For those that may wish to know, since my return and over the last 3 days I have spent many many hours pouring over the database and the necessary pruning of the site.
With over 28,000 members things were looking really good, however, with the spam attacks we've been experiencing over the last year or so and old / inactive members this was a false figure.
Looking more closely at it and seeing such member names as "findmusiccouk" " ordertarmadol" "siveneoffesophypefcu" and "!!ALNGHT#!!" it badly needed a shake up.
I was able to deal with most through the admin system and the bulk was fairly easy, if time consuming.
However, there were hundreds that needed to be dealt with manually, especially those with !! OR #! in the title, which was a REAL PITA.
Further, the thousands of members with zero post count and inactive for 3 months or more had to go.....absolutely no point in them being here if they do not visit / participate in the forum.
The result??
Would you believe around 20,000 members deleted which although, drastically reduces the membership numbers on the site, certainly brings it up to date.

Hopefully, this will help to speed things up a little and keep the site free and clear for those that wish to enjoy it ( Ie - you and I )
Myself and the other mods will try and keep on top of this from now on and also deal with any spammer issues as and when they arise.

Thanks

 

Thank you Jim.

 

Jim, I was about to start doing what you just did on a person by person basis. Thankfully you have better tools at your disposal than I do. I am also working on taking a lot of the unused galleries and weeding through them. If there are 0 pictures in them and the gallery was created quite a few months ago, I am thinning it out. maybe with you deleting the people you did, that job will be a little bit easier. We will see. If you don't want me to do this, then speak up, please. Just trying to make it easier to get through the galleries and find the pictures that someone may want and to also make it easier to pull the garbage added on a daily basis by the spammers.

 

Thermo, I think that hopefully, the bulk of what you are talking about will automatically have been done during the process I just went through.
However, if and when you can do what you suggest I'm sure it will also make a difference and will, as always be appreciated by myself and the members.
You, Caddie and H20boy certainly make a difference to the site. I'm sure by now that you and the other guys appreciate just how time consuming some of this stuf can be, but also see the difference that it can make!

Thanks again...

 

You guys are my freakin heroes!!! (I'm still spamming...I mean trying...to hit 1500 posts so Jim will consider me for a mod position...lol)

 

Jim, I thinned out the galleries. Went a little quicker than I was anticipating. Took out about 60 galleries that were not being used. Hopefully this helps things some and make everyones time here more enjoyable.

 

Thanks for all the time you guys put into the forum,we appreciate it,

 

Recently I'd taken to revisiting the forum. I tend to use the UK one mostly. I find both forums entertaining and informative. I'm glad that I wasn't pruned!

Mike

 

Thanks guys, your work in greatly appreciated, despite our best efforts to give you a hard time, please keep it up. LOL

 

MM - heroes? you take that a bit far I think, but thanks for the thought
Re your spamming trying to get your post count up - I'm watching

Eagelxkr / translator - thanks guys

Mike S - How could we prune you? You've got 59 post count and a veteran of the site

 

Thanks guys for your kind words on our forum administration team as well
I will also take a look at the Garage section aside from Galleries .

 

Thank you for your hard work. I also admin/mod on another site and I know how much effort goes into your job. You are appreciated.

 

Can't a guy schmooze a lil?

 

UPDATE

Spent the last 4 hours or so going through the remainder of the membership lists and deleting as follows......
All zero post members who have not signed in for the last 45 days or so
as well as those who have dodgy names with viagra / **** etc etc in either the title or email address etc etc.
I now have square eyes BUT the membership is roughly where it needs to be with solid members.
There are however, more than a few who have not posted for some time....Perhaps an email tho those specifically to remind them of the benefits of the site...we'll see!
I'm hoping that any of the zero post count members who try to log in and fail with re apply for membership and take an active part on the site rather than just "lurking" and we can start to increase the numbers again!

3.45 am...had enough...off to bed

 

Great job!! I know the long hours pruning, updating, etc. of a board site.

 

Jim don't get to prune happy and wack me from the site, I don't log in as much since I'm deployed to operation iraqi freedom and seem to have a little less time to check in on the forum lol

 

I wouldn't worry about you getting dropped Army, with over 600 posts, you'd have to be idle for a decade. lol

You take care of yourself!

 

Doing my best, I miss my Jag and Rover though oh and my wife and daughter

 

Army shouldn't it be the other way around?


KUDOS to the mods!!!!!!!!

 

Stay safe over there, Army. You're doing a great job, too!!