Wayne wrote:
I don't mean "8% of you actually changed your e-mails", I meant "8% of you (out of approximately 3700) had e-mail addresses listed at all". As I said, I truly appreciate those of you who did update the e-mail address, but either we have 3400 pretty much dead accounts -- which would cripple the forums if they were removed -- or we only have less than 200 people who actively check this site at more than a once-every-six-month interval.
I actually figure 200 active users is about the real size of the interested Amiga community anyway. Not suggesting that those who bought AmigaOnes and Pegasos machines aren't Amiga users, simply that between all the feuding, the various "exodus" causing people who seek to destroy the Amiga community, and the intentional splitting of the community Genesi, there are only about 50 real users of this site any more. The rest are merely lurkers.
Forgive me for saying this, but this is cynical and depressed armchair statistics. I am not saying that A.org has a
big thriving community, but when I looked up the 3216 members whose last login was more than 100 days ago, I estimated that over 80, perhaps 85% had made less than 5 posts; of those 3216, 2602 (!) had a login date over 200 days ago. Of the 4766 total registered members, 3648 had not logged in in time to see the password change announcement. (I used the 'Members' section for these data; appararently they are not entirely accurate, but for my argument, they suffice.)
Summarising: about 2/3rds of the members are not interested in A.org anyway, otherwise they'd have stuck around and posted more---there is a strong correlation between not logging in and not posting. Claiming that only 8% of the total number of members could be arsed into having an email address listed doesn't sound so bad all of a sudden, does it? I agree that it is still too low a figure, but most people don't see the need to have one anyway---so what if their account gets deleted?
I doubt removing so many lurkers and one- or two-time posters would 'cripple' the forums---I have been an active member for two years now and about 2/3rd of my messages cannot be accessed any longer because the links which should take me to them are broken. As I recall, you would have to search for the articles manually anyway if people asked for them, and I have not seen a 'Stop the )(%*)#(*% requests!' thread from you :-).
In other words, I strongly urge you to look a little more closely at the user base of this site and based on that, devise a plan to prune it. It really is not that hard. You will of course get some PO'ed users, but I doubt it will be the 1000 you think there will be. That would indicate this site has suddenly gained a sh*tload of new, active users: you should be
happy when that happens :-).
My $0,02.
