temporary users

[Swansen]

This is just a thought and maybe its not good at all but would having like a 30 day temorary membership for a person just wanting some quick help be a good idea. we have about 5,000 members and only 100 or so regulars or whatever. I don't want to sound mean or disrespective by the way, but doesn't it take up a lot of space or something having all those one time members. Anyways all that aside i just think it would be a good idea to have like a quick message thing like put in a alias and ask a question or something and after so many days it gets their posting abilities are up and if they like whats going on here then they can register. I dunno just a thought.

 

[Sniper]

I think what you are suggesting is allowing users to posts as guests and then they can choose to register later if they want? Its a good idea but the main concern is spam, plus given the choice most will be not register.

 

[Swansen]

right, thats something i thought about with guests, but what about a temporary registration, like somethine quick?

 

[Sniper]

Not possible as after we delete the user, all the posts made by the user will appear under the name "guest". Even if we didn't delete them, they would simply remain registered so they can comeback anytime, even after 5 years and login. Plus it also starts to get complicated as then you have track two different types of users.

What could work is, we deactivate accounts which have been inactive for 30 days and then if they want to reactivate their account, they can do so by requesting a activation code but at this ime I don't have the time to build that feature...(this is what I had thought about in the past).