"Lurker" Thread-New Members or Those w.0 Posts Post Here

[Jeff Smith]

Welcome to railroad.net! Please make one post here to prevent "pruning", or deleting, your account. Say something as simple as "new member", or quote my post and leave the rest blank. If you have already posted on the site, no post is necessary here, but feel welcome to post even so.

This is a spam prevention measure to prevent phantom registrations. Thank you for your patronage, and again, feel free to "lurk" as long as you like!

[Jeff Smith]

Don't be alarmed.

A few weeks or a month or so ago, I mentioned that I would start pruning inactive accounts, or accounts with zero posts. I get about 250 registrations a day, the vast majority of which are spammer accounts. If you do register here, please activate your account immediately; this will prevent your registration being caught up in the daily pruning of inactive accounts I perform

The last few days, I've been looking at new registrations with zero posts and deleting those. To prevent your account from being pruned, I ask new users to make a post here: http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 41&t=86230. Something as simple as "new member" is fine.

Today, I pulled up those accounts that have been registered, but never logged in, and pruned those. This was more or less a test of how this process will work.

You'll see a corresponding decrease in the number of members, but gives me a much better picture of how we're doing.

Primarily, this is a spam prevention measure. Spammers do not always attempt to post; often, they are content to mearly register a profile, put up some bogus information in their profile, including web-site links, and never return. This generates "back-links" to their sites, helping them in web searches.

If you are a "lurker", please don't think that you are not welcome. Lurking is actually a time-tested and proven technique where you can observe, learn, and enter at your discretion. I'm going to work on a process so that you are not arbitrarily deleted, including some things to our registration process which will prevent this type of activity in the future. This includes the above "lurker" thread where you make one post to prevent deletion of your user account.

I appreciate everyone's patience with these changes. Thanks!

Jeff Smith
Site Admin

[pmisisco]

< delurk >

Hi, just checking in.

< /delurk >

[shifty]

delurking temporarily

[truck1536]

Reading in the background.

[RKO36]

I am not a robot.

[slohands1408]

lurky lurky

[upst8ny]

New Member.

[AzMedic25]

I am new to the site and reading thru interesting posts. Will begin posting after reading thru more previous posts.

[paperman1111]

Unless I have something worthwhile to say, posting something just for the sake of posting seems counterproductive. However, I will follow the rules of your forum.

[hrsn]

Alive and lurking!

[foxtrot]

Been a lurker for several weeks, decided to join. Posting will be rare. As a teenager hung around Albany Union Station and road my bike to Selkirk with my 35mm. Found the site while doing Google search for NYC Caboose picture to use a painting guides.

[Travelin' Jack]

I was told there'd be no math.

[pvrr2647]

Mostly just a reader,but i do post once in a great while.

[shonline]

I lurk here a bunch but am not actively posting. Glad to be a member though!