Inactive users

[marcus-downing]

Some users are no longer active on the site. They may no longer read or write stories, and they may not wish to receive messages. Some have even passed away. It would be useful to distinguish those users who are no longer active.

• Offer an option to explicitly register non-interest; otherwise users not seen online in a certain threshold (eg, 1 year) are considered inactive.
• If you attempt to directly message an inactive user, the site warns you first.
• Inactive users don't contribute to follower counts, group membership counts, etc.

When this is extended to Genfiction, you may need more granularity; people may wish to express their non-interest in only certain fandoms.

[marcus-downing]

To clarify, I am not suggesting either users or stories should ever be automatically deleted, no matter how old they are.

[ocalhoun6]

Inactive users don't contribute to follower counts

This might actually hurt me ... or authors like me, if there are any.

When trying to get commercial fiction published, it's nice to be able to brag about how many followers you have -- that makes potential publishers happy because it's basically free marketing for them, which makes them (slightly) more willing to publish. So a decrease in follower count (even if the existing follower count is a bit inflated with inactive followers) would be slightly detrimental.

The rest is reasonable enough, and the 1-year "Hey, you haven't been to Fimfic in a while..." reminders might be a good way to help retain some users who might otherwise become inactive.

[RandomGuy314]

I actually agree with the follower count thing. I don't want to see a certain user has so many followers when, let's say, maybe 1/8 of them don't even use the site anymore. I want to know how many people like this person that actually use the site.