Ever Flush Membership Lists?

[Witling]

Does Anandtech ever flush the membership lists to free up unused names. I originally applied for the name of Witling but got my email address wrong. As a consequence, "Witling" is not available and I had to resort to "Whitling," which is not at all the same thing. So, moderators, how often should I check availability, every four years?

 

[Ryan]

Nope.

 

[Witling]

Kind of gives a whole new meaning to their membership number claim. But thanks for the answer.

 

[Aves]

If you created the Witling account and were never able to use it, they might just delete it for you and rename your current account.

Just PM the Mods.

 

[RagingBITCH]

Originally posted by: aves2k
If you created the Witling account and were never able to use it, they might just delete it for you and rename your current account.

Just PM the Mods.

What he said. Why didn't you do that in the first place?

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: RagingBITCH

Originally posted by: aves2k
If you created the Witling account and were never able to use it, they might just delete it for you and rename your current account.

Just PM the Mods.

What he said. Why didn't you do that in the first place?

Probably because he didn't read the other posts where this has been asked hundreds of times before.

 

[SinfulWeeper]

Still, I remember looking for a handle over here. The first 5 I tried were taken. Of those five, four were not used in years. It might a great idea to do so...

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: SinfulWeeper
Still, I remember looking for a handle over here. The first 5 I tried were taken. Of those five, four were not used in years. It might a great idea to do so...

The idea of "cleaning" the membership list has been brought up several times before (I was being sarcastic when I said hundreds), and there is a valid (or so it seems to me) reason why they will not do this. Consider, for example a troll that got banned 3 years ago. His account would get deleted, and he could sign up again and steal more people's money or stuff in FS/FT. Or, perhaps they might delete the account of a member who hasn't come for a long time but was well known when they were here; then somebody else might choose that name (on purpose or not), and there would be much confusion about who that nickname really was/is. Of course, then there's the #1 reason why I think they won't do that - PR; having big membership numbers really looks good to the people who care about those kind of things (personally, I'd take quality over quantity, but you know how some business people are about that). 😉

Edit: And I forgot one thing... Surely, you might suggest that they remove most of the stale accounts, except for those owned by notorious or well-known former members. What you must realize, however, is that doing that would require someone to manually delete the old accounts. And no, I seriously doubt that they'd give you (or me) Administrator privileges to do that. 🙂