I had way too much time on my hands this morning and scrolled through the 1032 pages of "members" who have signed up for an LJ account but never posted. 1032 pages x 35 members/page = 36120 LJ "members" who have contributed nothing to this site other than a numbers boost. This is more than half of the total LJ membership.
I'd like to propose a different way of doing membership on LJ's; membership would be conditional on a new member posting something, anything. A new member could sign up for a LJ account and then have eg. 60 days to make a first post, after which their account would be deleted if they hadn't posted anything. This would also be a solution to getting rid of the ~ 30% of the accounts that are spam.
Lumberjocks prides itself on being a community of woodworkers, let's make the site for people who actually have something to say. All of the content on the site is accessible without a membership anyways, so anyone can come and look up projects, topics without having to actually be a member.
As much as I wish they would participate by posting, you also wouldn't want to exclude those who sign up, never post, but have a bunch of favorites either, I suppose.
I dont really care if there are 36,000 members who arent doing anything, it doesnt really affect me in any way. As long as these wasted accounts are slowing down the site, then whatever….
I don't like that idea. Why do you think it would be better if everyone HAD to post? How would things be if everyone HAD to vote? Different, and probably worse. I post every so often, but I have only posted only one or two projects because I don't think I am of the level of woodworkers who post their projects. Besides, I see enough
Right, Dwain!
I'd be quite happy if the individual post count for each user was invisible, except perhaps on our personal 'My Messages' profile. It serves no purpose.
Manitario, thanks for bringing up the subject for discussion. Can't say I really care either way, but I don't want all the comments to look like your getting "dogpiled". Plus, I posted something, so now I can stay!
"As long as these wasted accounts are slowing down the site, then whatever…."
I think you meant "are NOT slowing down"
I agree with you. And as I click around on this site (probably waaay too much now that I'm "between jobs") I notice some folks have been here 1000+ days and have like 12 posts. While others (like me) are "Motormouth posters" because I find so much stuff I like and I comment on them
if you want to promote a FB page (and possibly even a sight like this as well)... you can actually pay people for "bundled likes".. i.e. send some guy in Nigeria $200 and he'll get 10,000 people to like your FB page.
I wonder if the same can be done for forum membership.
On some web sites, you need to create an account to see certain content…. i.e. photo's. So some "lurkers" or people who came here via. a Google search, may log in just to see the content they searched up and never intend to come back.
Why would anyone want to exclude someone from LJ when their very presence demonstrates an interest? Their presence 'slowing' down the site? I doubt that! It's silly! Does the word Fascism mean anything to those who prefer to lock out non-contributing members? Indeed, it is much ado about nothing! Some people have too much time on their hands.
Well a few things on my mind… the post count is useful to see if someone I have been following or chatting with has not been on in a while, so I can send a PM if needed to see whats up. Often I don't heatr back, so I figure they are not active anymore.. but I still love their project posts so I can go back and look at my favorites again and again.
As for non-posting members… I personally know two who love to come and look at my recent posts, because they like to know what I am doing on the woodworking front.. I am far more social on here than on FaceBook.
One idea… if this is a real concern, could be to establish a tiered user system… if you post a project you get to be a LumberJock.. otherwise you are listed as a guest. PaintingILove.com.. uses this on top of that you don't get your own work posted for comment and review until you comment on other peoples work first… I thought the cadence would be lots of "Love it" or "Awesome" but there are a lot of real good feedback.. just like here. Mostly because it is set up to feel that only flat art artists are on there… it feels exclusive so they are more open and friendly… and there are no spammers or faked accounts… or disruptor trolls… which I think some on here are…. instigators (for glory or employment) that make needless drama and angst. LOL
I personally looked at this site for a few months before signing up. And when I did sign up, it was specifically to favorite something, not to post a project/blog/forum topic. Perhaps a modification of the original idea where accounts are deleted if they do nothing other than sign up, i.e. no favorites, blogs, forum posts, etc.
I can tell you as a software developer that additional users do affect performance. The more rows you get in a database table, the worse certain actions perform. There are things you can do to optimize database performance, like indexing, caching, etc. With most modern databases, performance isn't really affected until table size gets pretty large, but it is affected. Doing some cleanup could help improve performance.
I didn't realize that that many people sign up just to record their favourites. However, out of the 36000 who are non-posters, I'd estimate (by randomly sampling profiles) that at least 50% have never done anything other than sign up an account, ie. no favourites etc. As well, again by randomly sampling profiles, I'd estimate that ~20-30% of the 36000 are spam accounts. Not that it really matters in the big picture!
But Mantario, think of all those who "bank/store" alter-egos, AKA multiple identities, so that they can pop up randomly anytime they want to criticize/slap/rant and not be held responsible. What would all of those gelly-bellys do without that alter-ego outlet? {sarcasm}
Why would anyone want to exclude someone from LJ when their very presence demonstrates an interest?
Does the word Fascism mean anything
A acouple months after joining a Lj was giving advise about his post & was jump on. Who are you to give someone advise on how to do something when your not considered a WW…
You didn't post a WorkShop so you don't qualify to give out advise on how to do something… I've heard quite afew say this, one went as far as to say no WorkShop, no Projects, No comment from me….
The way I look at it your comment isn't worth my time reading….
Being on here for awhile you get to learn a real lot, I'm not just talking about WW either…
For those that have responded to this with polite feedback; thank you. Even if you do not agree with my idea, I appreciate your opinion. We're all here to learn from each other.
For those that choose to respond to this topic with anger or rudeness; why? Why are you not able to calmly express your views in a civilized manner without rancor? Why does someone posting something you disagree with affect you so strongly that you have to respond in a rude manner? We're all not going to agree on everything, but hey, we're all part of the LJ community so let's discuss our ideas and opinions with politeness and civility.
Manitario....Great topic…surely will receive mixed opinions….I for one don't mind those who never make a post.
I find it more offensive that certain LJ members that cause problems are still allowed to be on this site. Even when this rude and child like behavior is a pattern in multiple forum topics…This behavior is distracting and leads to getting off topic and upsets everyone involved…
Example of this pasted below from a member with a History of rude behavior found on many forums
Good stuff Rob. Seems like there are really only a couple of thousand members who actively participate. I suppose it doesn't bother me if they participate on here or not. I know there are lots of reasons why people don't participate, and that is ok. Probably not worth worrying about per se either way.
The questionable aspect to me, like kdc suggested, is the allowance for habitual and repeat troll, argumentative, and negative type interactions. There always seems to be the same people up to basically no good. Let's let their membership be examined.
I agree that most of the non active members are spammers ,every day there are anywhere from 20-50 new spam members.It's not really in LJs or it's owners interest to delete old spam members or new spam members because how many hits and how many members a forum has attracts advertisers,so why throw away members when it affects the bottom line , whether they are real members or not.
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