Temp accounts for visitors to reduce inactive accounts and dead threads/spam.

[herboren]

I thought a good suggestion would be for visitors create a temporary account, reason being, most users tend to create a forum account to get one problem resolved. Once the problem has been resolved, they never stay to contribute their time and inactive accounts just sit around with no activity.

What if Tom's gave visitors to create a temporary account set on a timer. Temporary accounts would last 24 hours and be on a countdown when the account is created. If the account does not create a thread after 24 hours, the account is pruned from the database while freeing up space and no orphaned accounts would exist.

Immediately after the account is activated, they have 24 hours to create a thread.

What keeps the temporary accounts active after they open a thread, is their activity on the thread. If the timer has 4 hours left after creating the thread, and the creator responds to the thread, the timer resets back to 24 hours. This should give the user enough time to step back into the forum and reply to a thread, if the user is not actively responding on a thread, after 24 hours the thread is deleted with no solution (Likely this means that the user is either; not finding a solution here, or has sought a solution elsewhere and no longer requires the forums attention) and the temporary account is pruned from the server leaving available space.

- Overall the goal here is to remove/prune inactive accounts from the server.
Accounts must be activated within 24 hours and have a total of 24 hours after activation to create a thread.

- If the account is not activated, the activation link is broken and the account is not created.

- The account is removed immediately after 24 hours of no activity after activation.

- In order to keep the account active, the user must post/reply to a thread and the timer is reset back to 24 hours. (This shows commitment that the user wants their problem answered.)

- After a solution has been found the thread will be locked for 24 hours so the user may review the solution to their problem, then deleted immediately after 48 hours (This ensures enough time for the user to review all solutions. Locking the thread prevents the user from posting again on a resolved thread to reset the timer on their account, thus forcing the account to be removed/pruned from the server which is the intention).

If in the future the user has another problem, the rules still apply. Keep in mind the 24 hours is an example the time can be extended for reliability. I just thought this would be an interesting suggestion. My 2 copper =\

 

[jpishgar]

Currently, if you create an account, but don't confirm your account using the email provided, your account is selected for pruning within 24-48 hours. So we do in fact do a version of what you describe. As for making it contingent on posting, that could be an option we might explore as well. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[herboren]

Hey, no problem. I'd be stoked f you guys followed through with it.

 

[ssddx]

remember... there should be a way to convert a temporary account into a normal account.

also remember i'd still require an email address as not including one makes it easier for spammers.

i'm actually all for making it a requirement to have email verification prior to posting. that may cut down on spammers who come and disappear.

nice suggestion. i think it could definitely be an option.

though... the 24 hour limit should be extended to 48 or it requires users to "bump" their threads and that is against forum rules. sometimes it takes 48 hours to get a response on here depending on the question and which of us experts (read: forum monkeys ... lol) are on at the time. i know it can be slow on here at certain times of the week and that certain questions only get answered by certain individuals who have knowledge on the subjects.

just my 2c but thanks for the suggestion.