Originally Posted by
Mary2e
IIRC, the active population hovers around 10k people. I do not believe IB has ever purged the user rolls.
So that means that 500k people includes spammers of all kinds, people joining for contests, and those who registered 12 years ago, asked a single question, and haven't been seen since
IHMO, the user rolls should be purged after a certain amount of years of no activity - certainly someone who joined in 1998 and hasn't posted since 1999 shouldn't be counted as a user any longer.
For all we know, someone who doesn't post much might come to FT regularly and read posts, search, etc. without logging in. Purging the account would seem like an unwelcoming gesture that really doesn't have an obvious benefit to anyone.
However, it might not be bad <I'm not advocating this, just pointing it out as a logical possibility> to have a recent activity requirement (maybe in addition to our OMNI/CC time and posts access criteria) for certain privileges such as voting in addition to OMNI/CC and possibly even DO participation. If someone joined FT ten years ago, made 200 posts in the first few months and then disappeared, should they now have CC trading privileges, be allowed to vote, or be given scarce space at a DO that is turning others away? Perhaps this is something to think about.