Good Morning Newbies

Billdit · Post by **Billdit** » Sun Mar 03, 2013 10:10 am

Ahhh... Jelsoft and vbulletin (forum is powered by them) are located in CA...
I wounder what size garage they work out of ?

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Sun Mar 03, 2013 10:12 am

Billdit wrote:The Auto Generators have obviously found an easy mark... and maybe SS thinks the inflated membership makes them look good, so they don't purge the list... just so it does't bog down the forum....

I don't know how they could purge the list. The members are a mixture of active and not so active members. The not so active can be referred to as lurkers. They are always there but hardly (if ever) post. These are good and valid members.

The surge of new members could just be more of these "lurkers" and there is no reason why they should be purged. Besides, what distinguishes them from all the rest of use in the data base.

Billdit · Post by **Billdit** » Sun Mar 03, 2013 10:19 am

Looks like the version of vBulletin SS is using is from 2006... two major updates have taken place since then...

beeg · Post by **beeg** » Sun Mar 03, 2013 10:51 am

On 06 July 2011, we hit 8000 members.

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Sun Mar 03, 2013 11:49 am

Billdit wrote:Looks like the version of vBulletin SS is using is from 2006... two major updates have taken place since then...

Yeah but they are not like Firefox or Google. You have to pay to upgrade. I participate on two different forums that use the updated version and while I see differences, I don't really see a need to push for an update.

The only complaint I have (and have always had) is that this search engine is "weak".

Example: Try to search for a multiword string like "router fence" and you get returns for router and returns for fence and amongst them may be one for "router fence".

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Sun Mar 03, 2013 12:00 pm

beeg wrote:On 06 July 2011, we hit 8000 members.

Or at least very, very close to that.

[ATTACH]20476[/ATTACH]
This was post #8000

[ATTACH]20477[/ATTACH]
and this is the first post on Jul 1

I THINK?

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Mon Mar 04, 2013 6:54 am

I've been toying with this membership list for a few days now. Sort of amazed by the rapid increase in numbers while doubting that they could be real. I am now convinced that, for the most part, they are not real.

Oh yeah, they are real registrations but I do not believe by real people, except for a few that are spread throughout the group.

I don't know why anyone would want to inflate this membership list with bogus registrations but I am convinced that that is what is happening.

Why I feel that way now can all be seen on an individual's Profile Page.

Here is an example of what I am saying:

Example deleted per recommendation of post by reible.

On the Profile Page you can read the "Join Date" and the "Last Activity Date". When the two of these are the same and more than a few days old you can bet that you are NOT viewing the profile of an Active Member.

It would be simple to write a program that would search the membership list for this and purge those that are "not active" but there would be some risk in doing so. What harm is being done by the inflated list? I don't know because I don't know what is being done with the list.

Anyone using this list, for legitimate purposes, can simply run a purge at the time of application and no harm would be done.

So why does anyone do this? Maybe just for the fun of it and maybe just because they can. I have been playing with the list now for about two weeks. Why? I don't know but I used to do a lot of work with data bases and spreadsheets, with Access, Excel and DBaseIII. It peaked my curiosity and I have been playing. If nothing else I have honed my skills with Excel just a little bit.

Stick a fork in me. I am done.

reible · Post by **reible** » Mon Mar 04, 2013 8:16 am

Dusty,

I think you may have gone a step too far on the last post. Please could you remove the link and if you wish do a screen capture and then edit out the user name and u=xxxxx? Still works as an example with out getting up close and personal.

Like this:

[ATTACH]20487[/ATTACH]

For all we know this person is coming here everyday and reading, not needing to login to read is OK.

Since we know not this might be a bit personal.

If they spam then naming them is OK, well that is my opinion anyway.

Still lov'a

Ed

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Mon Mar 04, 2013 9:07 am

reible wrote:Dusty,

I think you may have gone a step too far on the last post. Please could you remove the link and if you wish do a screen capture and then edit out the user name and u=xxxxx? Still works as an example with out getting up close and personal.

Like this:

[ATTACH]20487[/ATTACH]

For all we know this person is coming here everyday and reading, not needing to login to read is OK.

Since we know not this might be a bit personal.

If they spam then naming them is OK, well that is my opinion anyway.

Still lov'a

Ed

The link is gone, per your recommendation. No need to do a screen capture as an example. Your post does that very well.

However, if a user logs in, even if they only read the forum, I believe that the last activity date changes. I may be wrong but I think that is the significant difference between an active and inactive user. Hard to tell because I don't know who the active user's who do not post are.

reible · Post by **reible** » Mon Mar 04, 2013 9:51 am

dusty wrote:The link is gone, per your recommendation. No need to do a screen capture as an example. Your post does that very well.

However, if a user logs in, even if they only read the forum, I believe that the last activity date changes. I may be wrong but I think that is the significant difference between an active and inactive user. Hard to tell because I don't know who the active user's who do not post are.

Thanks Dusty, I feel better now.

You are correct that if you login the activity data changes. But if you visit without going the login route then you appear as a guest. The activity data will not change since you are not come in as say reible but as a guest.

I personally have an auto login set up here, I come to the site and appear as reible. Not everyone wants to be set up that way so especially those that do not post or PM become guests and access the site as a guest and that is fine. A lot of the site can be accesses as a guest and "users" are free to use the site as guests without the login.

The last active data was the last login not the last visit via coming in as a guest. We could have people here who signed up in 2006 and visit every day without us ever knowing it, their last activity would still be 2006 but the number of times here could be say 2000 times.

So if we randomly pick a user with the membership date and last login as being the same that is all we can get from the information. It does not mean that they are not avid readers who might want at some point to start posting but might feel bad if they were stripped out of the data base because they haven't posted yet.

No requirements to login or post to be a member here.

Ed