Members - - Answered

[CharLee]

I was just looking over the list of the members of this forum and it occured to me that in reality the numbers are outdated. I know every organization likes to have a large number of people that they can call members, but if someone hasn't been active for a long time can you really call them a member.

Our numbers show that we have over 1600 members here on this forum when in reality less than 200 I would say are actually active in either posting or in the chat room. Have you ever considered up dating our members list to actually reflect just how many members are truly active and use the forum ?

[Anita]

Hi CharLee--
I think this is a factor with any group or forum online. I belong to a Yahoo group that has 6,000 members, with more signing up each week, but the same ten or so people do all the posting. I know SilverLady works on winnowing down the list periodically, and I've seen pictures disappear from the gallery for that reason.

Another forum I'm on has a "post here to stay current" thread, where the administrator asks all the lurkers to do at least one post after they're registered. It can be one word--""here", or "Yes". If they have zero posts, they get pruned from the list.

The administrator writes:

Primarily, this is a spam prevention measure. Spammers do not always attempt to post; often, they are content to merely register a profile, put up some bogus information in their profile, including web-site links, and never return. This generates "back-links" to their sites, helping them in web searches.

I hadn't thought about this 'trick' to get back links, but of course Google tells me that the more of them I have, the higher on the search results I'll be.

[Anthony Simon]

...if someone hasn't been active for a long time can you really call them a member....less than 200 I would say are actually active in either posting or in the chat room. Have you ever considered up dating our members list to actually reflect just how many members are truly active and use the forum ?

So to be a "true member" you'd have to be "active". I am so pining to be part of the true elite of active posters. After that I'd like to part of the elite of those who've actually gone out dressed up. I just will never feel adequate until then. Honest...

[Karin]

*lucky i didnt take the Pink Tank back yet .....

After that I'd like to part of the elite of those who've actually gone out dressed up. I just will never feel adequate until then. Honest...

Would that mean youd like to get shot of us that go out Anthony? as in Part ways?

Or..

Did you mean Be a part?....

Just wondering

[Anthony Simon]

It's not really that, Karin. It's like the attitude that people occasionally take - of elevating themselves - by saying "I've been out (and implicitly you haven't)". I can remember one person (who isn't here any longer) who I felt did that.

So I can see this idea of deciding who and who isn't a "true member" creating a kind of elite here. I'm just not terribly keen on elites. It tends to feed into people's egos, making them feel better about themselves at the expense of the rest (who feel lesser).

[Kimberly Kael]

People are here for a wide variety of reasons, and the purpose of the community is to support all of them. It doesn't matter whether you're so deep in the closet that you're just lurking. Or if you promised your spouse that you wouldn't post for fear of being discovered. Or if you're here to better understand a relative, or a co-worker.

You don't have to be "active" to get value from the community. So long as you're not interfering with anyone else, you should feel welcome. If you're looking for some kind of arbitrary measure of how many posts you've made? That's already present in the title above your avatar. It changes with the number times a user has posted, but it's otherwise fairly meaningless barring a handful of titles denoting administrators and moderators here. Even then it doesn't reflect any kind of social status but merely extra capabilities intended to help the site run smoothly.

[SilverLady(SO)]

** Karin, I'm letting you borrow my gorgeous pink tank indefinitely . . . I've got a few more at my disposal in my personal armory! **


Hi, CharLee -

Yes, we currently have over 1600 registered members, and we probably have well over 200 members who actively post or visit the chat room. We also have a huge number of members who regularly visit the forum with and without logging in, and who infrequently, or even never, make a post. Just because someone chooses not to post is not a reason to remove them from membership.

I agree with Kimberly's post, above, and could not have said it any better.

While I do regularly prune our membership - based on criteria that I will not publish so as not to force anyone's participation - the most I would presently "cull from the herd" is about 200 members. I have found that several of those culled tend to re-register for the forum, too.

Once a person has registered for the forum and has been an active poster, their accounts are here for the life of the forum and are considered active - unless, of course, they do something totally stupid or egregious and cause me to permanently ban them, of which there have been a few over the years.

If I were to cull members simply because they haven't posted here for a certain length of time, that would mean I would then have to delete all of their posts, too, because we will not allow "anonymous" or "guest" posts; anonymous/guest posts are the results of members being deleted, but posts remaining (which disrupts the flow of conversation, not being able to connect a member to a certain post in the topic) . . . and those missing posts would just leave big gaping holes in the remaining topics . . . and that is something that I will never do.


- SL

[BlonT]

Always a problem love to chat but i see mostly this

Registered users: Bing [Bot], BlonT, Google [Bot]

And chatting with a bot no thanks.
Activly post , no not so much, more the silent type i gues.

For all, best wishes for 2013

[SilverLady(SO)]

Blon -

Those registered Bot users you quoted are not in the Chat Room nor have they ever been permitted there . . . they are search bots working the Forum for their respective search engines.

Anyone who is in the Chat Room is listed like this example, which is shown below the Registered Users and Legend sections:

Who's Chatting?
The Sharbeau Lounge (Main Lobby) (3)
CharLee, KimberlyS, Leeza,

- SL

[Ginny Jones]

One reason that people seem to be registered but not be regular visitors is purging. Seems like a common phenomenon amongst Cders .... every now and again they are racked with guilt, throw all of their clothes out and get on living their life without having to crossdress. Maybe this is a long term solution for some and they don't return - but many find that this leaves them feeling incomplete and they return some months later (wishing they hadn't thrown all their clothes away).

Personally - I'd want them to return to find that they are still signed up and that we are available to them.

Hugs Ginny xxx

[SilverLady(SO)]

Personally - I'd want them to return to find that they are still signed up and that we are available to them.

The forum is always here for them and they are free to sign-up again, and when they do I tell them why they were initially deactivated from the site. More often than not, those members tend to be a bit more active after they've re-registered.

Culling the members also frees up user names - and there are some names (and various versions of them) that are more popular than others, so that becomes a win-win situation overall . . . especially when someone cannot register with their preferred 'real / real-sounding' name.


- SL

[Ginny Jones]

Yeah that all makes sense - particularly so if everyone knows that is how that situation is handled in advance. And at least we all get a shot at being called Audrey Hepburn that way!

hugs Ginny xxx

[LisaK]

Just because I do not TALK a lot does not mean I do not learn from this site and the Members.
Mostly I do not post when others who are more qualified are all over it.
Thanks for not weeding me out !

[SilverLady(SO)]

The vast majority of our members do not have to worry about being 'culled' . . . unless they do something stupid, they're here for life.

I do not mean this to sound harsh or unfeeling, I'm just being a realist: I can almost guarantee that those who would be culled will not be missed, and that would be because they never made themselves 'known' in the first place.

Like I said earlier, we have a lot of members who regularly visit the forum but rarely (or never) make a post, and that's fine; those members do not have anything to worry about. It's the member who never (or rarely) visits who has to worry about being culled.

Again, I will not divulge all the criteria I use to prune (aka cull) members simply because I do not want to force participation on anyone who is not ready to participate . . . . . . and 'participation' does not mean just posting, but it also means visiting (ie, logging in to) the forum . . . and yes, I do take into consideration those that prefer to chat versus post.


* * * * * * * * * *

So in hindsight, a short-response to CharLee should have been this:

CharLee asked: "Have you ever considered up dating our members list to actually reflect just how many members are truly active and use the forum?"

Answer: Our membership list is fairly accurate and our numbers are not being kept 'inflated'. There are a multitude of factors that go in to deciding who joins, who stays, who goes, and all the whys and wherefores involved in making those decisions. Just because a member was actively posting years ago and is not currently does not mean they should be deleted from membership, nor will they be deleted. As Site Admin, I see a lot more than anyone else here about who actually visits the forum (either logged in or as a 'guest'), who posts, who chats, and why members have or have not posted . . . and I am not at liberty to discuss that information, citing confidentiality.

The only adjustment to our membership list will be if/when members are pruned due to various criteria, and that criteria will not be revealed so as not to force participation by anyone. Suffice it to say that I have not pruned anyone from the forum for more than 2 years, and mostly because for more than 1 year we were not accepting any new members due to our problems with spambot registrations and our attempts to update the forum's software (January 2011 - April 2012). If I were to start pruning again - and I will in the near future - at present there are about 200 +/- who would be deleted.


- SL