Questions I Have

[Haru Totetsu]

Hello, I'm very new to these certain things online and would like to ask certain questions concerning certain things. I've always wondered about these things and would truly appriciate anyones insight to these ideas. I will list the questions below.

• What is an ICQ number?
  What is a Jabber address?
  If i ever leave this site perminantly what will become of my account? Should we inform you with a private message or something?

The Third question came into my head once I read Henaru's introduction. He's right in the idea that if we want to delete our account we can't so how do we go about insuring that someone else isn't going to hack into our account and pretend to be us? Just a small worry I had. I have complete faith in that I will never wish to leave this site but I was wodering what those that wish to have to go through to remove their account. It seems to me the only real sure way is to try and get banned. Is there another way because couldn't you same more memory by deleting accounts no-longer in use?

Thanks for Listening.

Yours Sincerly
~Haru Totetsu

[WhoKnows_WhoCares]

Sorry for taking a few days to answer these questions, its been a bit busy here.

1. An ICQ is an Instant messenger service, like MSN or AIM. the ICQ number is the username used to identify you to other people so that they can contact you, similar to an AIM username or an email address for MSN.

2. I didnt know this so i looked it up - looks like Jabber is also a form of Instant Messenger, so the jabber address would be another form of username.

3. Oh boy, here's a tough one. in short, the answer to what happens to your account when you leave is "nothing"

the first thing you have to understand is that 99.9999999% of people who leave this site dont say to themselve 'i will never go back to that site ever' - what happens is that they forget to come back, maybe they decide not to visit for a day or two, then those days turn to weeks and then eventually they just forget about it. Of course, after a year, or maybe we do something big on the site and send an email to all memebers, the user will rememeber about this place, come back and become active again. Something we allways encoruage.

So why can't you delete your own account? Well there could be a few reasons. I'm not 100% sure, but i believe by default, most fourms wont let you delete your own accounts. But besides that, there are good reasons why users shouldnt be allowed.

If a user were allowed to delete their own account, people could effectivly get around being banned. Since we run a 3 strike system, what would prevent someone from getting 2 strikes, deleting their account and making a new one, thus avoiding the ban and destroying all evidence that this person was a trouble maker on the forums. Sure they could make a second account now to try and avoid a ban, but with their old account still viewable for us, we can use it to check information and see if they're the same person.

Another reason why users cant delete their own acount may go back to when we had a web based RPG game on the site. The ability to delete your account could have created havock on the data we stored for the game and could have opened it up to all kinds of exploits that we obviously tried to avoid.

I can understand your concern about people hacking your account and pretending to be you, but i can assure you that the only instances we've had of people having their accounts broken into by other people were actually done by friends or family members who were using the same computer the user used. They logged in, went out of the room for whatever reason and a sibling or friend jump on the computer and spam the forums 'for a joke' - if we've had any other incidents of account hacking, then they've been very nice on the forums and we would have been unable to tell the difference between the fake and real member.

if they do hack your account and spam up the forums, then obviously it wouldnt be long before the account would be banned anyway... and if you've left is that really much of a problem? The only info you really have in your profile that could pose a security problem would be your email address, and if your that worried about other people knowing that... you wouldnt really be giving it out in the first place.

As for your last point. Yes, it might save some memory space by deleting accounts no longer in use. The problem is that there is no actual way to tell when the last time someone logged into thier accounts. So it becomes tough to know which accounts are no longer in use. Remeber, just because someone hasnt posted on the forums in 6 months, doesnt mean they havent regularly come onto the forums and are still using thier accounts. Plus with the new adoption system, we have people signing up to the forums specifically for one of those... and while its unfortunate, they will never post on the forums. Would we be expected to delete those accounts, thus deleating their adopted pokemon as well? Its a complicated issue overall.

Hope i've helped somewhat

[Haru Totetsu]

Ah thank you for clearing that up WhoKnows_Who Cares.

The Third question was particularly interesting to me because of how unusual it was. Yes I agree most people decide that they never want to actually leave a site but they just forget about it. I guess if they really do want to leave the site perminantly they should inform a moderator or administrator by PM and tell them they'll not be coming back. Obviously the Admin will have to find a way to verify this as true and not an attempt to clear a trouble makers record.

All we need now is someone to design the program software to help us do that. Come on Geniuses we need you to stop wanting to work for Microsoft and start using that brain to help everyone out.

Hmm I think its obvious people won't return if its been a certain number of years. Obviously you'd have to of sent some sort of reminder before closing the said account...but that would definatly be a hassle so I wouldn't (as I'm sure most wouldn't) be bothered to go through all that hassle. If our dear Overlord strikes it rich then he could probably get someone to design a program to do all this for him.

All in all everything comes down to money and the available technology so I can see how complicated it is for all of you mods and admins. Just wondering because I know some forums delete accounts when they've been inactive for a set amount of time.

Finally someone intelligent enough to give me a straight answer. Thank you WhoKnows_WhoCares you were extreamly helpful.

~Haru Totetsu

P.S. I just thought of another. Sorry if I'm being a pest but, why are we all limited to one type of font to write in? We can change the colour but I'm sure somepeople have there own ideas of how they'd write their comments. I'm guessing its complicated in someway (e.g. programming), but I'd love to have a more detiled idea of it. Thanks for this by the way. I want to just give you a hug for answering all these questions, but I can't sadly.

[WhoKnows_WhoCares]

i dont know why there's no choice of font... obviously by defualt the forums only use un font.

i can only assume the reason why other fonts havent been added are either there is no program we can add to the forums to add more fonts... or this removes the chance that someone will use a font nobody else can read...

[Haru Totetsu]

Hmm I see. Thanks for answering my questions. By the way, where did your user avatar go? It just says 'User avatar'.

[WhoKnows_WhoCares]

good question... i'll have to look into that

Edit: Fixed... have no idea what happened there...

anyway, thanks for informing me it was broke

[Haru Totetsu]

YAYNESS!....Oh sorry I steped out of chracter for a bit there. Still glad to see its back to normal. I've seen that happen to a few peoples so I was just wondering, glad to see its just a bug, and not something worse.

[Pikachu90000]

Ah thank you for clearing that up WhoKnows_Who Cares.

The Third question was particularly interesting to me because of how unusual it was. Yes I agree most people decide that they never want to actually leave a site but they just forget about it. I guess if they really do want to leave the site perminantly they should inform a moderator or administrator by PM and tell them they'll not be coming back. Obviously the Admin will have to find a way to verify this as true and not an attempt to clear a trouble makers record.

Most people who left the site almost inform anybody they're leaving. Most just leave without saying anything. Being on this website since 2003, I would know that many people post a few posts and never return. Some return like a year later and disappear once again. I think I'm one of the faithful few that has stayed on this website.

All we need now is someone to design the program software to help us do that. Come on Geniuses we need you to stop wanting to work for Microsoft and start using that brain to help everyone out.

You mean like a Facebook-like deactivation system or permanent removal of an account? Both types of systems have their advantages and disadvantages.

Hmm I think its obvious people won't return if its been a certain number of years. Obviously you'd have to of sent some sort of reminder before closing the said account...but that would definatly be a hassle so I wouldn't (as I'm sure most wouldn't) be bothered to go through all that hassle. If our dear Overlord strikes it rich then he could probably get someone to design a program to do all this for him.

Pikachu3828 has sent out emails to all members before to invite them back. So far, I don't think it has worked.

Just wondering because I know some forums delete accounts when they've been inactive for a set amount of time.

This forum might still purge members who haven't activated their accounts for either a month or a year. I know it was done in the past.

P.S. I just thought of another. Sorry if I'm being a pest but, why are we all limited to one type of font to write in? We can change the colour but I'm sure somepeople have there own ideas of how they'd write their comments. I'm guessing its complicated in someway (e.g. programming), but I'd love to have a more detiled idea of it. Thanks for this by the way. I want to just give you a hug for answering all these questions, but I can't sadly.

I guess it has to do with the software the forum uses. Other forums software like Invision allows some fonts like Tahoma, Times New Roman, Georgia, etc. I don't know if there is a MOD to allow users to change it, but there should be since phpBB is very customizable.

[WhoKnows_WhoCares]

Pikachu3828 has sent out emails to all members before to invite them back. So far, I don't think it has worked.

It has helped, but unfortunatly the people who its brought back have vanished again after a few weeks.

This forum might still purge members who haven't activated their accounts for either a month or a year. I know it was done in the past.

Yeah, i forgot to mention this - this does happen every so often and does work a fair bit - but its about the only thing we can do because, as i stated previously, we can't track when the last time someone logged in was.

I guess it has to do with the software the forum uses. Other forums software like Invision allows some fonts like Tahoma, Times New Roman, Georgia, etc. I don't know if there is a MOD to allow users to change it, but there should be since phpBB is very customizable.

There probably is a mod for extra fonts, but why it hasnt been installed is up to Pikachu3828... i honestly wouldnt have a clue

[Haru Totetsu]

It seems to me we need more loyal Poké-fans, or a better way to keep them interested.

Time to shamlessly advertise! Hmm, I'll add this as the website to my YouTube page if thats okay with you guys? Also my DA, that should bring some fans back and introduce some new ones. As long as thats okay with you guys?

[WhoKnows_WhoCares]

That's cool by me

Oh and on a side note - watch the necroposting. We're going easy on it due to the lack of activity around here for the moment (it is against the rules) - but over 2 pages of posts in the general chat is pushing it slightly... just watch the dates of the last post if you could.

[Haru Totetsu]

I'll do my best. And thank you. I feel like I've been a bit of a pest asking so much. Sorry if I have.

[Kikyo]

Hmm... about that old account thing.
Would it be possible to implement a code to send an automatic e-mail reminder to users who have been inactive over a year, telling them that their account will be deleted if they don't log on in, say, a month, and then auto-delete their account if they don't log on?
I don't know how much freedom you guys have to put those sorts of codes in place, and it would take a fair amount of time to write those codes...
but it would be a pretty neat thing to add, wouldn't it?

[Pikachu3828]

I've managed to find a spare 5 minutes to visit these forums for the first time in a while and I though I'd drop by to try to answer a few questions. While all your questions have been answered, I'd like to elaborate on a few points.

Regarding not being able to delete your account: another reason for not being given this option ties in with your worry of spammers hacking into your account after you've finished using it and posting rubbish. The issue of people getting into your account is not just reserved for when you're done with your account but is also present while you're using your account. If the user has the option to delete their own account and their account is compromised, the hacker could chose to delete your account and all your posts along with it, which by practical means is not recoverable. It's far easier on us and you if we just delete the spam posts than have your account deleted.

Regarding different font faces: this used to be an option but since upgrading to phpBB3.x that functionality has been lost. There hasn't been a replacement for it since nobody seemed to use the option while it was there or miss it when it was gone. If there were a popular demand for it I could bring it back.

Emails are sent out to people who do not activate there account - follow the link in the email sent to them upon registering - at set intervals to remind them to do so but other than that the only reminder old members get is sporadic announcements sent out via email if something big happens on TPC/the forums. This is to minimise annoyance. There is not much point in deleting old accounts since 99% of the disused accounts barely used the website and so didn't take up much space. Notwithstanding space isn't an issue anyway since we have plenty enough.

Lastly thanks for advertising The Pika Club and feel free to do so, we do need more members and the staff don't have much time to get around to advertising so it's much appreciated when members take it upon themselves to advertise The Pika Club no matter how much - every little effort helps.

[Haru Totetsu]

Wow your really smart, and so thoughtful. ^-^