[Chas]

Hi All,

I was trying to find a member the other day in the 'Members List'. I had to trawl through pages and pages before I found them. I then noticed that there were a lot of members who had not visited the site since 2005!

Does the site operate a policy of 'Once a member - Always a member'? If so then the membership list is going to swell to gigantic proportions and the question must then be asked, To what end? What is the benefit to anybody to have a list that is too unwieldy to use?

If that is not the site's policy then can we have a pruning or cull of the defunct members. Just as one example - page 1 of the list: of the 30 members there are 6 who have not visited the site in over a year and another 3 who have not visited yet this year. This amounts to, at a minimum, 20% non-active members with the possibility of it being 30%. From what I know from other fora this percentage is reasonably accurate.

My proposal is this - That all these non-active members be moved to a 'retired' members area.

I am not asking for them to be expelled. There are various reasons why a member did not or could not visit the site. Physical or mental health; bereavement; imprisonment; financial - all of these are just causes which could stop someone visiting. Should the problem be resolved then the member could come out of 'retirement' and their listing could be reinstated.

After the initial cull, it could be the job of the 'Duty Mod', on the last day of every month, to move the retired members. Non-visits for 12 months might prove to be too short and the time period might have to be increased to 18 months.

Thanks

Regards

Chas

[Bugbear]

There are other ways than using the member list to find member profiles, and I kind of like that the list is so huge and that it takes a bit of work to find a name on it... I usually also check who is on line before I log in, and who has been on line after that.

[Rex_Tremende]

Or maybe add "Last Activity Date" parameters to the member search page.

Regards,
Rex.

[Bugbear]

Shhh, Rex, now everyone knows.

[Chas]

Hi Rex And Ted,

Thanks for your replies. Because of them, I re-looked at the Members List and it does seem to be far more powerful than I first thought. I know that my time is no more valuable than anyone else's and plowing through the list really doesn't take too long.

I just don't see the benefit of listing as a member, someone who visited a couple of times four years ago because his sister was dating someone who mentioned that it might be nice to have a kilted wedding. Not wanting to be morbid, but I would be willing to bet that there is at least one listed member who is dead!

I am a Fellow of an on-line heraldry association and because there is voting involved we have an annual census - members are emailed and whose who do not respond within three months are moved to a non-active list. Only active members are allowed to vote but a simple email is all that is required to re-activate a member.

We have, by far, the best kilt forum on the net, I don't believe we need to be the biggest to hold that position.

Regards

Chas

[Bugbear]

That does raise an interesting question... Should one leave instructions to let X Marks the Scot know what happened if something... happens?

Guess that's up to the individual member.

[Panache]

Chas,

I have been communicating with the site owner about your suggestion.

It is certainly possible to do what you suggest but it would require a lot of effort and after that a lot of maintenance.

We do have members that come and go as their lives and interests change. Sometimes after long periods of time.

This just isn't something that he feels is worth pursuing at this point.

Cheers

Jamie

[Jerry]

Originally Posted by Panache

Chas,

I have been communicating with the site owner about your suggestion.

It is certainly possible to do what you suggest but it would require a lot of effort and after that a lot of maintenance.

We do have members that come and go as their lives and interests change. Sometimes after long periods of time.

This just isn't something that he feels is worth pursuing at this point.

Cheers

Jamie

This is one suggestion. Perhaps, in the forum rules, which we are all required to read before posting the first time, we could include a request to notify a mod if we should for some reason decide not to post here anymore. It would not be a rule, just a request for a notification, so that you could be removed from the list. It would not be enforceable, but maybe some would comply out of courtesy. And, by saying, "PM a mod", we would avoid the long threads that often happen when someone posts a "I don't want to be a member" thread in the public forum.