CAn you believe it!

[Dragonmaster Dyne]

Counting all the members on this forum there is a total of 526 people who have not posted. Do they just want to look but not post because i think you can do that without a membership. Or is it, they have an OCD problem and just have to sign up for anything that is available to them.

You decide!!!!!

[ilovemyguitar]

My guess is that they signed up when there was no automatic confirmation of new accounts, and between the time they signed up and the time they got their confirmation e-mail the urge to post had passed.

[GhaleonOne]

That and the sheer amount of spam accounts that probably got through before we started checking. Not to mention, the amount of people before admin authorization that probably signed up, thought about posting, then didn't, and forgot the place even existed. Having half your members make a post, if you don't go through and prune dead accounts, isn't really bad at all. Many forums have a much larger percentage of non-posting users.

Oh, and I'm getting a feeling of dejavu. Did someone make a post similiar to this recently, or have I been dreaming things again?

[Werefrog]

You're right, G1, this was posted a couple of weeks ago as well. I actually thought that this was the post from a couple of weeks ago until I saw the date.

Edit: Wait a minute... it was by the same poster too!

[Sonic#]

That and the sheer amount of spam accounts that probably got through before we started checking. Not to mention, the amount of people before admin authorization that probably signed up, thought about posting, then didn't, and forgot the place even existed. Having half your members make a post, if you don't go through and prune dead accounts, isn't really bad at all. Many forums have a much larger percentage of non-posting users.

Oh, and I'm getting a feeling of dejavu. Did someone make a post similiar to this recently, or have I been dreaming things again?

http://www.lunarthreads.com/viewtopic.php?t=2430

Yes, something like it was posted, except then it was Dyne bringing up the large number of posters in general compared to the number of posts, and my bringing up the never-active number. (I think it was a bit less than 526.)

I think it's just that they join and find they don't have the time, or the interest, or the inclination to post anything. That's what normally happens to me elsewhere.

[Dragonmaster Dyne]

Correct a post was similar to this that i started but it had a different topic. The previous topic in which you are thinking of is the amount of people that has been on here at one time, this post is to ask why do you think people create account and never post anything. Similar but different.

[Indignation22]

I don't understand the whole concept of spammers... I mean.... why do you need to sign up to something if you don't use it? Is there some real reason behind it or are people just screwy?

[GhaleonOne]

It's a form of advertisement (albeit a shady one). Almost all the spammers at this point are spam bots. Basically sophisticated software that registers to hundreds or thousands of popular forum systems and posts some kind of spam trying to get links to whatever they're selling or promoting. And they do it in sneaky fashion (trying to make posts that seem like they're part of the conversation, but so obviously not, and using smilies that are actually hot linked to whatever page they're promoting).

[Indignation22]

^wow.... never knew. I guess that is why you have the whole thing where an admin needs to verify new members?

[Kizyr]

^wow.... never knew. I guess that is why you have the whole thing where an admin needs to verify new members?

Spambots are pretty common. About 90% of new "registers" for the board are bots, only one out of ten is human usually. Same goes for most forums, especially PHPBB ones (though non-protected ones are usually hit worse, like the old Shrine to Ghaleon boards).

Here, this'll give you an idea of what I look at when I'm authenticating new members:
. KF