrier at the sign up screen (much hated by those who struggle with English, but so effective as it has proven to be).

[Qwerkey]

Fellippe as you say, it was an offer.  Those of us who do not have high-level coding skills would like to help in the background.  From other professional sites one may get an e-mail if there has been no activity at one's account.  The Membership Secretary might, after a non-active time, e-mail the member and if no reply or reply without further interest the account could be deleted.  But it's hardly an important activity, I agree, but one would like to be as tidy as possible.  And you're right to keep out website novices from moderation.  I couldn't even put this post in the correct section!

[Pete]

I wish Rob would have had such a system in place in the early days of QB64. I offered to help back then, and as "Moderator" removed thousands of f stupid spam posts over time. It was a multi-daily event in those days. The problem is the websites then list you as a "Moderator" and inevitably you get pressed by members to take other actions, too, like moderate other posts by other members. Frankly, I wished forum formats contained alternate names, like garbageman instead of moderator. Oops, that was sexist of me. Let's make that garbage collector... except no one really collects garbage, well, that is unless of course you save FreeBASIC programs. Hmmm, I'd go with Spaminator, but no, that reminds me too much of a similar xxx movie spoof of the Terminator, interestingly enough still starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Hey what I didn't know is that the current anti-spam process is tough to navigate for non-English speakers. With my horrible grammar, I'm just glad I got in before that wall wall got built. Oh well, I suppose on the bright side, it's a good thing so much of the earthly population speaks English... which is a little weird, I mean that so many people speak a language derived from what now is essentially is an island nation. Oops, sorry Richard. God shave the Queen. :D

On a serious note, Richard, did you volunteer to help with the wiki? Especially with the newer stuff added to QB64, which we aren't going to find other QB references to on the web? I haven't got involved, because I use very few of the new bells and whistles, but if you do, you might want to consider my suggestion, or even working to improve some other areas of the QB64 wiki project.

Pete

[Qwerkey]

Pete, regrettably I didn't volunteer to help with the Wiki.  I'd love to, but I am weak on coding fundamentals so I volunteered for something that Fellippe doesn't need.  That'd be Notley: useless at anything useful.

[bplus]

That'd be Notley: useless at anything useful.

I have to disagree, you got me moving on contributing $'s to this forum. That is like moving mountains! :)

[Pete]

There are times I wish I could have kept up with all the new stuff added to QB64, but since I never had an interest in anything other than business applications, I just didn't do so. Now I have more time for hobbies, but too much of it is spent on trying to roll back my own SCREEN 0 calendar. I came in from my garage last night, huffing and puffing from spending some time hitting the 100lb bag... not the wife, an actual heavy bag; anyway, my wife asked me why I was out of breath? I told her in the old days, I'd beat up 10 guys, go out for a 5-K run, and come home and start building a gate.  Now days, I start a 10-K run, trip others out of the starting gate, and get beat up by 10 guys.

Hey I think it's great you are active on the forum. The community needs people interested is using QB64 to contribute posts here. I know, how is it possible that those one-hit wonders you mentioned can go through the trouble of signing up, download the software, and then disappear? Maybe ADHD isn't as over-rated as I believe?

Pete

[luke]

There is no reason to remove inactive accounts.

[Pynch]

There is no reason to remove inactive accounts.

I agree that there is no reason to remove inactive accounts as they do not interfere with forum discussions in any way.

[OldMoses]

I don't always hangout here, but when I do, I'm here.....and there you are... ;)

[Pete]

I don't always hangout here, but when I do, I'm here.....and there you are... ;)

That's the most interesting post in the world!

Pete

My computer doesn't often drink beer, but when it does, it drinks DOS Equis. Well, I'm always running in SCREEN 0, so what did you expect, Heineken?

[johnno56]

"However, how would it be decided whether an account should be deleted?"

I would agree with, "You can't." It's difficult to determine if a user 'signs up' just to answer a question or perhaps someone with little to no commitment or perhaps... and the list could go on...

I assist the sdlbasic site as a moderator and we are faced with the same 'problem'....

I was not a member when our site was first established, so I did not have any say in how membership policy should be structured. But, I do have an idea, that may make your decision to 'delete' a little easier. Might I suggest that the "Terms of agreement" be modified to indicate the removal of a membership due to inactivity, say for 6 or 12 months? Also to implement an 'early warning' system of messages prior to deletion?

Just a thought....

J

[SMcNeill]

I think the issue of deleting old accounts only becomes something a forum has to worry about, once it starts affecting new accounts.  Take gmail for example — pick any name you can imagine and see if chosen_name@gmail.com is available for use.  I imagine it’s not, and you’d end up needing to be chosen_name_12345@gmail.com....

User names are unique items, and when you have tens of thousands of users, each with multiple accounts, those inactive names need to be recycled.  And, as more time passes, the need for recycling those names becomes ever more obvious.

But for small forums like QB64.org?  What’s the point, really??  Joe_Smoe_123 logs in, only posts once, and then never shows up again... and it affects what?  The next Joe_Smoe has to try twice to register a new account name?   The server has to store an extra 100 bytes of info in its database?

And what happens with Joe_Smoe_123 if he does try to log back in a year later?  His account is gone?  Someone else has took his name?  Isn’t he going to be pissed that someone “stole his online identity and is pretending to be him”?  Aren’t you just opening up a can of worms with the possibility of creating an everlasting feud between the old user and the new one??

I really don’t see where there’s many benefits to removing accounts for such a small forum as this one, but I can imagine where there are potential problems that can occur if you do remove them. 

[Qwerkey]

OK guys, no need to spend any (more) time on this.  The Team do not want to delete any accounts - full stop (or period if you're outside the UK).

My only reason for offering to do this was because I felt that we'd be more of a community if we only had members who want to contribute.

[johnno56]

Point made and taken.... Next topic.... lol