Automatic deletion of "inactive" users

Support

AI-generated summary

Some users are experiencing issues with the automatic deletion of “inactive” users on their forum. L30110 has set the “clean up inactive users after days” setting to 0, attempting to disable all automatic deletions, as many users are lurkers who only visit occasionally. HAWK confirms that this is the only setting related to automatic deletion. Peter_Backgren expresses frustration with this feature, citing several cases where it causes problems, including:

  • Email lurkers who only participate occasionally
  • Test accounts used for security checks and upgrades
  • Association members who may be away for a few years before returning
  • Regular event users who may not participate during event-less periods, such as during the corona pandemic.

He notes that setting the “clean up inactive users after days” to 0 should prevent these issues.

1

Are there any settings that affect automatic deletion of “inactive” users other than:

clean up inactive users after days

which I have set to 0 in an attempt to disable ALL automatic deletions of users under any circumstances (regardless of activity, membership level, etc.)

On my forum many users are lurking read-only via email, and others might only have a need to visit once every few years or so! I don’t want automatic deletion of any users, ever.

Thanks.

2

That is the only setting.

3

Thanks very much …

5

Aaaargh. I just realized this has been happening for years. Whoever came up with this… well, let’s say I would not write something nice into this spot so I wont :smiley: .

I have users that complain that the forum never works or notifies them and this is one of the reasons. After getting reluctant users in when everyone else in the group is already on the forum this “feature” really does not help.

Hopefully a deleted user reactivates if someone logs in with those credentials again?

So here are some cases I now see and understand and am not happy about. And yes, the setting is now 0 instead of the default two years.

  1. Email lurkers, they only jump in if there is some real action going on. Extremely common.
  2. My test accounts (“readonly”, security checks), might only use them at major upgrades and those can have more than 2 years in between. Just a hassle to recreate your testing procedure users.
  3. Association members. They can be away a few years and then come back sitting on the board.
  4. Regular event users. Especially during corona some events were not happening for more than two years.