Re: [Savannah-hackers-public] Remove resume feature to prevent abuse?

[John Sullivan]

Bob Proulx <address@hidden> writes:

> Ineiev wrote:
>> Thank you, yesterday I disabled it for the new users until they are
>> accepted as members in any group (the skillset is still permitted).
>
> That seems like a reasonable compromise.  If at least they must be
> part of any group in order to have a visible resume.  However even in
> that case is the resume feature useful?
>
>> The next thing is accounts like <petshop-tokio>. they setup no resume,
>> perhaps those who create them hope that people will use the contact
>> form to email them (even though one have to login in order to contact
>> them), or they think that having just "realname + user_name" on some
>> web page is sufficient. removing idle accounts is the only idea how
>> to counter them I have.
>
> I am not sure what can or should be done about idle accounts.  Many
> people make an account with the best intentions.  But then nothing
> further happens.  I don't think that is an abuse in the general case.
> I am sure there are accounts created only for the purpose of abuse but
> how does one distinguish between the two cases?  That's the problem.

The way I've seen other services deal with this is:

* Set a policy about what constitutes inactivity (for example, no log in
  for 3 years)

* Send an email to accounts on the wrong side of that line saying they
  will be deleted in N days unless they log in.

* Send a reminder email shortly before the deletion date to those who
  still meet the criterion

* Delete accounts on the date

* Send confirmation email that account was deleted

Is it worth the effort given current available maintainer resources? Not
sure. It's probably worth the effort to define the policy (accounts may
be deleted if inactive for N years, or whatever) and put that publicly
on the site. Gives more flexibility for quicker action later.

-john

-- 
John Sullivan | Executive Director, Free Software Foundation
GPG Key: A462 6CBA FF37 6039 D2D7 5544 97BA 9CE7 61A0 963B
https://status.fsf.org/johns | https://fsf.org/blogs/RSS

Do you use free software? Donate to join the FSF and support freedom at
<https://my.fsf.org/join>.