Converting a Dormant Account to a Normal Account on These Forums

[Clinton]

If your account hasn't been used for a while you would have had an email to say that your account is being marked as a dormant account for security reasons. This is no reflection on you, your mother ... or your credit rating.

Dormant accounts have some restrictions that don't apply to normal accounts. The owner of a dormant account can post in existing threads, but can't start new threads, for example. Also, all posts are held up in a moderation queue. If you had access to our VIP Lounge you'd have lost it and you'd have lost your access to our Private Groups. There may be other inconveniences such as losing PMs that you've saved. That's why I send an email out before marking an account as dormant to give you a chance to prevent that happening.

Of course, we'd love to have you back and if you want to start posting again, simply make a quality post or two and send me a PM or an email (webmaster at this domain) to move your account out of dormancy. It has to be manual, there's no alternative. Please bear with me if there's a short delay. Also, please note that moving your account back to normal status is at my discretion. I usually approve because I do want you to resume normal posting and participation

[Wheels]

Well since my account has become dormant .. . my mailbox has also become full from what appears to be a size restriction applied as a result of the dormancy. I'm pretty sure it wasn't close to the maximum previously. Anyway, as a result of that, there was no way I could PM you; hence reply to your message and the "fluff". which I note <snip>

I do see the need to ensure the new kids know they haven't got the same latitude as those that may have contributed for a longer time period; but is this really necessary for members whom you yourself have already praised for their contribution?.

Rules are good, but from my perspective, effectively, being told I have write a few posts to have my account restored just because I took a long Xmas break, and after you gave me a VIP pass so soon for contributing well and early; seems like overkill. That's just me though. I appreciate this is your forum, but don't you want to judge each situation on it's own merit.

Personally, I think a better approach is to ask members that have been away for a while (particularly those you know have contributed) whether their recent lack of visits/posts is a true reflection of their interest. Rather than make their account dormant and then go through this. If the lack of response is due to their lack of interest or you get a lame response from them; then sure put them through the "contribute or else" rule. If their lack of response is not due to their lack of interest (as in my case) then I can't understand why you wouldn't just restore their account. After all, they're already a member and they already contributed, right?

Otherwise it just seems a little to much like a bureaucracy. Particularly for members that have already contributed noticeably well enough to earn a VIP pass early - as you have directly indicated directly to me that I have.

Sometimes you can jump the gun a little. I understand that. In this case I actually had a 2 page response draft (which you can see if you like) that I had written over my break, in response to a post in relation to Flippa issue one of your members had written about pertaining to what buyer enquiries a seller takes off-line. Unfortunately that post was within the VIP section - which I now don't have access to - because the rules say I have to have my account closed. And as you know I can't PM you until my account is revived and the mailbox limit is not restricted. I had intended to deposit that response upon my return, if the post was still relative, and after I found the time to refine it.

But is this all really necessary Clinton, particularly considering the above?

Cheers,

W.

[Clinton]

Yes, the number of allowed PMs is lower for dormant accounts so it's possible you ran into a mailbox full situation.

I've approved the above as a post as it allows me to put some context to the dormancy rules.

Personally, I think a better approach is to ask members that have been away for a while (particularly those you know have contributed) whether their recent lack of visits/posts is a true reflection of their interest.

I agree it's a better approach. But you may not have realised, we don't pay the mods around here and don't have the mod power to monitor every user account, send a personal PM if there's x days of zero activity and then make judgment calls based on their reply or length of time they didn't reply. That sounds like an absolute nightmare of a system to implement. It's also not very scalable.

We have a simple procedure now that marks accounts as dormant if they haven't been used for a long time - based on months, not on what an individual mod feels about a particular member, how nice that member is, who likes that member's posts, whether that member replies to PMs etc. It's clean, it's based on days of non-participation, it's easily dealt with in bulk.

When a dormant member wants to return, the easiest way is for him to just make a post. A post. That indicates interest in participation. The first mod who comes along can then approve his post and reinstate his account. The alternative is to reinstate based on PM request. Do you realise those PMs would almost invariably be addressed to me (as happened in your own case)? I don't know if you're aware but I do a fair bit around here already without taking on the job of personally handling all reinstatements. That, to me, is the more bureaucratic solution and opens up all kinds of other problems - I've reinstated accounts in the past only to discover that the member never intended to make a post and simply wanted readmission into VIP. How often should I manually readmit members like that?

Moving non-participating accounts into dormancy has proved an effective security measure. It is also right that members who made a couple of posts in Feb 2010 and never returned ... don't need access to signature, PM and all the other privileges that have huge spam potential. The easiest way to minimise the risk from those accounts is to move them into the "Dormant Usergroup" which is setup with all those restrictions already in place.

Having to make a post to come out of dormancy does mean that this first post can't be in the VIP Lounge. That's a small price members are going to have to pay, I'm afraid. I spend several hours a day running this forum. Members need to bear that in mind and seek to cooperate with the methods I've decided work best to reduce the demands on the mods and me while still keeping this place open for business.

I have reinstated your account.

[Clinton]

Update: Following some discussion in here that had to be moved to the moderator forum and has taken up several hours of admin and mod time, Wheels has decided this may not be the best forum for him so I have let him go. Sorry to lose a member.

I really appreciate any effort members make to reduce work on the mods - from following the rules to simply making a (non-fluff) post to get a dormant account restored. Our system here may not be perfect but combined with a dedicated mod team it seems to work well enough. Of course, you could always volunteer to be a mod if you wish to help out, that would be fantastic and you could contribute to changing/improving these boards.