Shrinking Member Count.

[Thomas_Thumb]

I noticed a substantial drop in activity in the General Credit topics and Understanding Fico Scoring boards after returning to the boards late last year. Gone are many prolific posters and response generators such as BBS, Birdman7, Cassiecard and CGID just to name a few. There are now some days with no new postings on the Understanding Fico Scoring board.

The vibe has decreased further since the changes that eliminated volunteer Moderators.

[Rogue46]

I've also noticed some of the folks that used to post alot aren't around much lately but looking at the member numbers baffles me, Since noon today so 4 1/2 hours we lost 1,291 members

[Thomas_Thumb]

My speculation is that some new policies were implemented with the changes in site management. Most likely something has been added that is auto dropping members. 

Based on last log in date? Log in or lose it! It used to be you could stay logged in. Now if you don't interact with the site every 15 to 30 minutes you are auto logged out. 

P.S. I still see Pipeguy listed as a senior contributor. His last post was 2019. Perhaps something else is at play.

[fury1995]

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@Thomas_Thumb wrote:

My speculation is that some new policies were implemented with the changes in site management. Most likely something has been added to auto drop out members after a prolonged period of inactivity. Perhaps 12 or 24 months of inactivity as is done by some credit card issuers.

Based on last log in date? Log in or lose it! It used to be you could stay logged in. Now if you don't interact with the site every 15 to 30 minutes you are auto logged out. That's a pain especially with 2 factor authentication.

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This. There's probably a purge of dormant accounts. 

If you look back about 10 years ago in some posts.. all the posts are now showing Anonymous quoting Anonymous. This has been changing in real time as I just researched an old thread a few days ago and those names are all gone now.

A few recent posts have suggested this. New members stating they cannot access there old accounts and had to creat enew ones..

This has been the last couple of weeks.

[fury1995]

I've been a member since 2013. I remember when CredditAddict and Ron1 were the ones to be entertained by.

I lurked by mouse click for many many many years in between but just recently picked up my keyboard again.

[Rogue46]

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@Thomas_Thumb wrote:

My speculation is that some new policies were implemented with the changes in site management. Most likely something has been added to auto drop out members after a prolonged period of inactivity. Perhaps 12 or 24 months of inactivity as is done by some credit card issuers.

Based on last log in date? Log in or lose it! It used to be you could stay logged in. Now if you don't interact with the site every 15 to 30 minutes you are auto logged out. That's a pain especially with 2 factor authentication.

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That sounds like a more reasonable explanation, So far today it's dropped almost 2,000 members so most likely some kind of database purge in progress

[Thomas_Thumb]

It would be interesting to try and nail down the time interval for inactivity adverse action. The shortest for credit cards is 6 months. The dormancy label is only 3 months but no AA anywhere for that time interval that I know about.

Better yet, those administrating this site should let us know. Why keep it secrete?

[CreditCuriosity]

Not a moderator anymore and stepped down many months prior to new moderating people due to moving and new job etc., but can only speculate on many of these things as when moderator we had a lot of control, but certainly couldn't purge user accounts through the DB, but admins and likely Khoros themselves can as likely many know all posts / users etc are simply stored in a DB and maybe some clean-up was warranted, but if you know anything about db  (if you have a brain and know anything about proper db architecture and practice most likely a field is just set as inactive vs information actually deleted, but member and posts very much still live in the DB whether showing or not and just filtered out).  With exception of GDPR which is Europse right to be forgotten hence when users were allowed to become anonymous, but posts remained is a bit differnet since various states are inacting similiar policies if was implemented on MF.

A lot of things can be the reasons.  Recent Khoros taking over MOD duties from the old volunteer moderators so less interactions with a lot of us that use to be around to do moderation, but also communicate with others as well kind of took the wind out of many and likely since don't have many of the old duties they log on less(no garden thread and the likes as can't be moderated by anyone that is active anymore as that has been taken and many things where people felt unappreciated), various other people left(fixed their credit or ruined it or life event changes or got what they needed out of the forum etc) or violated TOS and no longer around for those reasons or other sources for information as well such as DOC, reddit, etc.  It likely is a combination of those among many other things, but metrics are kept and no doubt posts are certainly down.  Hopefully the admins have a plan to bring the site back to what it use to be, but many other sources as mentioned have information now that aren't moderated by the strict TOS's that allow easier sharing of some stuff.  Just my 2 cents from an old time moderator without sharing to much of other behind the scenes things that were back in my time before the transaction to Khoros staff moderating.

[GApeachy]

  I read why UncleB dc'd the GC, that's a darned shame, don't blame him a bit.

[Thomas_Thumb]

I'm of the opinion that member count may be a factor in fees charged. Sure posts still exist and databases contain details on who wrote them. However, it looks like picture pastes that provide insight have disappeared from posts in many cases. That's not good.

Often money and/or liability risk are behind these changes. Unfortunately, the end result can be a loss in value for users. That's what I am seeing on MyFico forums.