Signups are closed; could we give our unused, inactive accounts to new members?

November 15, 2003 3:34 AM

Bring out your dead! (more inside)
posted by cup to etiquette/policy at 3:34 AM (71 comments total)

In an earlier Meta thread, a Mefi lurker by the name of Tim made this suggestion through a kind offer by sgt. serenity to pass along messages from lurkers.

In short, Tim suggested we create a thread in metatalk where members who have old, unused accounts could post their e-mail address and lurkers could contact them to take over these much wanted accounts. It seemed like a great suggestion because it would address the issue of adding new members and it would take no time out of Matt's busy schedule.

First, I would like to ask everyone how they feel about this suggestion.

Second, if everyone feels this would be a good thing, would members who have a dead or long unused account lying around please bring out your dead in this thread?

Note to Matt: If this thread breaks Mefi rules, etiquette, policy, or if you find it inappropriate in any way, shape or form, please delete it and accept my sincerest apologies.
posted by cup at 4:03 AM on November 15, 2003

Replacing an old inactive member with an new active member creates the same burden on the system as opening account signups.

What we need is a system where active members can be replaced with new people we'd like better who don't post quite as often.
posted by rcade at 4:23 AM on November 15, 2003

Are you volunteering for same, rcade?

I don't have an extra account, or I would certainly do this. Rcade IS right that Matt will still have to deal with new members and that there will be more wear and tear on the servers, but I just wouldn't feel right about keeping an extra account.
posted by orange swan at 5:24 AM on November 15, 2003

a lot of folks seem confused by this. i mean, it's ok if you feel that multiple accounts are not necessarily a good thing for whatever community reasons - but unused accounts consume almost nothing in terms of resources. some bytes on disk. nothing is alleviated by giving them to new people. from a resource standpoint, there is nothing noble about giving up your stealth accounts. (from a resource standpoint, anyway.)

now, what we really need to do is figure out a way to severely restrict the intense deja vu i experience in metatalk daily!
posted by quonsar at 6:01 AM on November 15, 2003

I think the point here is that Matt isn't keeping signups closed to prevent additional database rows from being created -- the decision is to prevent additional humans from joining. So while personally, I think it's an accountholder's right to pawn of his or her account on a needy newbie, it does go against the Honcho's Intent. Practically speaking there aren't enough of these loose extra accounts to give away such that there should be a substantial impact on His 1-ness' time or attention.
posted by majick at 6:42 AM on November 15, 2003

I thought the whole point of keeping lurkers out was that Matt didn't want to add new Kung-Fu Fighters to our daily MeFi Brawl

*begins plucking orange swan's feathery butt *
posted by matteo at 6:45 AM on November 15, 2003

I hadn't seen that, matteo. And I laughed and laughed. So that's what that tingling sensation was. I merely thought I'd been sitting here too long.

And, you're all right about how we're circumventing Matt's real wishes by giving away spare memberships.

BUT, it would depend on how many are actually given away. Surely there won't be that many?
posted by orange swan at 7:04 AM on November 15, 2003

bad idea.
posted by crunchland at 7:08 AM on November 15, 2003

I don't have multiple signups, but I bet that most of those that do used the same password for each of theirs. Changing passwords, unfortunately, still falls in the "more work for Matt" category.

I applaud the idea in theory, and in the one-time application seen below, but it doesn't work in practice.
posted by yhbc at 7:11 AM on November 15, 2003

OK, guys, you heard the cup-meister.

The time has come for you to admit publically that you create sock puppets.
The purge hath come!
posted by mischief at 7:21 AM on November 15, 2003

horrible idea.
In fact, Matt should prevent this from happening by running some SQL to deactivate memberships that have not been used for > 6 mo or a year.
posted by PrinceValium at 7:37 AM on November 15, 2003

horrible idea

Did you have some actual thought process to go along with that, or is it like "I hate peanut butter"?

Matt should prevent this from happening by running some SQL

Ah, yes, more work for Matt—that's a good idea!

And did you plan to have Matt purge .kobayashi. as well?

As everyone else has said, there can't possibly be enough sock-puppet accounts to put a noticeable strain on the place, and it's a noble and generous idea. (But not turning over accounts that have been used; we have to be able to trust that usernames represent the same person over time.)
posted by languagehat at 7:56 AM on November 15, 2003

select * from quonsar where feeling like '%pretty%';
posted by quonsar at 8:01 AM on November 15, 2003

there can't possibly be enough sock-puppet accounts to put a noticeable strain on the place

This misses the point. Unused accounts use no resources. Whether there are a dozen or ten thousand, makes absolutely no difference.
posted by gleuschk at 8:04 AM on November 15, 2003

YEAH MATT RUN SOME SQL DUMBASS
posted by carfilhiot at 8:09 AM on November 15, 2003

I think this is a terrible idea, and I swear when I get some free time soon I will create a way for people to sign up (most likely by suggesting new posts, and letting the good suggestions have accounts, as I outlined earlier).

A little patience, and I'll have it done.
posted by mathowie at 8:35 AM on November 15, 2003

How about you just don't talk about it, and give your old logins to other people anyway.

*wink* *wink*
posted by angry modem at 8:37 AM on November 15, 2003

so, if i never ever come here, how can i find out about this and give my account away?
posted by th3ph17 at 8:40 AM on November 15, 2003

ha ha, it's the "delete the unused accounts" paradox... what a universal and evergreen fallacy.
posted by machaus at 8:47 AM on November 15, 2003

A little patience, and I'll have it done.

I love the smell of newbies on the bar-b!
posted by mischief at 9:00 AM on November 15, 2003

the real question here is:

why don't we delete all the unused accounts?

;P
posted by PugAchev at 9:36 AM on November 15, 2003

*just chiming in so my account doesn't get deleted from disuse*
posted by interrobang at 9:42 AM on November 15, 2003

Okay, I was against the idea at first, but your arguments have convinced me. Therefore, I have decided to make my secondary account, quonsar, available to some worthy new user. I'll hand over the password to the first person to email me at my quonsar address. Hope you enjoy it as much as I have!
posted by rushmc at 9:57 AM on November 15, 2003

Did you have some actual thought process to go along with that, or is it like "I hate peanut butter"?

I love peanut butter, thank you very much.

For me, it is sufficient to note that the historical evidence and consensus identified by Justice Scalia, the considerations of fairness identified by Justice Brennan, and the common sense displayed by Justice White, all combine to demonstrate that this is, indeed, a very easy case. (Perhaps the adage about hard cases making bad law should be revised to cover easy cases.) Accordingly, I agree that the judgment should be affirmed.
Burnham v. Superior Court of California, 495 U.S. 604 (1990) (Stevens, J., concurring.)
posted by PrinceValium at 10:08 AM on November 15, 2003

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I FEEL PRETTY!!!

WAPPA-WAPPA-WAPPA, YOU FUCKTARDS!!! BITE MY ROSY RED ASS!








that lying sack of shit gave me the wrong password, didn't he
posted by yhbc at 10:36 AM on November 15, 2003

I told you they weren't listening to me. I TOLD ALL OF YOU.

I even explained it twice.
posted by The God Complex at 10:46 AM on November 15, 2003

This is sort of long, and I'm sorry for that, but it is what it is, and since I may be in part responsible for such a thread, I feel some duty to respond.

It may seem fairly odd to MeTa obsessives that I'd think this wasn't a good idea; it is, after all, how I got in the door this very week. But here I stand-- I rather doubt that any organized push for a transfer of accounts is a good idea. In fact, one of the reasons I'd nearly refused to take over this account from monju_bosatsu was my fear that what we've done would transfer over into some sort of de facto, if not de jure, policy-- an sort of open-secret "solution" to this question of access.

The argument for offering/accepting an existing unused account lies behind the utilitarian idea that more participation = more good, and this good is a collective good. If this is the case, then those who hoard inactive accounts are doing something seriously wrong, and those who would accept accounts and subsequently post and comment according to the spirit of the place would be doing wrong to refuse the accounts. Note that this argument is based on and reduced to a single transfer of accounts.

The argument against offering/accepting an existing unused account IS primarily against this as a systemic "solution" to the problem of access. If this unused account transfer were to become de facto MeFi policy, it could have calamitous effects. This is because it combines the problems of a voucher system (limited entry & skewed entrants potentially yields a MeFi that is larger but paradoxically *more* insular than ever before-- an argument that taz has been taking up on MeTa) with a decidedly non-egalitarian gatekeeper system (only a select number of MeFites can let others join; and these gatekeepers are those who'd acted in violation of some utilitarian/egalitarian spirit of community in the past, by activating an unnecessary additional account). The worst-case result could be a larger still-insular community, an increased strain on resources, a decided air of hostility between those who can let others join and those who cannot, and a sense of suspicion cast over the "new" members, who aren't necessarily demonstrably new, and who may be beholden somehow to another MeFi member. That's bad.

If the number of MeFites with spare accounts is random enough, and those members themselves don't collude in their decision making process, then you've got enough randomness to temper the first problem somewhat, assuming no systemic bias in the last rounds of signups. But the second problem remains, and it's a serious question of access, if it were to become a standard operating procedure for a new round of membership, or a indefinite substitution for the opening of the gates.

My real concern is accepting the .kobayashi. account was that a set of subsequent actions could follow that would take this single account shift, and transfer it to a model for subsequent expansion. Because this isn't a large-scale solution, for all the reasons I (and others) have said. And this is why I almost didn't take over the account. I only chose to do so once I was convinced that this single action was not necessarily transportable to a larger "policy" world.

During the time that I considered adopting the account, I started thinking about the "fairness" of the transfer, in a loosely Rawls-ian sense: asking myself if this decision was made to transfer the account, and it wasn't me who benefited from the transaction, would I still think it was fair? That is, would a principled transference of an account seem just to me, even if I had no knowledge about the outcome, of who'd get in as a result of the decision? And, I've concluded that, yes, I'd find this to be fair. This may help explain why I adopted the account. Continuing along the same lines, would I think that a large-scale transference based on the same principles could be a serious potential problem for the community, and therefore something not to be pursued, even if it meant that I couldn't get in? Well, yes. Yes to that too. And this is how I came to hold the curious position of getting in via an account transfer, but not quite supporting it as a larger policy. I recognize that it's a counter-intuitive position, but it ought not be an incomprehensible one. In short: I'm pleased to be here, but I hope we don't consider how I've arrived as a model for expansion.

A few parting comments:
1) What Matt suggests in this very thread makes a lot of sense, and I'd be especially thrilled to read it, were I still on the outside. This sounds logical, reasonable, and workable to me.
2) If, after all this, you nevertheless decide to go through with an account transfer, I'd suggest that any newbie be painfully blunt about who you are, and who you are not in your user profile, in order to avoid any questions about identity confusion. Furthermore, we should heed languagehat's advice that any accounts with any serious history are NOT candidates for transfer.
3) While this seemed necessary, I don't intend to take up this much space on a single post again.
posted by .kobayashi. at 11:11 AM on November 15, 2003

I just want to chime in say there are many spare accounts, don't forget the baby_* accounts and Zippity* accounts. But in my opinion someone wanting to join MeFi may want to wait for Matt, rather than accept one of these throw away, made for one comment, accounts.
posted by riffola at 12:01 PM on November 15, 2003

Thanks for the long response kobayashi, but again I would like to stress that I think this is a bad solution to the problem, but it does point out to me just how far people will go to obtain access. I wasn't aware that demand had grown to the point of seeking out complicated backdoor methods such as the one you used (and I was aware of the ebay sale of another account earlier this week).

This gives me new motivation to finish coding a method to allow a few accounts in as I described and I will do my best to get it up soon, but again, PLEASE DO NOT SEEK OUT UNUSED ACCOUNTS as it presents problems with shifting identities/histories and shared passwords (if someone gives you the password and "promises" they won't use it again, what happens if they do?). Identity in a large psuedo-anonymous group is an important concept that binds us together and this way of obtaining a new account undermines it.
posted by mathowie at 12:12 PM on November 15, 2003

I totally agree with mathowie on this, for what it's worth, but

I wasn't aware that demand had grown to the point of seeking out complicated backdoor methods such as the one you used

Really? REALLY?? If that's the case, methinks you don't know what you've wrought....
posted by rushmc at 12:27 PM on November 15, 2003

then those who hoard inactive accounts are doing something seriously wrong...

...activating an unnecessary additional account...

bzzt. you cannot 'hoard' something which, for all practical purposes, has an unlimited supply. even windows and cold fusion can count to 67 bazillion or so, we are in no danger whatsoever of running out of user numbers. unnecessary is not equal to burdensome. it astonishes me that this doesn't seem to sink in. (we've had a number of these "lets save the filter by deleting/reusing the inactive users" threads in the past).

...some sort of de facto, if not de jure, policy...

...combines the problems of a voucher system... with a decidedly non-egalitarian gatekeeper system...

...utilitarian/egalitarian spirit of community...

...assuming no systemic bias in the last rounds of signups.

...only chose to do so once I was convinced that this single action was not necessarily transportable to a larger "policy" world.

... the "fairness" of the transfer, in a loosely Rawls-ian sense...

That is...

Continuing along the same lines...

In short...

"IN SHORT"?!?!?!
DID YOU JUST SAY "IN SHORT"?!?!?!
I CAN'T FUCKING BELEIVE YOU JUST SAID "IN SHORT"!!!!!

welcome to the machine, .kobayashi.
posted by quonsar at 12:29 PM on November 15, 2003

if someone gives you the password and "promises" they won't use it again, what happens if they do?).

hit the nail on the head, sadly. I also thought it was a bad idea, but the sheer excitement of a "Being Miguel Cardoso" scenario where one could access other users identity, maybe just for a day a year, say Halloween, was, somehow, simply irresistible.
I'd write my dissertation about that scenario, if I were still in school

seeking out complicated backdoor methods

it's either a fantastic tagline to cheer our future members, or a great X-rated movie title.
probably both
posted by matteo at 12:45 PM on November 15, 2003

I guess this means Matt won't be raffling off the Bunnyfire account.
posted by konolia at 12:56 PM on November 15, 2003

New! Improved! Konolia™ Bars!
NOW WITH 100%^* PONYCAKES®!!!

*from concentrate
posted by quonsar at 1:10 PM on November 15, 2003

heh, still works...
posted by Meta Filter Server at 2:02 PM on November 15, 2003

ooo...the server can talk! again! again!
posted by amberglow at 2:20 PM on November 15, 2003

Me, I much preferred the old .kobayashi. This new one is nothing but deadly earnest yak yak yak.

Just kidding! Welcome aboard! :)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 2:31 PM on November 15, 2003

ooo...the server can talk! again! again!

But this talking server, does it vibrate and make pancakes?
posted by billsaysthis at 2:32 PM on November 15, 2003

I bet it even has its own pony, bill : >
posted by amberglow at 2:43 PM on November 15, 2003

This gives me new motivation to finish coding a method to allow a few accounts in as I described and I will do my best to get it up soon…

Once that starts happening, what do we think is a sustainable rate of membership growth? mathowie says that there are around 3,000 active members (i.e., members who have refreshed their cookies in the last year) so even a growth rate as high as 10% would allow fewer than one new member per day.

Of course I have no idea what the rate of attrition is.
posted by timeistight at 2:49 PM on November 15, 2003

you just let me handle the rate of attrition.
posted by quonsar at 2:54 PM on November 15, 2003

heh.
posted by taz at 3:09 PM on November 15, 2003

I always thought that it was because of the strain in the database server, inwhich case a join of users and posts is just as intensive regardless of if the users are active or not.

If it's load on the server, then the load must be similar regardless of if the lurkers post or not.

If it's just because Mat is tooo busy to do things to get us new users, then can I ask him sweetly to do it fast so that I stop getting moaned at by my darling wife. Thank you very much. ;)
posted by twine42 at 3:15 PM on November 15, 2003

twine42, members add more load to the system because everyone has their customised preferences, comment and post history, new message indicator records, etc. Whereas non-members view a regularly updated static front page, which was primarily designed to reduce the load from non-members. I am guessing the load from the logged-in lurking members might be less than the active ones because they aren't posting or commenting, but yeah they definitely will be adding load.

Also I think that the *really* active members, handful in number, are the 'cause of the bulk of the load on the server.
posted by riffola at 3:31 PM on November 15, 2003

Ooh! Let's do a new user a day! They can sponsor the day, like the letter W and the number 9 on Sesame Street:

Tuesday, December 16, 2003 is brought to you by any1butbush, new Mefi User #18023!
posted by rushmc at 3:34 PM on November 15, 2003

If it's load on the server, then the load must be similar regardless of if the lurkers post or not.

If it's just because Mat is tooo busy to do things to get us new users, then can I ask him sweetly to do it fast so that I stop getting moaned at by my darling wife.

It's neither, twine42. It's because new users are (on average) more work for mathowie:

I think the site does suffer in the absence of new voices, but it's also a million times easier to run when I don't have to worry about new troublemakers joining up (I already seem to be busy enough with old troublemakers).
posted by mathowie at 9:35 AM PST on July 28

posted by timeistight at 3:41 PM on November 15, 2003

Imagine the whining we'd have in MetaTalk if new users were allowed. My god, they'd never do anything at all right. We'd hear nothing but dire predictions of The Beginning Of The End For MetaFilter.

Not that we don't already hear nothing but dire predictions of same...
posted by five fresh fish at 4:45 PM on November 15, 2003

Momentous MetaFilter Moment #3666: .kobayashi. goes on for so long, quonsar actually uses the Shift Key.

I'm looking forward to The MetaFilter Auditions. Best solution I've heard yet, and not just because it comes from #1 (I'd atually have preferred a suggestion from #6, but all he keeps saying is "I AM NOT A NUMBER...").

And if anybody hears from wendellseviltwin, please e-mail me.
posted by wendell at 4:52 PM on November 15, 2003

Imagine the whining we'd have in MetaTalk if new users were allowed.

Who has to imagine it? I've seen it several times. Strangely enough, the sky did NOT fall. Go figure.
posted by rushmc at 5:14 PM on November 15, 2003

Many happy clucks to our favorite resident chicken.
posted by madamjujujive at 5:42 PM on November 15, 2003

and that's no non-sequitur, solly.
i always liked liberace's sequined suits.
and emerson's slaved sequencing synthesizers suitably satisfy.
posted by quonsar at 5:52 PM on November 15, 2003

so?
posted by wendell at 6:22 PM on November 15, 2003

I'll have the chicken!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:32 PM on November 15, 2003

matt: I'm a little curious as to who decides what constitutes a good link from a potential new user--if it's a mass vote, we perhaps run the risk of exxaggerating the much-ballyhooed "liberal bias" here. (Or exaggerating any other kind of groupthink.) And if it's you and only you, I fail to see how that's gonna save you any time--and as I understand it, that (your time and energy as moderator) is the factor limiting new user signups, more than any technical issues. Though your plan does have the advantage of emphasising the notion (one perhaps more honored in the breach, etc., at least by myself) that this place is about the links rather than the discussion.
posted by arto at 4:03 AM on November 16, 2003

Don't care how, but I'm with clavdivs.
posted by ginz at 9:17 AM on November 16, 2003

you mean you're part of the international jewel theft operation as well?

damn, I never got the damn sapphires, now I know why
posted by matteo at 10:38 AM on November 16, 2003

heh
posted by ginz at 1:06 PM on November 16, 2003

now, what we really need to do is figure out a way to severely restrict the intense deja vu i experience in metatalk daily!

Sorry, quonsar. Posting two 'new member' links within several days of each other was not very intuitive on my part. I'll be more careful in the future.

I swear when I get some free time soon I will create a way for people to sign up (most likely by suggesting new posts, and letting the good suggestions have accounts, as I outlined earlier).

A little patience, and I'll have it done.

Thank you very much for your kind comments, Matt.

PLEASE DO NOT SEEK OUT UNUSED ACCOUNTS as it presents problems with shifting identities/histories and shared passwords (if someone gives you the password and "promises" they won't use it again, what happens if they do?). Identity in a large psuedo-anonymous group is an important concept that binds us together and this way of obtaining a new account undermines it.

That is very true and it didn't occur to me. I guess there will be no bringing out of our dead so I can keep my nine pence. :)

Yes, ginz, clavdivs' idea is quite interesting.

What links would a person in a remote, developing country post to Mefi? How would a person from an Islamic culture react to some of the things that are said here during 'warfilter' posts? (Not that I would like to see any more 'warfilter' posts, mind you.) It would be nice to hear the unedited, unabridged version of events shown in the news but from the people on the business end of the camera.
posted by cup at 5:02 PM on November 16, 2003

What links would a person in a remote, developing country post to Mefi? How would a person from an Islamic culture react to some of the things that are said here during 'warfilter' posts? (Not that I would like to see any more 'warfilter' posts, mind you.) It would be nice to hear the unedited, unabridged version of events shown in the news but from the people on the business end of the camera.

MetaFilter is about finding and sharing links to interesting sites on the web, first and foremost.

The users you describe should do their first-person reporting on their own site, or perhaps an email list setup for such things. To be honest, if we could have 100, 1,000, or 10,000 new folks, I'd much rather they be posting interesting links (a reasonable amount per day, for sure -- less than 25 total posts a day or so) than adding dozens and dozens of comments on threads.

Most of the people emailing me everyday to request accounts want one so they can shout at their opponents. I get email from catholics, communists, conservatives, and liberals saying that x topic should be discussed or that they need to get their point across and demand that I give them an account now, dammit. I don't want that, it's just more headaches for me and angry discussions than we already have.

Sure, the viewpoint of the users you describe would be quite valuable, but I've wondered for years how I could remind people the site was more about links than discussion. I think the suggest-a-link idea is the first time I can hopefully stress that point.
posted by mathowie at 5:33 PM on November 16, 2003 [1 favorite]

Thank you very much for your quick and detailed response, Matt.

Looking back at my own posting history, I see that I was missing the point - my comments now outnumber my posts by one hundred to one.

I will try to focus on finding and posting interesting links.

Thanks for taking time out of your day to reply and for giving me the opportunity to be a part of this community.
posted by cup at 5:44 PM on November 16, 2003

If what you are saying is that good links make for good discussion, I wholeheartedly agree. The really good posts don't pit catholics vs. communists; they enable less "obvious" and more influential discussion. If those were the kinds of things posted here, we wouldn't need to worry about new (or old) users making asses of themselves in the comments.

If the floodgates were reopened (and I absolutely think they should be), I really think a voting system should be implemented to bump the best posts to the top of the screen. It may also be worthwhile to give the membership authority to vote to delete posts - here's my suggestion from a while back.
posted by PrinceValium at 5:52 PM on November 16, 2003

MetaFilter is about finding and sharing links to interesting sites on the web, first and foremost.

Strangely, I thought that's what MemePool was all about. Note that it does not have discussion forums.

Surely the ability to have discussions is what MetaFilter is really all about. We have front page links as a means of starting off those discussions. (Or bursts of silliness, or list of other similar links, or panicking freakouts in MetaTalk.)
posted by five fresh fish at 6:11 PM on November 16, 2003

If what you are saying is that good links make for good discussion, I wholeheartedly agree.

That isn't what he said.

Surely the ability to have discussions is what MetaFilter is really all about.

I think you're wrong.
posted by timeistight at 6:45 PM on November 16, 2003

I've wondered for years how I could remind people the site was more about links than discussion

hmmm how do you remind them without discussing it ?
posted by sgt.serenity at 8:03 PM on November 16, 2003

I don't like the old ID exchange idea, BUT I would like to see a more accurate measure of this community's size than the 17170 (total user number) on the front page. That number means nothing.

In an average month, this site probably gets less than a thousand unique posters. That means something.

Why not replace or enhance the total user number with number of unique posters in the last 7, 30, 365 days?
posted by squirrel at 10:49 PM on November 16, 2003

I like that idea, squirrel. Takes the emphasis off the total and gives us a more meaningful, representative figure.
posted by me3dia at 1:56 PM on November 17, 2003

It's been done. The processing required slowed the whole site to a crawl.
posted by gleuschk at 6:58 PM on November 17, 2003

Wait, am I using up any bandwidth or not?
posted by stx23 at 11:37 PM on November 17, 2003

only if you post. see ya next year. :-)
posted by quonsar at 11:42 PM on November 17, 2003

You take that back quonsar!
posted by stx23 at 1:57 PM on November 18, 2003

Not necessarily the same idea, gleuschk. In any case, it could be modified to not be a CPU hog: run it once per day, at the lowest usage time.

(Of course the "users currently online" script couldn't work once daily, but that was never my idea.)
posted by squirrel at 5:55 PM on November 18, 2003