LaserDisc Database
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Will we all be a "guest" one day?
https://forum.lddb.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=9801		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  harlock [ 27 Apr 2021, 19:38 ]
Post subject:  Will we all be a "guest" one day?
Dormant accounts I noticed wind up as "guest" eventually, unless special measures are taken to preserve a notable username like disclord after his passing. This tends to make archived posts confusing at times when you don't know who wrote them, and in the long term makes for more "guests" as the inevitable entropy overcomes us either through death, Duncanism, or loss of interest.

I believe this is inherent in the board software? I was thinking back to a few years back when I didn't login for a while - I used a saved tab - and had to have my account reinstated and my old posts wound up as "guest" and Julien told me this was from the way php worked.

Internet Archive has spotty crawls that do preserve some defunct usernames, judging from the earliest ones I can find in 2013.
Author:  signofzeta [ 27 Apr 2021, 19:39 ]
Post subject:  Re: Will we all be a "guest" one day?
This is a good point.
Author:  rein-o [ 27 Apr 2021, 23:21 ]
Post subject:  Re: Will we all be a "guest" one day?
I know that we sort of posted to try and request that disclord's name be saved and I think Julien changed it.
Laserbite's name is still there so it may have been after a certain period???
Author:  admin [ 28 Apr 2021, 02:38 ]
Post subject:  Re: Will we all be a "guest" one day?  Topic is solved
Accounts are frozen after 1 years and listed for deletion (turning the posts here to guests) after 3~4 years.

For account with NO forum activity (not even one visit to the forum), the decision is easy.

For accounts with few posts (one hello, one technical question unanswered after YEARS), it's also an easy call.

For account with MANY posts or interesting ones, I'd try to contact the registered email address again to see if they would rather log in again to reset the counter or if they don't care anymore. And then decide if the posts' username is worth keeping.

I am not sure how the forum reacts if the account is later reloaded/enabled from the archives, and a user shows up asking to create a new forum account for a username that already exists...

I can't (easily) "unguest" posts, that's how phpBB works.

Julien
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