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View Full Version : How many members?!



Allan Greis Eriksen
8-May-2009, 05:45 PM
From the front of DAW forums it says:
Members: 1,463, Active Members: 850

In the Members List it says 570

Why the difference?

Stephen W. Meeley
9-May-2009, 12:44 PM
From the front of DAW forums it says:
Members: 1,463, Active Members: 850

In the Members List it says 570

Why the difference?
Allan,

The only meaningful number is 570 - that is the number of fully registered users (that have applied, been through moderation and can read and post).

The larger number (1,463) is made up of anyone who has ever tried to become a forum member and, as you can see, many of them are not registered members. They either have not completed their e-mail confirmation (usually about 30 to 40), are awaiting moderation (usually about 20 to 40) or were nothing but spammers and were permanently banned (that's the largest number, currently about 850).

You may be wondering why we don't delete the banned "members" and it's because keeping their id there and banned means that they can't try to re register with the banned ID (we are not just trying to show a larger number). As you can also see, keeping the banned users doesn't stop more spammers from trying to get in, but at least they have to try a different name.

The long term solution is to have a better registration process so that it's not so easy for spammers to try to register at all - we just haven't had the time to implement something like that yet. If we can find a new system in place that effectively keeps spammers out of the system more completely, we can blow away the currently banned set and show only "real" numbers. In the meantime I'll ask to see if we can at least remove them from the footer (that's pretty much a "stock" vBulletin footer).

BTW, the "active" members are those who have tried to register in the past 60 days (no, I don't know why vBulletin considers applying being "active"). Some of those become fully registered users and the rest are banned.

Anyway, the bottom line is registered users are the key and that number is accurate (today) at 570. We do pick up new "real" users almost every day.

Allan Greis Eriksen
10-May-2009, 03:50 AM
That explains it! Thanks for the reply :)