"Dormant Account Icon?" Topic

A "dormant account" icon should appear next to the author's name on forum posts, when the author's account hasn't been used in:

* six months?
* a year?
* never
* no opinion

six months.

Let's give our service members who get deployed for a year to hot places a break, and make it 2 years.

Or three.

6 months

I say one year, as it should get removed if someone comes back and logs in again. At least that is my assumption about it. No need to worry about those deployed servicemen. Their account isn't going to be deleted, just marked dormant, which if they haven't accessed it in over a year, it is pretty much dormant. Hey look at that, that's just what the poll suggestion is asking about!

Is the dormant account icon going to be boobies? Because I am voting "Needs more boobies."

6 months. It is nice to know when an account is dormant or inactive for that long so you don't go asking them questions in the first place.

I agree with Terrement.

Here is a discussion where it might be appropriate:

TMP link

6 months

1 year.

I'd vote for 6 months. I'm deployed now to one of those 'hot places' and I have the ability to log on now and again. I will also admit, this has been my easiest deployment yet. This time around it's less 'warzone' and more like 'celibate exile' for a year.

I change my vote. It is all too easy to check the "last visited date" on each member's profile. That gives me all the information I need, if I am trying to reach someone who simply has not been logging on for some time.

So, I suppose I will say that it is not necessary.

What Saxon Dog said – it's easy to check the last time
an account was active.

Not necessary

The information is readily available.

How about a "gone fishing" or "by by" icon, set on from the user profile, to indicate that no response should be expected from that user? Automatically set off if the user signs back in one day or more after it is turned on.

There is a difference between checking an individual, which is easy if you know their ID or can find a message, and checking an entire thread for "been and gones".

Maybe TWO variations: One at six months, the other at 18 to 24 months.

I vote for 3 years, two months, one week, and three days.
That seems infinitely more reasonable than simply not worrying about it. As normal and sane people do.

This doesn't seem that important or useful to me. If you are making upgrades, I'd much prefer the long-awaited and wished-for ability to delete multiple PMs at once.

Of no use whatsoever.

unneccesarily superfluos

I vote no

I don't care about who's active or not, either, although there are a LOT of guys on other forums that make a huge deal about it. So I would say six months just to keep them from going on and on about something so completely meaningless.

90 days.

This is just a courtesy flag that the account in question hasn't visited the forum in that period of time, right? So it's a sign that if you post a question for them or IM them, they probably won't see it? The account's not deleted or anything like that.

30 days would make more sense to me but a lot of people above want a very long period of time so, I'll assume their reasons have merit even though I haven't thought of them, and triple the time.

Well, I am for six months – if you haven't visited the site for six months – I'd like an icon next to your name so I don't have to go cliking on your profile name to see when you were last on the site. It is right there in front of me – and no click to a new page to scroll and search. It makes it easier, but if the vote is no, oh well.

Waste of time. I am sure there is more coding that needs attention.

irrelevant. The activity of the poster has no bearing on the quality of the posting.

Bill look!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can't chastise them for suggesting more work for you, when you suggest it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 8-0
So NO!

So basically this is for the TMP bashers who keep claiming that there are really only five members on TMP, all the good posters have left and the 2500ish membership number is meaningless becuase most of those aren't active. Really Bill I don't so the point. Your better of ignoring the small but vocal group of WUMs than pampering to them, hopefully they will all get bored and head off to all the other "better" forums that the keep saying are out there.

If it's dormant, they aren't posting.

If they're posting, it isn't dormant.

Or do people really go around reading 2-year old threads?
-Kle.

Well if it is nothing more than a icon that would remove itself after someone logged on and posted again make it a month. We might find out that someone died that way. Rather morbid I know but when mail piles up the the mailbox neighbors get concerned.

Sure, maybe it will assuage the TMP haters who inexplicably still post here and moan and groan about membership.

6 months.

Or do people really go around reading 2-year old threads?

Yes, when doing research on something. I have several TMP topics bookmarked, for example: TMP link has been useful for me and there's someone you know very well posting in it!

Seriously, this makes it useful for other reasons too, especially if you want to contact a particular user for more information, be it modeling, health questions, or anything.
--
Tim's Toys ucs.mun.ca/~tmarshal

Six months seems fair. To tell the truth I do not think I have check someones profile who was not currently posting to a thread I am reading or located in the area I am in.
VR
James Mattes

I made a sale of figs because of a 2 year old thread that someone had expressed interest in figures for a certain period. I had the figures and sent a pm and the buyer was still looking for them. $500 USD aint nothing to sneeze at (and that was a good deal for the buyer too because retail would have been 25 percent more!)

So I echo Ditto bird (is that inherantly redundant? LOL) about the usefulness of older threads for research.

I too lament the lack of many members' Google fu when it comes to doing some TMP searching. Older threads still have intel that can be useful.

Old threads are a gold mine of information.

Six months sounds good to me. Perhaps a slightly different icon for those who haven't logged in for an even longer time.

I still see no need for any icon when one can simply click the member name and find the last login date.

Feed your head. Feed your head.

Oh, wait … dormant.

Never mind.

Okay, I guess a fair number of people do go archive diving.

I don't object to a "dormant" icon, it just confused me.
-Kle.

Let's give our service members who get deployed for a year to hot places a break, and make it 2 years.

Do we actually have that many active duty service members here?

(Hey, that's a good poll idea…)