De-activating a members account

I was wondering if anyones account is ever de-activated

I have notice there are

• over 900 members that have no post
• over 500 members that have no post and signed up over 3 months ago

I'm not sure why the ID is staying in the members registry if there has not been any activity in the last 3 months that have never posted.

For the spammers that have been banned. Would de-activating the account work to block spam as well as banning? Maybe banning at first and then 3 months later de-activate the account to clear the ID off the registry. Do you think they would setup the same ID 3 months later for spamming?

If a member has been banned for spamming, the userid will still show up on the members list - mainly as it keeps that e-mail address blocked. If we removed the account they would be free to sign up using the same e-mail again. The way automated spam software works, it's easier for us to just leave spam accounts as "banned" but not removed (they can't do anything like post).

The majority of 0 posters are just people that registered to browse (and perhaps subscribe to threads), or those that may post in the future.

It takes up only a few extra kb of space to accommodate them, so we might as well leave them all. There are quite a few users that sign in regularly but never post, so I wouldn't want to catch anyone out.

I wasn't thinking about the post subscription.

I would still be nice if they posted. Even if it was only to say hi.

I wonder how many still remember there ID's or how many have created a new ID?

Hmmm...I know that when I first came across these forums, I wanted to register as 'James' but that username is taken by a 'zero' poster who joined January 2009.