FYI: Old accounts cleanup - accidentally deleted members show up as "Guest"

**snowbear** · January 31st, 2011, 09:33 AM

Last time there was a clean-out I went from #4600 to #3028. I'm looking forward to seeing what my number will be now.
...Because I am a dork.

Thanks for your hard work, Dianyla!

**SimplyViki** · January 31st, 2011, 10:52 AM

Originally Posted by snowbear

Last time there was a clean-out I went from #4600 to #3028. I'm looking forward to seeing what my number will be now.
...Because I am a dork.

Thanks for your hard work, Dianyla!

You mean our numbers change?!?! I had no idea. I wonder if mine has ever changed?

Do the mods always announce clean-outs? I don't think there's been a clean-out since I've joined. Fascinating!

**snowbear** · January 31st, 2011, 10:57 AM

Originally Posted by SimplyViki

You mean our numbers change?!?! I had no idea. I wonder if mine has ever changed?

Do the mods always announce clean-outs? I don't think there's been a clean-out since I've joined. Fascinating!

I think the last time it happened was after The Great Server Crash wherein we broke LHC. (If memory serves, that was February of 2008.) Some people dropped hundreds of numbers and some didn't drop much, so mine was kinda average.

**SimplyViki** · January 31st, 2011, 11:04 AM

So... question. If we had around 35,000 members, but the "members" page lists only 11,000 or so, who are the other 24,000? Dianyla mentioned 1,500 unverified accounts and 3,500 banned bot accounts. That still leaves 19,000 accounts...

Are these folks who signed up, verified their account emails, but just never posted anything?

**jeanniet** · January 31st, 2011, 11:43 AM

I didn't even know we had numbers. I'm an uber-dork.

Thanks, mods, for doing this cleanup work. I know it's a lot of effort on your part, but looks like it's long overdue.

**tigr** · January 31st, 2011, 11:47 AM

Originally Posted by snowbear

Last time there was a clean-out I went from #4600 to #3028. I'm looking forward to seeing what my number will be now.
...Because I am a dork.

Thanks for your hard work, Dianyla!

How do I see my number? I'm not finding anything in my statistics that looks like it would by my number.

**snowbear** · January 31st, 2011, 11:51 AM

Originally Posted by tigr

How do I see my number? I'm not finding anything in my statistics that looks like it would by my number.

If you view your profile, your number is in the URL. You're member 27,801.

**.Amanaka.** · January 31st, 2011, 01:07 PM

And because I had to check, I'm number 4815!

For a post that is a little more on topic, thanks for doing this. I'm a huge fan of cleaning things up, whatever they may be.

**Dianyla** · January 31st, 2011, 02:12 PM

Oh, fuddddge!!!

This cleanup job was supposed to only delete accounts older than a year, with zero posts, and no verified email address. Unfortunately the "zero posts" criteria did not apply to this and there are at least 3 users who were active members (just with broken email) and their accounts have been deleted.

I am working with those who have contact us to rebuild (cannot restore) their accounts. Please, if any of you are in touch with anyone else whose access is not working (via FB, LJ, etc) encourage them to contact us. We would not ban people this way, despite all the recent paranoia about the Mysterious Ways In Which Mods Work. This was a flat out screw-up on my part and not representative of any moderation action.

See, this is why you shouldn't clean ALL the things.

**Dianyla** · January 31st, 2011, 02:12 PM

Originally Posted by snowbear

Last time there was a clean-out I went from #4600 to #3028. I'm looking forward to seeing what my number will be now.
...Because I am a dork.

Nope, those won't change normally. The only reason people's uid's changed was because when the Great Board Crash happened a few years ago Stephanie had to basically build a new forum from scratch. She imported people's accounts over from the archive forum and so all of the gaps were taken out of the uid sequence and condensed.