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

[babylon2369]

new member, just a lurking railfan

[Scott0213]

These aren't the lurkers you are looking for....

[qgl6049]

Just another lurker here.

[gbond]

new member, taking the signal trainee test next friday. woot!

[M405]

Hello to all! I was a Brakeman for the Old Colony & Newport Railway since 1979. I am now a Station Host at the Dover, NH Transportation Center for Amtrak's Downeaster. Glad to be back, looks like I was pruned!

[kelvin8ter]

Old/New Foamer. I enjoy reading everyone's post's and pics even though I don't remember posting anything of my own. Great site with a variety of topics.

[PopPop41]

Just joined, please don't delete just yet!!

[magi46]

Newbie will be lurking about New Haven RR and N scale

[4krysia]

lurker here

[Jeff Smith]

Just a refresh as to the purpose of this thread.

Quick background: users with zero posts are pruned daily. This prevents spam registrations.

If you are registering but don't plan on posting in a topic yet, this is the topic to post in. A simple "new member" suffices.

New users are "moderated". Posts by new members must be approved. Posts are approved daily before pruning.

If you're not a new member, or have already had posts approved (i.e. your post count is greater than zero) there is no need to post here; you will not be pruned.

Nevertheless, if you want to check in here, feel free.

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

[KAPL]

new member

[yellowdog]

New member

[bronowyn]

Hiya,

Found you guys/gals when I first started taking the train into town! Thanks for all the info on here.

I probably won't add much, but I love reading what you all put on the forums!

Thanks!

Dawn

[jasonwiilburn98]

new member

[ndwolf68]

Hi all,
New to the group. Thought I'd check it out & "lurk" here for my Model Railroad and Train "fix".

Look forward to learning & socializing with y'all!

R/,
Norm