Or perhaps you think there is a good reason for leaving usernames even if they haven't logged in for 5 years....?

Just being idle is not a good reason for removal.

For instance, take the example of paco, who has already been mentioned in this thread -- who would be associate paco's old post with? It wasn't written by the new paco, but the message needs to have an owner.

The only way that you can remove a record is if it's not referenced anywhere else. (a concept known as 'Referential Integrity' in database terms). Some things can be checked for -- if they have posted any messages, if they've earned any xp, etc.

But what about those who have been linked to? You'd have to go through every last message that has been posted, and look to see if someone has been linked to (eg, 'Barry' was mentioned in one of the other threads that has already been linked to -- so if you remove him, you have a dead link, which isn't so bad ... but if you allow someone else to use that name, then you have posts talking about a user that they didn't intend to talk about.

But ... what about those folks who were mentioned, but not actually linked to? Removing dead users is a much more difficult thing than just removing those items with no activity -- and if the benefits don't outweigh the cost of doing it (with the benefits being measured by the person who's doing the work, in volunteer situations), it's not going to be done.

One way to deal with orphaned nodes left after a user has "left the monastery" is to anonymize them, i.e. assign Anonymous Monk as owner...

As for other things, something surely can be done... And I will agree with you on one point: it could happen that the cost of deleting a user outweighs the benefits. Perhaps, the feasibility of this idea should be considered and approved/implemented or discarded according to the outcome...

--------------------------------
An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it...

I like the idea, however I would actually prefer that they be assigned to "Departed Monk" (or "Apostate Monk" or even "Deceased Monk").

I'm not sure why I prefer Departed Monk over Anonymous Monk, repressed memories of bastardized databases floating to the surface perhaps. I think of Anonymous Monk has a specific definition of sorts and previously known monks don't really fit that definition, do they? So moving these monks to Anonymous Monk would tend to muddy the definition of Anonymous Monk. Having had to deal with some databases where folks muddied column definitions by reusing existing columns for new kinds of data rather than adding new columns as they should have (try extracting meaningful information from that kind of mess), I'm skiddish of changes that would tend to muddy the existing definition of something.

My thought is that monks with no writeups and no logins in X years would be deleted. Those with writeups (but no logins in X years) would be renamed by a process that runs once a year. If "IdleMonk" met the criteria, he would be renamed (something like) "RIP2006:IdleMonk" at the end of this year.

It seems fitting that a monastery have a graveyard for those monks who have passed on.

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Caution: Contents may have been coded under pressure.

Personally, fwiw, it is non-use rather than non-writeup that bothers me; so no, paco would stay - those who would go under my suggestion would probably never know because they wouldn't have logged in since their computer had sideburns and a velvet jacket!

One world, one people

How does paco not qualify for non-use (excuse the double negative)? The last login was six years ago! Perhaps you have a looser definition of non-use, but that seems pretty not used.

thor

Feel the white light, the light within
Be your own disciple, fan the sparks of will
For all of us waiting, your kingdom will come

S'been done (to death :).

Even from that link I can only tell that its been done once. I'm not sure i'm for or againts it but from reading that it seems like at least some people are for it, and no one seemed agianst it (as long as no content was lost, and consideration was given to forms of interaction that didn't involv e posting.) I just super searched on several terms (maybe I missed the magic phrase.) Are there other nodes besides the one you linked to on the matter? Either way it seems like it is a good idea and always has been, it would be more usefull to see reason why it hasn't been done. I would guess the main reason is programmer time, no one has volunteered to take it on.

Just my two cents as usual, but for me this is a yes vote, not a priority obviously, but opening up on used but registered names could be nice for new users. I would say the criteria would have to be not logged in after a week after creation, no nodes created, no home node content, and was created 6 months ago or more. Even a year on the last one would probably open up a good number of names. That should narrow it down to users who maybe registered a wrong name by accident, or just decided this wasn't the place for them.


___________
Eric Hodges

Sorry, I was lazy. Here's a few more.

Removing user accounts Database Clean up? Perlmonks Zombies - Cleanup? Old, unused nick desired..

I seem to recall one or two other threads, but they didn't turn up on my super search for "old users" in PMD. As it happens, I agree they could be removed.

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Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.

Lingua non convalesco, consenesco et abolesco. -- Rule 1 has a caveat! -- Who broke the cabal?

"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".

The "good enough" maybe good enough for the now, and perfection maybe unobtainable, but that should not preclude us from striving for perfection, when time, circumstance or desire allow.

This is on my todo list. It's mostly due to a lack of tuits that it hasn't been done yet. There actually are two issues, a) preventing these users from occuring in the first place (ie not creating users until they login), b) removing the ones that already exist. Anyway, as I said this will happen one day, but who knows when.

So there is hope that anotherTime will be reaped one day... ;) (rif: Confessions of a virtual monk).

Flavio
perl -ple'$_=reverse' <<<ti.xittelop@oivalf

Don't fool yourself.

paco, as the "canonical monk", is very useful for documentation purposes. Not to be confused with the null monk, he is sort of like the monk equivalent of http://www.example.com. If he didn't already exist, I think we'd want to invent him.

Of course, if the much cherished prospect of paco's Second Coming ever became reality, he would cease to be the canonical monk, which may necessitate rewriting any docs that used him as such, but I think the general joy over his return would easily compensate for this small inconvenience.

Oh, that's easily dealt with. PerlMonks now "owns" the paco name, for all the reasons you just mentioned; so we just lock the account (change the password) and throw away the key. Problem solved!

;-)

We're building the house of the future together.

Hi,

I would introduce a policy where you must make a contribution between the first 6 months after your registration. But don't remove people that made contributions but for any reason doesn't login or contrib. to PM.

Update: another thing could be to think about not giving XP points to people, only because they're logged in, instead to their contributions to PM.

Regards,

another thing could be to think about not giving XP points to people, only because they're logged in, instead to their contributions to PM

This too has probably been done to death, and FWIW, here's why I think the (relatively insignificant) points one may accumulate simply by logging in are perfectly acceptable:

If it encourages just one person to login, that's one more person around who might happen to have an answer to a question asked in the CB.

I've not been here that long, but I've seen many a question answered by people just hanging out, who may have relatively few writeups to their name. I'd prefer to think they're hanging out because of the community, the companionship, and the camaraderie. I like to think that no one is there just trolling for XP.

But so what if they are? To the person they helped, it's just a darned lucky thing they were. Not everyone knows about (or takes the time to) seek out a user's nodes, read them, and upvote them (if they agree) in order to confer XP.

In other words, sometimes a Monk's only "tangible" contribution (CB content being fleeting) might be "being logged in."

So on the chance that someone is just trolling, but they end up helping someone without doing an official writeup, the minimal couple of points they get for "just being logged in" are points well spent.

(In any case, if one desires to know a Monk's "true worth" -- outside of getting to know them by actually reading their writeups or conversing in the CB -- one may simply total the reputation of the user's nodes and subtract that from the experience listed on that Monk's home node. Personally, I have better things to do with my time, like hang out here. :-) )

planetscape