HIgh-Fives to the X10 IRC Support Team!

[theone48]

A big thank you to stpvoice, for his concise help in recovering my account after several months away on literary assignment; and a hearty thanks to Sierra and Dead-i for their support. Again, the IRC Volunteers have proved their worth as an invaluable part of the great x10 Support Team. Keep up the good work!

I know the deactivating account time limit feature was instituted to clear up server space by removing obsolete accounts, however for some constant users like me, it makes for a bit of hassle sometimes. I can become busy in other projects and sometimes not log in to my account in several months. I always end up returning when I've got time again, but usually fund my account deactivated in my absence. I'm sure I'm not the only one faced with this dilemma of being a busy though constant member.

My suggestion is if there's some way to implement a bypass system, for those who like me, are busy though constant users; to keep their accounts active longer, like 5 months instead of 45 days. There could be a section on the forums made to sign up, where x10 Staff could review eligible applications, based on usage history. Applicants who logged in during the previous 5 months would then be exempt from being deactivated. It saves x10 the time of restoring recently deactivated accounts and the user from having to rebuild whatever they were working on.

Xean

[Skizzerz]

The only way to disable the inactivity timer is to purchase prime membership (or illuminated, or premium, etc.). We have enough work running support as-is, manually reviewing apps that everyone will apply for just adds extra work/hassle and further splits our already thin support resources.

[theone48]

lol, no pay, no way eh ^.^

[Dead-i]

Thanks

Although this idea sounds beneficial to users on free hosting, we have the inactivity policy for a reason, and if something like this happened then it may cause for the servers to become very full of old accounts.

As Skizzerz said, we already have Prime Membership anyway

[jjordan69]

you can not have it both ways

use staff time:
"There could be a section on the forums made to sign up, where x10 Staff could review eligible applications, based on usage history"

save staff time
"It saves x10 the time of restoring recently deactivated accounts and the user from having to rebuild whatever they were working on."

net is zero staff time saved

also one of the things - time out is used for - is spammers that set up a spamming account then never look at it again

[descalzo]

If it is not worth 5 minutes (or less) of you time every 30 days, maybe it's not worth complaining about when your site is suspended/deleted for inactivity.

[theone48]

@descalzo: time is only one factor among many why a member might not be able to log in every 30 days. sometimes their internet services can be unavailable, or their in an area where they don't have easy access to a pc. Field writers or journalists for example can sometimes find themselves in such situations. Not to mention it takes mental energy just to rememeber some things when one is busy...

well, not all ideas are great, just put it out there and get your opinions. Thanks everyone for your feedback.

[Sharky]

You could always log in within the period (instead of waiting until it's about to expire) thus resetting the timer ;)