Thread: memberlist

N. Gogol wrote a book with the title "dead souls".
This book I read maybe thirty years ago but reached at least more then skin-deep to me. It seems because part of it I obviously haven,t forgotten and makes me wonder.

As I remember lively this book has a character buying cheap ownership certificates corresponding to deceased slaves. Then he re-sells these certificates.

Without having read the book it seem's to crazy and horryfying to think of this in relation to a forum posting it in the feedback session.
But their is a parallel making it relevant to me for a forum.
It,s unlikely that the memberlist of a forum doesn,t have a few deceased members.

I don,t know if the amount of members has commercial value for this forum or how this funktions in practice ?

Other relevant questions are :

Are members that don,t participate for a certain period automaticly removed from the memberlist ?

Is it possible (for member relatives and members) to describe from the memberlist before or (for the relatives) after a decease.

Originally Posted by Ghrasp

N. Gogol wrote a book with the title "dead souls".
This book I read maybe thirty years ago but reached at least more then skin-deep to me. It seems because part of it I obviously haven,t forgotten and makes me wonder.

As I remember lively this book has a character buying cheap ownership certificates corresponding to deceased slaves. Then he re-sells these certificates.

Without having read the book it seem's to crazy and horryfying to think of this in relation to a forum posting it in the feedback session.
But their is a parallel making it relevant to me for a forum.
It,s unlikely that the memberlist of a forum doesn,t have a few deceased members.

I don,t know if the amount of members has commercial value for this forum or how this funktions in practice ?

Other relevant questions are :

Are members that don,t participate for a certain period automaticly removed from the memberlist ?

Is it possible (for member relatives and members) to describe from the memberlist before or (for the relatives) after a decease.

It doesn't seem possible to me to determine who has passed away and who simply hasn't posted in years for some reason. I myself joined on December 6th, 2006. I stopped posting for many years. I just came back a month or so ago.

I can confirm that I am not currently dead.

I;m elderly. but brain is still not old. But, In the absence of being capable of heeding sound well meant advice when young I wilfully committed myself to actions that I have come to regret now that I am old. But to hell with that. I have been a Member of The Science Forum now for a little over 6 months. I want to add to the pool of Knowledge contained within this Science Forum. It matters not to me if this information collectivly or piecemeal is used for commercial gain by other Parties. If the intelligence has merit and should be taken further for a profitable result but ending up as a progressive step towards benefitting a good percentage of people, then we have done good. I see no harm. Afterall, we are debating here. And my transgressions? Like a vereran Grid Iron Player who has a broken body to prove it, I want to pass on some avoidence knowledge to young players, give them a less painful life. westwind.

Originally Posted by Ghrasp

Are members that don,t participate for a certain period automaticly removed from the memberlist ?

Is it possible (for member relatives and members) to describe from the memberlist before or (for the relatives) after a decease.

No, they are not automatically removed. The software has the capability to prune the member list, but it doesn't seem to have ever been used. We have members who joined in 2006 and whose last activity is listed as December 31, 1969. I don't know what that means.
As far as relatives are concerned, we don't know who the members are, or who their relatives are. A member is anyone who knows a user name and password.

Originally Posted by John Galt

I can confirm that I am not currently dead.

on the other hand, i am dead, except that my body refuses to acknowledge that fact

They could just ban zombies from posting.

Thanks for responses,

@ John Galt,
Confirming is confirming someone elses toughts and ideas on something. The likes your message has from Chrisgorlitz and wetswinds confirms they share your sense of humour. Unfortunately readers on this forum can,t confirm or deny anything on this from reading your message. At most it gives a chance for real existance as a quantumstate.

The certificates in this book confirm to the seller that there are people corresponding to the certificates.
Obviously not a real confirmation but it,s read as confirmation by those that buy the certifacates as such.

This forum doesn,t own me but it owns my membership from when I registrated. That can potentially be used as fonfirmation to advertizers aso that I am a member while I don,t contribute or vist this forum or maybe have deceased.

I don,t like that and I even don,t like it as possibillity.
That,s also a reason for me to bring this up.

I know it is possible to ban members and then they disappear from the member list.
So it,s also possible to clean up the memberlist now and then from members that don,t contribute for a certain period and on request of members to undo their registration.

But it,s not possible...Why is that when it,s that easy ? Maybe it,s naive to ask because I,m not well informed on how forumincomes are generated.

Originally Posted by Ghrasp

Unfortunately raders on this forum can,t confirm or deny anything on this from reading your message.

Well, we can conclude he is alive.

That - possibly now or in the future - can generate forumincome from advertisingfees or whatever that I have no idea of.

I can't see how. Especially if you are not around to click on any adverts.

I know it is possible to ban members and then they disappear from the member list I suppose.

I don't think they do: you can see plenty of posts from banned members (unlike some, this forum doesn't distinguish between users who are temporarily suspended and those permanently banned).

I assume that if a user's membership is completely deleted then all their posts will (must) also be deleted.

So if I want to stop contributing what steps can I take ?

Just stop contributing. (I will resist the temptation to add "please" after that )

Originally Posted by Ghrasp

Thanks for responses,

@ John Galt,
Confirming is confirming someone elses toughts and ideas on something. The likes your message has from Chrisgorlitz and wetswinds confirms they share your sense of humour. Unfortunately raders on this forum can,t confirm or deny anything on this from reading your message.

the certificates in this book confirm to the seller that there are people corresponding to the certificates he sells but these people don,t exist for real. Hence it,s not a real confirmation but it,s read as confirmation. I can read the word confirmation but it confirms nothing.

This forum doesn,t own me but it owns my membership from when I registrated.
I can,t undo my membership and my membership stays when I stop participating even for years. That - possibly now or in the future - can generate forumincome from advertisingfees or whatever that I have no idea of.
I don,t like that and I even don,t like it as possibillity.
That,s also a reason for me to bring this up.

I know it is possible to ban members and then they disappear from the member list I suppose. Hence it must be possible to clean up the memberlist now and then from members that don,t contribute for a certain period and also on request of members to undo their registration.

All this must be easy to do but it,s not possible...Why is that when it,s easy ?
It makes me suspicious that being a member and keeping me as a member giving me no choice, helps this forum to generate forumincome.
So if I want to stop contributing what steps can I take ?

I will be more than happy to remove your membership, and all of your posts, if you want. Forum income would probably improve substantially.

It,s impossible to verify with certainty from a forummessage what happened to the sender during the period from clicking a send-button. "C is not endless".
A day after the chance for real existence has decreased a lot more.
A week, a month..... chance keeps decreasing (existent) and increasing (no longer existent) ..Until a new message is send the probabillity for existence jumps up again but never reaches complete certainty.

Adverts that can be clicked also contain a message before clicking as just a logoname.
I can imagine advertizers pay more when a forum has more members. But thinking of it I suppose visits are more relevant for this. On itself I don,t find this important but it becomes important if this would be the reason to make it impossible to withdraw the forum.

When a membername on the list and above a message has an attachment "described" similar as the attachment "banned" then it has just the forumname left and all members and readers can read this member has described. It,s not a membername anymore then.

So I formulated the question wrong maybe. I want to know if and how (when I would want to) I can describe and inform others with it from an automatic tag attached to my forumname as having described/withdrawn from the forum. I regard that type of informing as decent when I don,t intend to read my mailbox anymore for the next years to come. And for a forum giving this opportunity is also a matter of decency then.
Just as the forummoderators inform members when a member is banned.
As this is impossible it makes me think what the reason can be.

It,s not to me to decide or tell what to do with my posts. This is about the possibillity for me and everyone else to describe the forum for whatever reason. Why can moderators ban members from forums (particularly this one because I ask here) and members (or relatives in case of a deceased forum member) can,t describe themselve.

How it is now I would have to ask for a ban or provoke a ban and then have a ban tagged to my forumname and messages. Why would I want that ?

I might use such a possibillity to describe but as long as the possibillity is not there and I haven,t used it I am a forummember and therefor I ask (here) if this is a possible additional option to install for this forum just as subscribing is a forumoption.

Originally Posted by Ghrasp

Why can moderators ban members from forums (particularly this one because I ask here) and members (or relatives in case of a deceased forum member) can,t describe themselve.

I can't describe you either. You are beyond description.

How it is now I would have to ask for a ban or provoke a ban and then have a ban tagged to my forumname and messages. Why would I want that ?

I have no idea. Why are you trying to provoke a ban?

I might use such a possibillity to describe but as long as the possibillity is not there and I haven,t used it I am a forummember and therefor I ask (here) if this is a possible additional option to install for this forum just as subscribing is a forumoption.

I've offered to delete your account. I don't know why you or anyone else should care if there is a particular user name that you have created in the forum database. If you simply cease posting, your posts will most likely drift to the bottom of the stack never to be seen again. Are you ashamed of what you have posted here?

Hi Ghrasp, I've been re-reading some of your posts to see what your really trying to say. From what I can decipher, it seems you feel there should be an option that allows individual members to delete their own accounts and thus erase all their posts and it seems you are also suggesting that members who haven't posted in a long time should have their accounts and posts deleted, you have indicated this should be done because some of them may or may not be dead. You have also suggested that you think this is not currently an option because it would affect forum income.

Well as a member I have a couple of thoughts on this I would like you to take on board.

1.) When we sign up as members what are we actually doing? Well I think we are agreeing to take part in a discussion on various topics, we get to be able to do this free of charge by making posts on the owners website. If we were in the real world and took part in a discussion we would not suddenly expect everyone to forget what we had said just because we had left or were no longer taking part in the discusion.

2.) It seems to me that if you or any other member feels really strongly about wanting their account deleted they can always go and talk to the admin, surely since it's their responsibility for running the site we should give them opportunity to understand what the problem is, there has been instances of some members being unhappy over something but the problem got worked out. Now if people just deleted their whole account and all the posts no one might ever get the chance to look at a problem and fix it.

3.) I wonder if after his death anyone considered the idea of deleting all Einstein's work, hmmm?, no but on a serious note I think the same applies, I would imagine that most people are pleased and proud of their posts, the point being much of the information in them may go on to help others learn, so would not want it all getting rid of just because they couldn't or didn't post any more. Also why would people want all their work destroying after death?, seems odd to me that one.

4.) Right I suppose now we get to forum income, which in fairness I would say is not your or my business, so some money is generated by the person paying for and running the site so what, it has nothing to do with your or my membership. It's from some adverts that can be seen by non members only.
The site is run on a specific software platform and would require changing that setup to introduce the options your suggesting.

5.) Oh nearly forgot, cheers yes I do appreciate John's sense of humour, but the point is if you make things public then people will comment on them, after all they are allowed so why shouldn't they.

6.) Finally If you or anyone else has posted something they arn't happy with anymore I would suggest they simply go and edit their own posts to remove whatever it is they are unhappy with.

Well that's my 2 penneth worth.

I don't know how the ad revenue works, but I doubt it's based on the number of registered members. Most likely, it's number of hits.

It wouldn't be a good idea to purge the member list and delete the posts of the purged members. Missing posts would interrupt the flow of the discussion if anybody went back to read the thread. In Ghrasp's case, that wouldn't matter because nobody can tell what he is saying anyway.

Relatives are a moot point. You could leave your user name and password in your will. Then the surviving heir would have all the rights of the original member. I have no idea why anybody would do that.

You mean no-one can tell ? Nobody never (ever) told anything.

When this forum generates income from content and readers, contributers it,s not a problem for me but when just a forummembership would generate revenues the forum would have interest to make it impossible for members to end a membership at any time. That reminded me of this book.
I do have a problem with that and I see no reason why I can,t ask ?

When I want to stop contributing and reading I could use the signature option or memberprofile to leave a general message of some kind. Maybe I can close my inbox also (I couldn,t find that as an option). But all these options ...would still have my membership generate revenues for this forum for who knows how long.

BUt I can imagine even moderators here don,t know this in detail and that I simply won,t have a definitive answer (even if there is one). But from moderators that don,t know I would prefer a simple "don,t know" then as honnest response.

Harold has now given that :

I don't know how the ad revenue works, but I doubt it's based on the number of registered members. Most likely, it's number of hits.

Maybe someone knows beyond doubt ?

Originally Posted by Ghrasp

You mean no-one can tell ? Nobody never (ever) told anything.

99% of what you write is utterly incomprehensible. Of the remaining 1%, most is just plain wrong and some is utterly pointless (like this thread). If you don't want to be a member just ask a moderator to suspend your account. I'm sure they would happily delete all your posts as well. We wouldn't miss them.

Originally Posted by Ghrasp

When I want to stop contributing and reading I could use the signature option or memberprofile to leave a general message of some kind. Maybe I can close my inbox also (I couldn,t find that as an option). But all these options ...would still have my membership generate revenues for this forum for who knows how long.

I think you're grasping at straws with that one.

Maybe asking this does appear to be ghrasping (I don,t know that yet) but then this appears as such and thus it still shows I,m asking a troubling question.

Apart from advertisement it has more ways to generate revenues on internet. Another possibillity could be in selling Ip adresses or other information.
I,m asking how this forum get,s it,s revenues exclusively for if and how members are involved.
I,m not asking for all other revenues.
Maybe members are not involved at all maybe they are but I don,t know that before I have an answer.

If that is something to be kept secret or something not to ask ("none of my business") I want to know if that,s official forum answer and policy.
If so, offcourse, the conclusion can be that members as me are not supposed to know or ask this and that this is inclusive part of forumpolicy then.
Speculation from an individual point of view by a moderator, no matter how likely, is not answering yes or know for this forum. The moderator protects the forum (as organisation) then for having to go into this.

Originally Posted by Ghrasp

Maybe asking this does appear to be ghrasping (I don,t know that yet) but then this appears as such and thus it still shows I,m asking a troubling question.

There is no doubt that the members contribute to forum revenue by providing the content that causes people to click on the web pages, where advertisements may appear. Do you find this troubling? I don't. It means there are no annual fund drives asking for contributions to keep the site on line. Therefore, I have a place to post my drivel for free. Nor am I troubled by the thought that people may continue to read said drivel after I have passed on.

No I don,t find that troubling or even interesting in relation to this thread. It,s not relevant for this thread because it wouldn,t have this analogy with Gogols tale.
But if a member can,t end his membership and stays member even after a decease and membership information is still used to generate revenues even when people have deceased ...
then there is this analogy and I want to know if such an analogy exists.

Advert incomes coupled to amount of members for a forum is not impossible but I agree it,s more unlikely because advertizers will be interested more in amount of visitors.
The other option is less unlikely to me and also has the analogy stronger ; I suppose there is a continuing market for Ip adresses coupled or not with private information. Collecting memberships and all coupled information can generate revenues then. For the analogy it brings the buyers in the position of the buyers in this book and the forum in the position of the sellers.

The merchandizer Chichikov would not be the analogue wirh this type of sellers. He as a "merchandizer" is the intermediate and the analogy to him would be microsoft, providers, internet, even electricity companies all taking their part in the profit.

i'm still puzzled as to why anyone would want to delete someone's membership after the member in question has died
does it really matter ? and if it doesn't, why bring it up at all

once i'm 6 foot under, i won't be around to care, and it might be nice to think that a part of me (however minor) still lives on in the forums that i once posted in

Apparently it matters because some dead Russian guy wrote a story.

Originally Posted by marnixR

i'm still puzzled as to why anyone would want to delete someone's membership after the member in question has died
does it really matter ? and if it doesn't, why bring it up at all ?

There is another forum (not a scienceforum) where I first had a different forumname and password. For some reason I couldn,t find the password anymore and we changed mailadress and Ip adress. I couldn,t use the old forumname for a new membership or use this membership anymore because I forgot the password.
The former membername is still on the memberlist there. So there are two memberships from me related to two Ip adresses. When a membership generates revenues for this forum they earn double from me. Two members(hips) there are from me ; one is a senile member who can,t login anymore and other is not senile.

The kings of Dahomey used to have an annual festival called "customs" wherein human sacrifices were made. The souls of those sacrificed were intended as slaves to serve the ancestral kings. Sometimes, thousands were sacrificed at a time.

Internet forums are like that in a way. They do not actually conduct human sacrifices, but they capture souls in the form of user names. If you are so unfortunate as to forget your password, or die before unsubscribing, then your immortal soul will be in the service of the internet forum for eternity.

Originally Posted by Ghrasp

The former membername is still on the memberlist there. So there are two memberships from me related to two Ip adresses. When a membership generates revenues for this forum they earn double from me. Two members(hips) there are from me ; one is a senile member who can,t login anymore and other is not senile.

And why should anyone (including you) care about that?

If the forum got extra revenue from having more members then the owners would just register millions of fake users. Which is a good reason why revenue doesn't depend on number of members. I assume this forum has adverts (I don't see them) in which case revenue only comes from clicks on those adverts.

Originally Posted by Strange

I assume this forum has adverts (I don't see them) in which case revenue only comes from clicks on those adverts.

The ads are not visible to members who are logged on. If you log out and view the forum as a guest, you will sometimes see an ad or two. They are not very obtrusive at all.

main point being, the forum does not generate revenue based on the Number of members.

Ghrasp, what makes you think either site generates money that way??

Well Ghrasp, the way I see it is this: If your wanting the admin to make changes that affect your account only then thats fine and this shouldn't be public as our opinions are not important thats between you and the admin.

If however you are wanting admin to make changes that affect everybodies account the then I'm pretty sure you would need popular support before the admin would even begin to consider whether it was even feasible.

To get popular support you would have to make it crystal clear what you were proposing, then make an extremely compelling case for it.

Right now I'd say everyone is still confused with exactly why or what you want and why it's got any thing to do with revenue generation.

In short unless you bring some clarity to the proceedings this entire thread is just a waste of time.

Number of members doesn't affect revenue in any way. What can affect revenue is deleting whole account which means also deleting all threads and posts from that account as well. But that will break a lot of threads and cause confusion. It's just not worth it.

Thinking from members' point of view, I'd like to have an option to delete my account. Every website should have this option. In defense of websites' owners though, members should precheck deletion policy before they register on a website.

If it becomes a popular feature request, I might as well add it. Until then I am ready to delete accounts on request. Username will be removed from all posts and threads, but the content will stay. It will be shown as posted by anonymous guest.

This website is almost a non-profit entity. But not technically.

Originally Posted by Admin

Number of members doesn't affect revenue in any way. What can affect revenue is deleting whole account which means also deleting all threads and posts from that account as well. But that will break a lot of threads and cause confusion. It's just not worth it.

Thinking from members' point of view, I'd like to have an option to delete my account. Every website should have this option. In defense of websites' owners though, members should precheck deletion policy before they register on a website.

If it becomes a popular feature request, I might as well add it. Until then I am ready to delete accounts on request. Username will be removed from all posts and threads, but the content will stay. It will be shown as posted by anonymous guest.

This website is almost a non-profit entity. But not technically.

There is something I've never understood. How do advertisments come to be placed on boards like this? Do the people of the board simply approach companies and offer them webspace to audiences such as this place gathers?

Originally Posted by Admin

Number of members doesn't affect revenue in any way. What can affect revenue is deleting whole account which means also deleting all threads and posts from that account as well. But that will break a lot of threads and cause confusion. It's just not worth it.

Thinking from members' point of view, I'd like to have an option to delete my account. Every website should have this option. In defense of websites' owners though, members should precheck deletion policy before they register on a website.

If it becomes a popular feature request, I might as well add it. Until then I am ready to delete accounts on request. Username will be removed from all posts and threads, but the content will stay. It will be shown as posted by anonymous guest.

This website is almost a non-profit entity. But not technically.

First thanks for the response ..

I assume when it would have this option posts would keep the forumname ?
A forumname is anonymous (and anonymous is probably a forumname) but when a lot of posts would be "anonymous" this would also affect reading the forum.

Originally Posted by Ghrasp

I assume when it would have this option posts would keep the forumname ?
A forumname is anonymous (and anonymous is probably a forumname) but when a lot of posts would be "anonymous" this would also affect reading the forum.

You can't have it both ways. If your membership profile is deleted then all your posts will be anonymous. If you want to keep the name then you have to keep the member's profile. (And it still isn't clear why anyone would care.)

Originally Posted by Strange

Originally Posted by Ghrasp

I assume when it would have this option posts would keep the forumname ?
A forumname is anonymous (and anonymous is probably a forumname) but when a lot of posts would be "anonymous" this would also affect reading the forum.

You can't have it both ways. If your membership profile is deleted then all your posts will be anonymous. If you want to keep the name then you have to keep the member's profile.

I can make that up for account deletion on request which is the only possibillity for now.
When it would be an installed option (and mentioned in forumpolicy) this could be different.

I have looked for ads on the site and can only find spaces labeled "Advertise Here." It seems that right now, we are all posting on admin's dime. Knowing that, how much longer do you want to keep this pointless thread going?

Originally Posted by Harold14370

I have looked for ads on the site and can only find spaces labeled "Advertise Here." It seems that right now, we are all posting on admin's dime. Knowing that, how much longer do you want to keep this pointless thread going?

I myself am not interested in this thread. But it seems to me that it doesn't cost the admin anymore to let people post in it than closing it down.

Originally Posted by pmb

I myself am not interested in this thread. But it seems to me that it doesn't cost the admin anymore to let people post in it than closing it down.

The server costs money. The domain name costs money. The software costs money. His time costs money. Here is a breakdown from another thread:

Originally Posted by Admin

I, for one, run it as a hobby. The site does have ads which are shown only to guest visitors. It pays for its hosting, domain and occasional tech support.

Costs:

- Domain : $10 per year
- Hosting : $600 per year (for an entry level VPS)
- Tech support and opportunity cost (for me) : $2,500 per year (will vary person to person)

Setting up a forum is easy. Bringing activity to it is VERY TOUGH.