[Shazz]

Originally Posted by cheat-master30

Okay, there are three possible reasons why they signed up and never posted, and the main one is also the last. They are:

1. They signed up for some kind of malicious service, or to spam with PMs/Profiles/member list links. Pretty rare actually, but you could always check a few things just to make sure.
2. They failed validation. Such as having a misspelt or wronh e-mail, and never got an activation email. May then have either signed up correctly with another username and be someone active on your forum, or have just left to go elsewhere. Pretty rare, but anything can happen (no joke).
3. The typical lurkers and shy members. To be honest, about 60-90% of members on forums never, ever make even one post. Maybe they just come to browse. Or to leach contents from a gallery, arcade or other service. Or maybe they signed up for the heck of it and changed their mind about being a member. Don't ever worry about this, it's perfectly normal. Happens to every forum on Earth, is very common, and is pointless to bother about generally.

How to help activity

1. Check what they are doing. If they are viewing a gallery, or using an arcade constantly, add some kind of costs to the feature to encourage them to post before using it. If they are just lurking, move on to another possibility.
2. Welcome them. Send a PM, comment on their profile, make a topic about the new members. This may encourage them to post.

Finally, never give up. All forums have different activity rates and rates of growth, and what's small for one type of community might be huge for another. Same with activity.

Oh, and think of these for a start:

I have noticed that service boards such as download areas or support boards have huge amounts of members and low posting rates. This seems perfectly normal.

Nice post if there was + rep I would add it