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Submitted by lembas on Thu, 06/14/2012 - 09:08

Delete users with zero posts/wikis older than 1 year

Project:Web
Component:Main
Category:support request
Priority:normal
Assigned:Unassigned
Status:active
Description

There is a massive number of users with zero input. This makes spam hunting more difficult. I suggest we delete them, preferably so that the email addy CAN be used again in case it's a legitimate user. The great majority of those are created by spambots which either failed to deliver payload or are sleeper cells waiting to be used for spam.

jdenz:
Sun, 09/30/2012 - 02:39

Lembas, thank you for this suggestion. I really appreciate your suggestion to make trisquel.info spam-free.

Are the large number of users with zero input hurting anything by being inactive right now? Is someone doing active spam hunting that's being hindered by the large number of inactive users?

I ask because I think if these users are deleted, it could send a message to low-volume, legitimate users that they're not wanted or needed.

In a sense, that would do the opposite of what's attempting to be done with issue #4528: Trisquel GNU/Linux does not have 100 associate members.

If these accounts need to be deleted, maybe a message can be sent out to these users explaining the situation and asking that they sign in if they're interested in keeping their accounts.

Something like:

---begin---

We've noticed that you haven't signed into or used your trisquel.info account in over a year. Are you still interested in being a part of the Trisquel GNU/Linux community? We need your help in the following ways:

[list of ways folks can help]

If you are still interested, please sign into your account by [date] and let us know how you want to help.

Combating spam is a difficult task. On [date], we'll be deleting any trisquel.info account that's been inactive for at least one year (since at least [date]). So, if you're interested in supporting Trisquel GNU/Linux and want to maintain your trisquel.info account, please sign into your account at least once before [date].

Please contact [contact email address] if you have any questions or concerns.

Thank you for your time.

---end---

lembas:
Mon, 10/08/2012 - 14:33

Hi jdenz! I sometimes try to actively find spam. And it's a much more time consuming with such a large number of accounts. However I'm not too experienced a spam hunter so this might not have a large positive impact. On the other hand if we only target accounts older than 1 year which have never been used I don't think this would have much of a negative effect either. But I believe successful spamming will increase the amount of spam placed on this forum, so even the small things are important. If I was a spammer I certainly would follow effectivity statistics for each domain and prefer the ones with the most bang for the buck. (i.e. worst admins)

People who have not been admins themselves probably underestimate the problem of spam. So in case an account would be indeed used by a human being they could get bad vibes from it, this is true.

I think the email looks nice.

For my purposes it would suffice to disappear them from the user list (http://trisquel.info/en/about) so perhaps that could be the best solution. Or there could even be a separate list for spam hunting of users who have submitted any content.

I guess such a separate list would have zero negative impact and solve this problem as nicely as possible.