Member IDs

[Graham Cracked]

I was away from the site for a while (this was before my most recent return), and when I came back, I saw that everyone now has a Member ID. Sorry if I'm posting this question in the wrong spot, but, just what is it? I thought at first it was the number of when you signed in, but I saw there aren't that many members here. Just curious is all ^^

[love_my_wifes_sneezes]

Unless they've done something very unusual with the forum software, you were the 10,808th person to register with this forum. I was 7,153. Please note that I said "register", as not all registrations result in actual membership. Most forums, and I'm sure that this one does also, suffer from copious amounts of spammers trying to register so that they can post their nonsense on the forum. When they start the registration process, they are given a Member ID number. When one of the admins looks at various indicators and decides that the odds are very good that the person is a spammer, they delete the registration. But that Member ID is now gone for good. It does not get reused.

And if the registration makes it past the first line of defense that the staff has setup, and is granted probationary membership, but then proves to be a spammer or other undesirable, often times I suspect that membership is simply deleted, as opposed to being banned. So again, another Member ID goes down the drain.

Yet when you look at the total count of members, it only reflects those still on the roles active or not. But it does not count deleted members.

I run an Invision forum on the net and depending on the time of year and the strength of CAPTCHA and questions asked, there are times that I delete 10 spam registrations a day. So one goes through Member ID's very quickly!

[Shay]

Yes I do believe the ID coresponds to what number person you were to register. My member ID is only 35 because I joined over 10 years ago when this forum first opened. *feels old*

[Lynne]

We also delete lurkers if they haven't logged in for 2 years or more, so yes, we've had over 12,000 people register for membership, but there are only 2,000-3,000 active members.