Removing inactive accounts of 10+ years

daisycat • 12 February 2023 at 12:07 AM

Maybe this idea is unnecessary and selfish. But it's something that Neopets has done with very old, inactive users, and, pet names on those accounts. They call it "purging". It gives new users a chance to get certain usernames and pet names, and old or current users a chance, too!

I'd love to have the username "daisy". I've always wished I could have my own name as a username. The user @daisy hasn't logged on in 12 years. No topics, posts, SARC. No activity. Seems like they made the account then never logged in again.

The issue with this is the question of... well, what if they do log back in? After 9, 10, 11, 12 years? I know some users do log in after so many years and are surprised and happy to see they still have their account. Maybe if there are alive and immortal creatures visible in their cove, the accounts will not be purged. But accounts with no living creatures could be purged.

If emails are linked to accounts, perhaps an email can be sent out to inactive users of x amount of years. That way, there a warning of x amount of time and they can log back in to claim their account if they'd like.

Whether or not you care for this or would use it yourself, would you support it? Thank you for reading. 😊

snowywinter • 12 February 2023 at 1:00 AM

1000% against.

I dislike when sites do this. My whims and times in life can take me all over the place. I am grateful to the sites that are still around and have kept my info after a while. And sometimes it has taken me that long to be able to recover my accounts (sometimes it's running across old archives, sometimes it's waking up one day and just randomly remembering some tidbit.)

I understand wanting to be able to use old names and such, especially if it seems like a player is never coming back, but sometimes players do.

*If* it's something that's considered (and usually sites do this more to save on storage space) then I hope that there'd be some safeguard in place for players that had actually been an active part of the site at one time. (I'm saying there's a huge difference between someone who had played for a year, has a couple dozen creatures in their cove, and a multitude of forums posts; compared to someone who showed up for a day or a week, has none or next to no creatures alive, and a handful or less of forum posts.)

(I know I now just stated what you pretty much said, but I'm posting off my initial reaction. - I also blame my migraine that's going on day 3)

...and most of my emails that I used to sign up to sites 10+ years ago no longer exist >.< They were through our dial-up ISPs (Account recovery has been a pain in the butt for me.)

*pondering for a while*
maybe if it wasn't an automatic (system coded) removal, but a case by case basis? A request ticket would have to be filed, staff would look to see if the account meets the specified criteria (i.e. no living creatures, less than 5 log-ins, less than 10 forum posts.)

STILL not fond of the idea, but IF inactive account removal was going to be implemented I could grudgingly accept if they did it this way.

hikanu • 12 February 2023 at 9:55 AM

As mentioned, if it has a registered e-mail address. I would agree that at the very least a warning e-mail should be sent to let them know that their account will be deleted, if they do not log in within a given time-frame. It could be a week, a month or any amount of time, really. And just logging in would be enough, no other actions required. After that the account can be removed, if the user did not log in, because the user was pre-warned. It makes it easier for the team to deal with previous users getting naggy about it in case they show up to find their accounts gone.

They do that for a site I was one of the admins for a few years back. These accounts were usually removed after 6 months of inactivity, unless they'd used money on the site, then the allowed period for inactivity extended for up to 5 years, if I remember correctly. Though it usually took a bit of extra time for the usernames to be purged completely and be available again for a new account, it worked out well enough. This was mostly an automatic process, unless accounts were suspended for breaking certain rules.
And as snowywinter points out, it doesn't have to be this way and can be done on a more individual basis and can be done with entirely different requirements than I have mentioned.

I do also agree that it is done to save space, which egg cave might not need to do. After all, the site I was admin for currently has 12 million users across 25 servers in about 20 different languages, split in three groups on different physical servers. So I suppose it's not exactly a fair comparison. 😊

sonny • 14 February 2023 at 1:50 PM

i always think that this is a great idea for most pet sites- but on different sites ive been on it generally isnt something that is done. ive played goatlings, flight rising, dragoncave, and more, and generally admin teams are pretty against purging accounts just for the reason that those inactive people *might* someday come back. its a pretty controversial topic in my experience. afaik, on egg cave the only time a username or pet name gets released is if the account is banned, or their creature with a certain name dies. since all pet names are unique on this site, it can be considered an "unfair" (i personally dont think its unfair) advantage for people to take rare old names and use them for profit. this was a big and often brought up issue on goatlings, but the mod team there never released pet names or usernames unless a person got banned from the website.

that being said, i personally think this is a great idea, as long as purged accounts have a verified email, and seemed to have logged on once and then never again- ie they have no creatures because they all died, they have no forum posts, sarc, etc. if an account were to have in their bio/display text "on hiatus" or "inactive for now" or something along those lines i dont think the account should be purged because if i ever for any reason stopped playing this game and came back to find my username or old pet names got taken id be devastated! in fact, this has happened to me before when ive gone on hiatus and come back to find my pets had died and their names were taken. im lucky and happened to get my own name as my username, but ive moved accounts over the years and this post reminded me i should go log into and delete my old accounts named davey and eliza because someone might want those usernames!

overall i think this is a good idea but it requires a sensible mod team and good rules and good judgement to decide which accounts will be purged and which wont be. additionally- if an account gets purged and happens to have any items on it, i think itd be cool if those items were dropped into the donations center, it could get older rare items back into circulation and help out the economy here. same with any immortal creatures they might have- putting them into the adoption center upon purging an account could also get older creatures back in circulation too. its a great idea and it makes a lot of sense to the userbase, but mod teams generally just have a different point of view about it and i believe probably wouldnt want to purge someone who was actually planning to come back some day.

maybe the rules could be:
- old account has a verified email
- email is sent informing them their account will be purged, maybe give them a week or two notice and allow them to log back in if they would like to keep their account
- if they have spent money on cc, the account likely wont be purged (mods might be biased to let people who have spent money, however long ago, keep their account)
- old account should have less than or equal to maybe ~20-40 immortal pets (so if they get released to the adoption center, it wont be completely flooded with creatures)
- inventory/strongroom should have only ~20-40 items as well (for same reason as above)
- no forum posts, no sarc, no bio/display message, etc can be more reasons to purge an account
- other rules i cant think of lol

like i said, its a great idea! its just a controversial one where some people will fully agree and others will be totally against it, plus, with the new big changes that have been implemented very recently, the mods are probably a bit too busy right now to take on a big project like this, but you never know! one day you might be able to get that username you want :]

raccoon • 18 February 2023 at 11:45 AM

Hesitant support if its done correctly.

Agree with everyone saying it would have to be done carefully. Though i don't think it's fair to purge accounts with immortal creatures. Because the whole point of immortalizing is that they're immortal. They don't die. You got them to the point where you don't have to worry about them they're immortal and on your account for as long as you'd like.

Not purging these accounts though takes away from what i think is the main goal of purges. Which are the names. As a long time neopets player they do not purge often. We've been waiting YEARS for another purge.

Purging empty inactive accounts however... i don't see any harm in that. Especially if it was a 'log in once and never again' situation from 12 years ago. Probably won't be as desirable as names being purged since we can only have so many accounts but i'd assume it would clean up some of the site if nothing else.

Definitely a case-by-case basis i think.

And i say all this as someone who actively hungrily stalks some abandoned accounts for their pet names. LOL There are plenty of names i'd love to get my hands on but i don't think it would be fair to just purge that account so i can get them.

Maybe they could implement a hiatus status? Accounts are protected from purging if the account is set to hiatus status... maybe an account must be a month old at least to unlock this feature? That would help with accounts created and never touched again while also saving accounts of people who put a lot of time and effort into their coves and would like to come back to them eventually. Also works well with the no immortal creatures idea because i don't think the average person trying out the site for a day can create an account and immortalize a creature in one day without any outside help.

daisycat • 18 February 2023 at 12:35 PM

Thank you all for the feedback! 😊

Everyone is mentioning immortal creatures, so I just want to make clear that I do not support purging accounts with immortal creatures.

In my original post, I said:
"Maybe if there are alive and immortal creatures visible in their cove, the accounts will not be purged."

My main example here is, of course, the account @daisy where it looks like they literally made the account one day and never logged in again. No immortal creatures, topics, posts, SARC, profile.

I like these ideas:
- case-by-case basis
- donating any items that the account has

metaphor • 19 February 2023 at 3:07 AM

I have mixed feelings about doing this on Eggcave. I know that other sites do it, and I have benefited from those purges in the past. So I'm not trying to say that it's always a bad thing. But Eggcave feels different from so many similar pet sites. It feels more like a collection website than a standard virtual pet site. People will often finish their collections, take a break, and then come back after a long hiatus (or check in from time to time). It feels to cruel to wipe away long-standing collections.

That said, years ago, I did toy with the idea of a name clearing that many pet sites have adopted over the years, where the account retains all of its creatures but the names go up for grabs after so many years of inactivity. Even that feels a little iffy looking back on it, but at least people would get to keep the rare creatures they worked for. Still, for many people, name collections are even more important than creatures, so it can still be tricky.

I wish there were an easier solution to this.

snowywinter • 19 February 2023 at 3:34 AM

@daisycat
On one hand it would bite to lose anything from an account that was being purged (there could be some nice old retired travels and such even on those accounts that were only for a day or two and never came back,)
but on the other even if those items got donated to the Adoption Center and Donation Center at random I think it would encourage people to hunt for these accounts specifically so they would get purged. (Thinking some people would turn it into a new pastime/hobby/game on the site.)

(I think it's good that creatures are being re-released, but I'd also like to see old items have a chance at being brought back -especially now that voting may be a thing, pending Ian sees the results he's hoping for. And I mean more than the occasional thing randomly generated in the Donation Center. Like a shop for points earned from Quests completed. But this is branching off into a whole *new* suggestion. lol. Point being i think there's better ways to get items/creatures released back into circulation.
If the name-purging was done for the sake of name-purging, then i don't think it would create too many problems.)

((totally can see someone taking the user name 'purging' now - as a trades/excess side. LOL.))

spell • 20 February 2023 at 7:38 AM

I wouldn't support full on deleting the accounts because I think they contribute to a site's history and stats.

However, I do think that there should be a feature where after x amount of years of inactivity (where x is extremely large, maybe like 10), the names of creatures in that account should be released in a way that if another user used one of the names, the name in the original account would be re-generated into a jumble of characters like the auto-generated ones from the asteroid or advent tree gifts.

This could also work with usernames. If someone logged in for the first time in 10 years and their username had been taken, they could immediately be prompted to change it, kind of like what happens when you try to revive a dead creature whose name has since been taken (though their original username would have to be kept as login info).

I think this would be a positive change on the site - naming creatures without dashes or underscores can be a struggle now and I'm sure newer, active users would appreciate the easier creature naming and any increased activity from name hunting/trading would have a much better impact on the site than the names sitting in inactive accounts of users from 10+ years ago who may or may not ever login again.

okami • 22 February 2023 at 1:32 PM

As someone who left for 7+ years before returning I think it is expected that I should be against this idea... except I'm not. x3

I would be extremely for this as long as there are strict criteria as to which accounts can and cannot be deleted. These are some of the criteria that I personally would suggest if this were implemented:

•If there are any living creatures on the account then it shouldn't be eligible to be purged.
•If the user has ever spent personal money on cc then the account shouldn't be eligible to be purged. I wouldn't include non-purchased cc in this (ex: cc earned through events, dailies, etc)
•The user should have been gone for a set number of years before the account can be purged (maybe 10 years like the OP suggested). I also like the idea of sending a 'warning' email to the email associated with the account that it could be purged if inactivity continues.

daisycat • 26 February 2023 at 2:52 PM

Thank you for more input, everyone! 😊

If this isn't completely necessary for the site (to clear space), and there aren't many people eager to get a certain username, I think the best idea could be for this to be done on a case-by-case basis (as @/snowywinter and @/raccoon both suggested). Such as, submitting a ticket, and then the team checks out the account and determines if it's suitable for deletion under some of the aforementioned criteria. Like no pets on the account. Then the team will let you know, and a new account can be created with that name, or, the user can use 200 CC to change the name of their current account. :,)

luv • 6 March 2023 at 5:19 AM

I know there's been a lot of input here, but thought I'd jump in as another user 10+ years old here! Or twelve, wow.

I'm strongly against the idea of purging accounts as a whole — but I very much agree with @spell's solution, which feels extremely reasonable, where if an account hasn't been accessed in x amount of years, the usernames could be scrambled, and then when users log in, they could simply be prompted to choose a new one. That feels fair all around, and while I might have been upset on one of my hiatuses returning to find one of my usernames taken (and that's largely because my original luvduv / luv combo were very unique to me), I'd certainly still understand, so long as my account as a whole was still there!

Creatures names are a slightly different story for me, as I believe there should be more allowable overlap with those as a whole... but that's a different suggestion topic for a different day.

mindwhiper • 6 March 2023 at 6:40 AM

I don't like this. I have read several posts in this topic and most of all I am interested in the purpose of this idea - cleaning dead accounts that no one will ever log in to, or yet the benefits of deleting these accounts are names and creatures?

From one point of view, such purges are necessary in order not to clutter up the servers \ the general hodgepodge of users, on the other hand, if we are talking about accounts that have immortals (sometimes, by the way, rare entities AND rare names), then this will turn into a hunt for such caves for personal gain. Which, of course, is unacceptable

It would be reasonable to delete dead accounts without creatures, inactive accounts - send in the archive, as on blog sites. Because I don't think that active users would want to go to hiatus for 2, 3, 4 - no matter how many years - will be happy, when they returns and suddenly found their account deleted, and their names looted by people who did not participate in the collection at all.