Info Thinking of sending mass email to members

[castros_bro]

Surely Auoshite is so much better then insisting all the members participate as unlike other fora it can be a wonderful spectator sport.  This smacks of the Yank thing of "engaging with the" membership. Sure send an email asking if people want to stay but otherwise leave them be.

 

 

 

 

Sent from a horsebox

[daveb47]

Nobody is insisting or even suggesting insisting that everyone participates.

Dont forget that many of the members are from old phpbb/unreliable/unusable board & may well have given up in disgust.

Surely it would have been nice to just remind them of what Autoshite has become & maybe  some interesting contributers may return.

I have nothing against lurkers either as members or visitors but probably 15000 members have not even visited board for over a year & presumably never will again.

[Vantman]

That seems to be the best idea,to cull the non returning visitors.15000 is a lot of wasted space.

 

Many thanks for what you are doing Dave.

[metrognome]

Been a member for years. look in almost every day on several PCs and my phone, and I don't always log in. I have made a few posts over the years but don't have much to talk about on the whole. however I like to know the option is there if I want to. I am sure there are many like me. Kick me out if you want but I will open another account with a different name the day after so, at least in my case it will be a wasted effort.

 

Mind you this post will count as my yearly contribution so its problem solved I guess. 

[Craig the Princess]

I guess the vast majority of the ones with no post count were spambot related when that was all kicking off way back when, it doesn't sound like a drive to get people more involved if they don't want to or "a war on lurkers" (watch out for drone Rover R8s coming over and failing your headgaskets) but to clean up the mess bad by the spam arseholes.

[Skizzer]

^ This, exactly.

 

14,995 of the 15,000 are spammers.  Nobody is looking to 'weed out' people who read but don't post (hello out there!), but it does make sense to clear the database of stuff that is just non-human meaningless clutter.  There shouldn't be too many genuine people who have registered, never posted and haven't even visited in the last (say) 18 months?

 

Dave, to answer your original question, if you do want to send an email, I'd say something like:

 

We've noticed that you've registered with the forum, but have never posted on the site and haven't logged in for at least XX months.  We'd like to update the forum records to improve the site's performance, so if you're a real person who's still interested in unloved older cars then please log in at some point in the next 2 weeks and we'll keep your registration details.  If you're one of our thousands of spambot friends, though, please don't bother.

 

Thanks for your understanding.

 

 

I wouldn't bother trying to promote the site - if they ever cared at all then they'll come and visit.

[xtriple]

I think the above proposed e-mail is spot on. If it doesn't cost owt, get it sent.

[loserone]

Why not simply display some text like that to users who are not logged in? Give it a month or two for those who want to log in / retain their accounts to get their act together, then delete all of the accounts which haven't been logged in for over a year.

 

Saves the debate about whether you have explicit opt-in (which in most cases you do, and you can use the forum to identify such addresses) and the effort of sending something out then dealing with the fallout.

[Jim Bergerac]

I can see the case for the mass email, I signed up here in late 2011 (I think after following a link to Vulgalour's Princess thread) but never posted until mid-2013. In that 18 month period I pretty much never visited here. Don't know what it was that lead to me re-discovering this place, I think it might have been a link to here from somewhere else to a decent thread on here but not sure. Since then, I've gone to making this one of my most viewed sites and login most days and read most posts even though I don't really post that much (and probably in spite of the few posts I probably post too much as I seldom have anything interesting to say - lurking and liking, FTW). An email might lead to some people rediscovering this place and realising that it is their kind of place after all.

 

Of course, I can see the other side of the argument too. I know some people don't like to receive such emails and we could see some undesirables pitching up. There is also the way that this place seems pretty great as it is (I wouldn't be here so often if it wasn't!).

[Des]

Send everyone a crude sketch of a cock and balls, anyone who doesn't reply with a crude sketch of a spunking cock and balls must be a spambot.

[castros_bro]

Nobody is insisting or even suggesting insisting that everyone participates.

Dont forget that many of the members are from old phpbb/unreliable/unusable board & may well have given up in disgust.

Surely it would have been nice to just remind them of what Autoshite has become & maybe  some interesting contributers may return.

I have nothing against lurkers either as members or visitors but probably 15000 members have not even visited board for over a year & presumably never will again.

Sorry! I didn't quite understand but do now. I'll get my coat........................................................................................................................................as the ZX is full of asbestos for the dump but has a flat and its pouring.

[Partridge]

I'm a writey persion Dave. Wind me up and point me in the right direction.

[jonny69]

If you can see they haven't even visited the site for over a year and have zero posts then I can't see a problem with pruning them. It's quite evident that they have no interest here and are probably a spammer/bot/accident.

[Caffiend]

My original advice was given on the basis that it seemed (on p1) as if Dave - out of the goodness of his heart - was proposing to go to the effort of compiling a regular newsletter.

 

No issue with mass email re: Autoshite membership only, as per Skizzer's post/similar, if you want belt and braces then add in a line about reminding people that they can change their options to 'never mail me again' in their profiles and good to go.

[beko1987]

Maybe boot off anyone with 0 count, but put a quick sticky on the open forum explaining whats happened, and if you are someone who registered and reads, but never posted to pop a new account open and crack on

 

Will weed out the mess from last year, which has been said probably stayed on the DB when Dave copied it, and sit there as a statistic rather than an actual person.

 

Or shut the doors again and we can have another lock in...

[Wilko220]

Just a thought - but as there are probably a lot of lurkers who choose not to post, wouldn't it be better to base the cull not on posts but on whether people have logged in during the past 12 months?

[explosive-cabbage]

I think it is interesting having just flicked through this thread how many lurkers have come to the fore-front.

My other brother (chavinthecorner) has only posted twice, but I intend to lure him in a bit more by having him drag a Niva back from Birmingham on the back of his K-series Freelander next week.

 

 

I'll chip in on this one, Think I've been a member for 4 years, yes really!  I've posted more in the last week than I have in 4 years, No great reason for this apart from I've had a little more time.

 

I 'lurk' in the background, reading the posts for a quick laugh then back to other things. sometimes I don't visit for months! 

 

I don't see a problem with sending out an email, just to 'check in' I get them from a few other forums I visit.  You could even have a line along the lines of 'if you wish to keep your account live please log in within 30 days' Blah blah blah

 

I love the fact that there are so many people that have the time, passion and money to chuck at the old cars that I grew up with. (get me I'm only 30 but my dad had some right shite in the past) which keeps me coming back.. 

 

Stephen

 

 

^^ Quick, someone sell him an inapropriate car like a Jimp or an FSO!

 

 

A regular newsletter does exactly the same thing as a thread on the forum - indeed, one could have a (pinned) thread simply entitled "newsletter" if the purpose of it is simply to inform.

 

Mind you, if it is a problem having too many "members" then a quick cull would certainly achieve the aim of cutting numbers.  The problems may likely be inter alia:

what are the criteria in order to remain;

how do you communicate a preference to remain or resign;

how many members is enough members?

 

And then, to speak up for those like me, there is a lot of pleasure in belonging to such a forum simply for the craik in reading posts as opposed to contributing to them.  It is not very often that I feel compelled to add a few words (as is clear from my post count) but I would be very disappointed to be a victim of the cull if it is based on contributions to the board.  I would like to think my posts albeit few are considered to be of value.

I think we should be incouraging non-posters to post, create somthing like a sub-100 posts spotting thread competition??

Chance to win Autoshite recognition maybe?

[Partridge]

The Cavette Award?

[320touring]

The Cavcraft Award?

Efa

 

Winner gets a zafira or a crudely drawn cock(partridge original)

[Partridge]

That will be worth a bomb when I cut off my ear and die.

[chaseracer]

That will be worth a bomb when I cut off my ear and die.

 

More absinthe down there...?

 

[tooSavvy]

Nahh... just ask "anyone here know tooSavvy??" >>> = Stay or Die 

 

 

TS

[chaseracer]

^ Nobody here gets out alive...