# Dealing with unwanted (and probably spam) accounts via SSO?

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/dealing-with-unwanted-and-probably-spam-accounts-via-sso/24050>\
**Category:** Feature\
**Tags:** sso, wordpress, discourseconnect\
**Created:** [2015年一月15日 19:47 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/dealing-with-unwanted-and-probably-spam-accounts-via-sso/24050 "2015-01-15T19:47:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 14

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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:** [2015年一月17日 00:27 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/dealing-with-unwanted-and-probably-spam-accounts-via-sso/24050/14 "2015-01-17T00:27:55Z")

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> [@tobiaseigen](#):
>
> Maybe the answer is to write to all of these borderline case people again with a follow-up welcome, and if they don’t reply to that after a reasonable time then you delete them.

But would you make it clear in the email that if they don’t reply, their account will be deleted?

I kind of lean toward having a setting to **auto-delete any new accounts that have no measurable activity on the site, after a certain age.** For example, every month (or 6 months, or whatever interval you like) check all accounts new in that interval, if they have zero total read time, no visits, no posts, etc just delete them outright. I mean total input, counting from the day the account joined as new.

You are dealing with “users” who give you…

- no profile spam signal
- no topic or reply spam post signal

They just.. _exist_. And do nothing at all! Ironically that’s the only signal you have, that they do absolutely nothing. Like I said, it’s a tough problem.

Well, that’s not entirely true; you do have the glimmer of signal of the IP the user signed up from (and then, proceeded to do nothing at all for a year.) You could **disallow all signups from certain countries by IP** , assuming we can accurately geolocate IPs to that degree.

But philosophically, I don’t think you want users that sign up and do nothing forever. They are of zero value to anyone.

(The only edge case is users who sign up for a “mailing list” kind of interaction, but even then, wouldn’t they do _something_ on the discussion website over a period of months?)

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