I have been reading all the old posts, starting at the last page available, which was page seventy something. So I finish reading a topic and click on "next topic", and I get the error page. I closed the browser, re-opened it and went to Cheats & Hints and low and behold there are only 22 pages now. Was it time to clean up the server?

We are pruning the forums to help speed things up. Topics that have not been replied to in a very long time get culled.

It would also seem that nearly 30,000 members have been culled.

I did see some guy called Fargoth who signed up only a few days ago, I was surprised that name was not already taken a long time ago. This would explain it.

Whew! It's a good thing I decided to become an active member ( I joined on 02-November 08 ) when I did. I've only been active here for about a month or two now.

To think, so many people I used to know here have been deleted. Was Attrebus among them? Say it ain't so.

Any idea how long the pruning will take? I've started noticeing site errors fairly recently (the two biggest is the lack of new threads being updated on the main page, and I need to refresh my profile before I can see my posts/topics I've started. Otherwise I get a "You do not have permission for this action" message.)

Attrebus is a moderator, so I doubt it.

I actually have no idea as to what exactly happened. Last time I checked we had nearly 194,000 members. Today just at 167,000. Odd.

Only an admin would be able to enlighten us with the "why and how". Hopefully there was some Karma involved in the democratic process...

I certainly hope that some us aren't just deleted. I rarely post anymore, but I do come back sometimes...like right now...lol...

No one knows who I am... :unsure:

Last time there was a cull, I seem to remember it was just the people who hadn't been active in a long time and had very few (like less than 10) posts. Those people are imho fine to cull.

Yeah I think I remember an admin saying this.

I'm sure they wouldn't delete someone with 10,000 posts who was an active member in the past just because he hasn't posted in last 1-3 years.

Those who hadn't logged in for at least the last two years and had less than 5 posts (plus those who "had to leave" before that time ) were removed.

The individual forums were also culled of posts - the age limit depended on the forum.

2 years? Wow I know quite a few old guys that have been axe'd then.

As long as they had more than 5 posts they'll still be here, if I'm understanding what Rohugh said.

As for the how:
The Administration of a forum has the ability to change account information. They can alter, in no particular order: Usernames, passwords, email addresses, signatures, avatars, and permissions (what the forum let's your account do). They can also delete an account, and may choose whether or not to retain the posts made by a deleted account.

edit 1: in some forums, the admins can even see your personal messages. For most forums a few changes to the forum software would be enough to enable such monitoring, and some forums might have this feature by default. (Example: Forums that have pm's function as hidden posts and threads directly within the main forum structure, think of it as your pm actually being a hidden thread on the community discussion that only the participants can see)

Yes, correct. If someone has not been here for that time they hopefully will not object to having to re-register a new account, not as if they are going to loose a good post count.



I believe that admin may be able to, but as they are personal messages between members they obviously wouldn't do so - unless there was a serious problem that warranted such action.. However, the ability to report PMs is a feature of this board and enables moderators to see messages sent to a member if that member feels they are inappropriate, threatening, harassing, vulgar or otherwise worthy of reporting. Whilst we prefer not to take action on them and often recommend that putting someone on ignore is the best way round, PMs are also subject to forum rules and can be acted on.

Wow that's nasty lol. I totally didn't know that happens. I thought the discretion of PM's were built in and secured by the respective forum software a website uses (assuming they don't have custom forum software or something).

I need to be a lot more careful of what I write in PM's then lol.

Just because they can read everyone's PMs doesn't meant that they will .

I imagine that this would be for special circumstances only, some examples being severe harrassment (sixual or otherwise...believe me, it DOES happen in PMs!), criminal activities, etc. I doubt they want to be considered "invaders of privacy" so it probably isn't something done very often (if at all).

Not to mention administrators know all our passwords.

OH GOD.

Moderator dudes, don't read any of Peace Bullet's PMs. Ever.

I really hope you're joking now. :confused: