New member, zero posting, why?

[vic]

Just wondering why all you new members not do any posting? No personal intro thread? No questions? Np scrots? Nothing. What are you afraid of? Afraid of making a fool of yourself? No need for that, just read some of the stuff here. We are already making foolery for you, so chill and step forward. Or what is so intimidating here? Or is it so simple as that you register and discover that the BBQ not is for you? But so many? Can someone of you please step forward and explain for me/us about it! It is really an intriguing phenomena. Just checked the member list and on the last page the vast majority had zero posts. Enquiring mind wants to know. :)

[hinto]

Great point!! (tho I have posted here)
There are a few other distros that I hop to once in a while and as I say, "You choose a distro, you choose a repo _and_ a forum".
While there other Debian-based distros, the LinuxBBQ forums keep me coming back.
The members are very knowledgeable, yet never take themselves "too seriously". "Tongue in cheek" and humor balanced with "know how" keep the forums both lively and informative. If you don't believe men check the avatars and the names of the distros;) (as well as some of the topics)
-Hinto

[rhowaldt]

i wonder how many of them are just bots who keep silent, waiting for the right opportunity to strike ;)

[Dr_Chroot]

I have wondered about much of this myself. It seems like what happens often on Reddit. Some of dkeg's posts get over 2000 views but then only get 10 comments! It isn't even like you could say that they didn't like the scrot. For one, what's not to love!? And secondly, if they actually didn't care for it (maybe blind people browse Reddit) couldn't they at least voice it or leave an up/downvote? 0.5% of the internet getting involved is such a strange thing.

[machinebacon]

It's true, most of these accounts are automatically generated, others have registered at times when our forum had a 'register to browse' policy. Usually I purge those that have 0 posts in 3-6months, and haven't got many complaints. Will do a big purge soon, again.

Maybe we should sticky this one? :)

[GekkoP]

^ I agree, sticky it.

[rhowaldt]

i think the Dr just adressed a good point. think about the amount of sites you have on the internet. think of the amount of those that you visit. some people might visit even many more. now think of the amount of sites you actually made an account on, for one reason or the other. now consider how many of those registered sites you frequent. for me, it's not many. and nowadays, it seems hard to find a site that doesnt have a community connected to it. seeing how we all have a limited amount of fucks to give, we need to be picky with the communities we invest time and effort in. and i'm sure for most (if not all) of you there are multiple communities you once thought might be interesting, joined up, and never really got back to again for whatever reason. i still have a LinuxQuestions account, to name one example. figured that would be handy. never used it (iirc).

so i think it is reasonable that something like that is happening, and it ties in with what Jules said about the 'register to browse' thing.

[pidsley]

Some forums have an automatic policy that if you don't post at least once in a month (or so) after registering, your account is deactivated, and new members get a PM informing them of this. Maybe we could set up something similar?

I don't personally have a problem with people lurking here (at least after their first post). I am a member of the Arch forum, and I regularly log in there to read and learn, but I almost never post. I would not like to have my account deactivated after a few months of inactivity. But this is different from people who register here and never post at all.

I have more problem with the people lurking on IRC, maybe because I can see them logged in and not participating.

But yes, I think the main reason was "register to read" -- and then once registered, people found out we were scary elitist assholes, and never came back.

[wuxmedia]

yeah, internet is a funny place.
We have a pretty good spam filter on the registration.
Although, allegedly the spambots can google the question. o-0

[bones]

In my distrohopping days, I think I probably created an account in every distro forum under the sun. Like pidsley, I am also registered at Arch, haven't posted there in years, but occasionally go back to read and learn. Nowadays, I only go to a few regularly:

* LinuxBBQ (of course)
* LinuxQuestions
* DaemonForums
* Gentoo
* Nixers (not distro specific, however)

There's a couple I check with infrequently:

* Salix
* Sabayon
* Funtoo

[machinebacon]

Pidsley et al: we could make a "force reactivation" (which means they have to click a link in their email) for all users that have:
- zero posts AND
- registered at least 90+ days ago

A matter of 3 clicks for the Admins here. If nobody is against it, I will do this in the next 24 hours.

We might also change the text after registration, something like "Definitely post in the /dev/null section to make sure your account stays active". Wux, if this is in your hands (not sure, will check in the next 24 hours), I'll let you know :)

[pidsley]

Pidsley et al: we could make a "force reactivation" (which means they have to click a link in their email) for all users that have:
- zero posts AND
- registered at least 90+ days ago

A matter of 3 clicks for the Admins here. If nobody is against it, I will do this in the next 24 hours.

We might also change the text after registration, something like "Definitely post in the /dev/null section to make sure your account stays active". Wux, if this is in your hands (not sure, will check in the next 24 hours), I'll let you know :)

I like both of these.

[hinto]

I'm glad you guys don't give "rankings" for number of posts.
There's [at least] 1 forum where someone is "Grand Poobah" (high on the rankings) and is so full of himself that he views everyone else is an idiot.
-Hinto

[rhowaldt]

@Jules: great idea.
@hinto: oh but we do have ranking! it's just that our ranking is silly and a tad offensive at times. we don't care about high or low, we just care about the lulz (to use cool internet-speak)

[hinto]

^ yes, but does a level 16 equate to "uninstaller" (don't tell me, I don't want to know) ;)
A level 16 (on the other forum) tends to think pretty highly of himself.
Guess I'm saying I appreciate the tongue in cheek here.
It makes it fun... and what would we do if it wasn't fun?
-Hinto

[Dr_Chroot]

It makes it fun... and what would we do if it wasn't fun?

Raid Twitch.tv streams? The only other "fun" thing I can think of...

[simgin]

@Jules, well it is soon spring "cleaning" time ;) Your proposal is good.

simon

[vic]

Great minds, great ideas and interesting thoughts about it. All cool here too for your proposal machinebacon, go ahead. Thanks for the input guys, appreciate it. :)

[machinebacon]

'Uninstaller' beats 'Sperminator', if that makes sense :D

Okay, I purge them fuckers now.

[machinebacon]

We might also change the text after registration, something like "Definitely post in the /dev/null section to make sure your account stays active". Wux, if this is in your hands (not sure, will check in the next 24 hours), I'll let you know :)

Wux, I think this falls into your terrain. There must be some (html? php?) page that contains the text after registration. Can you - if you have time - check and add the snippet above?

Thank you!