[wp-docs] User accounts

[Michael D.Adams]

I tend to agree with Morgan and Firas, but would have been a bit 
more... diplomatic than Firas managed.

Deleting the Spammers and the Vandals is ok (though it certainly won't 
discourage them), but I think we should have as few barriers to 
contributing as possible.  If deleting a "lurker" or 
so-far-non-contributing account stops one person from fixing a typo, 
clarifying an ambiguous section, reverting spam/vandalism, or 
correcting bad information, then it shouldn't be done.

Plus, it might be tricky to make sure the database plays nice after 
deleting dead accounts.  Contributions, Histories and such might go a 
little wonky (but I don't know anything about the database structure or 
its interface).

Besides, having all those accounts in the database makes it all the 
easier to send out Codex spam to everyone who's ever even looked at the 
site.  That's the first step toward total world domination by Codex :-) 
   (Step 3: profit!)

Michael

On Mar 14, 2005, at 12:23 PM, Firas D. wrote:

> Uh, WTF?
>
> What if someone were a lurker and had decided to get an account to 
> make updates where s/he saw fit in the future?
>
> Is the db being overloaded by user accounts on a software level? This 
> is mediawiki, it can take quite a bit of hammering.
>
> Firas.
>
> Craig Hartel wrote:
>
>> I'm not trying to exclude lurkers or anyone else, for that matter. 
>> You don't need an account to get any information from Codex. You 
>> don't need an account on Codex to be a member of this list.
>>
>> I see nothing wrong with deleting accounts that aren't used. It's not 
>> a knock against anybody. It's simple database management and 
>> maintenance.
>>
>> Craig.