I understand what you guys are saying, but my thoughts were a way to speed up the website by removing the records of people that don't use it from the database.
I understand that some people just lurk, I did that for a year before I joined, then lurked 6 more months before I started posting. But there are thousands of people that have 0 posts, that probably never come back to this site. All those records slow down the database search.
Every time you click on a subject, you notice it lists the avatars, the join date, the location, and the number of posts for the posters of 8 - 10 posts per page. ( depending on the liength of the posts ) There are around 19,350 members who's records are in the data base being searched. That's 150,000 to 190,000 records being looked at by the software every time you open a subject. And that's just the member records, not including the message records themselves.
I wasn't looking at social classification, just a way to take some pressure off the servers and the software.
If you "classify" the member lists by Active, Current, and Dormant, the records still exist, and therefore still slow the system.
Also, the database SteelSoldiers uses, may not be capable of adding such criteria to the member record, and even if you can, it may not be possible to add the additional search for it. Even if both are possible, it might slow the system even more, which is the opposite of what I was suggesting.
All the major ISPs purge their users regularly. If you use AOL, MSN, Yahoo, or whatever, if you don't use your account for X number of months, you get purged.
I hope this rambling clarified my intentions, but usually a post this long does not.
One other thing:
This is already a GREAT website. If no other improvements were ever adopted or implimented, it would still be the VERY BEST site available to those who share our varied interests in MVs. Thanks to all who hav brought it this far and keep it running so smoothly.
QFT
