# /admin/users/list/active returns users with active=false

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/admin-users-list-active-returns-users-with-active-false/105649
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [January 3, 2019, 9:31pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/admin-users-list-active-returns-users-with-active-false/105649 "2019-01-03T21:31:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Dalmiro\_Granas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/dalmiro_granas/32/111811_2.png) [@Dalmiro\_Granas](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Dalmiro_Granas)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2019, 9:31pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/admin-users-list-active-returns-users-with-active-false/105649/1 "2019-01-03T21:31:43Z")

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**Background**  
A long time ago we migrated from Tender to Discourse. In the process we programatically re-created every single Tender user in Discourse. At the time of writing this, we have ~4k users that were created with that process that have read `0` posts. So its safe to say they are no longer needed.

**The Problem**

We are using `/admin/users/list/active` heavily for internal reporting, and we’d like to narrow down the amount of paging we are doing against that endpoint. So I thought I’d set these users as `Active=false` from the UI so they:

A) Can still come back to our forum if they want it.  
B) Do not show up when we hit `/admin/users/list/active`.

To my surprise, even If I set the user as `Active=false`, they still show up when I hit `/admin/users/list/active`

**Questions**

1. Is this a bug? It does sound like one to me.
2. Can anyone think of a different approach I can take to only list inactive users? I know I can bring the whole list and filter them locally, but the goal is to reduce the amount of API calls I’m doing.

Thanks a lot in advance 🙂

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### Author: ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/codinghorror/32/110067_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2019, 12:41am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/admin-users-list-active-returns-users-with-active-false/105649/2 "2019-01-04T00:41:37Z")

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> [@Dalmiro\_Granas](#):
>
> Is this a bug? It does sound like one to me.

No, that’s not what active means in this context. You are conflating “inactivate” as in “inactivate this person’s email and thus their account” and “active” as in “visits the site often”.

In our admin UI we say “active” but we should really say “activated”, so I’ll change that now.

Activated does not equal active.
