Administrative and Maintenance Tools - Move Inactive and Lurker Users To New Usergroup

As of 23 Nov 2017 this modification has been withdrawn.

This runs daily to check the activity of members and move them to a new usergroup if they meet certain rules.

Lurkers
If a member has not posted on the forum for a defined number of days (90 by default) then they will be moved from their existing usergroup to the defined usergroup (this can be any existing usergroup, however, you should really create a new 'Lurkers' group

Inactive Members
If a member has not visited the forum for a defined number of days (180 by default) then they will again be moved from their existing usergroup to the defined usergroup (this can also be any existing usergroup, however, you should again really create a new 'Inactive Users' group.

Only members of a defined list of usergroups are checked for inactivity.

If a member of the Inactive usergroup returns to the forum, or the Lurkers usergroup posts again, and auto-restore is enabled, they are automatically restored either to another pre-defined usergroup (by default this is usergroup 2, Registered Users) or to the usergroup they were in before they got initially moved. Note that if you use this option then you really must have seperate Inactive and Lurker usergroups, otherwise you are going to get in a mess.

Any of the options above can be disabled if not required. All options are in ACP > Options > Inactive and Lurker Members

To install simply download the file and import in vbulletin using the product manager.

Note: The move of inactive users is done once per day as part of the existing vbulletin daily update cron job. The restore function should be pretty much instant. Also, this works purely on the Primary usergroup, secondary groups are neither checked or altered.


History:

v4.0.1 : 02-Jan-2010 : Initial release for vb 4.0.0 Gold.
v4.0.2 : 02-Jan-2010 : Prevent restore to usergroup 0 if old usergroup data is missing.
v4.0.3 : 16-Feb-2010 : Lurker & Inactive settings split out.
v4.0.4 : 18-Feb-2010 : Installer & code updates.
v4.0.5 : 12-Sep-2010 : Fix bug in disable options.

v4.1.0 : 04-Dec-2010 : Updated for vBulletin 4.1.

v4.1.7.0 : 16-Oct-2011 : Updated for vBulletin 4.1.7.

v4.2.0.0 : 24-May-2012 : Updated for vBulletin 4.2.0.

[Alibass]

Originally Posted by Rob F

for Lurkers leave it so they have to contact admin to have their accounts restored.

I personally would not want this only option. Members would wear me and my moderators out restoring their accounts.

[Rob F]

Originally Posted by Alibass

I personally would not want this only option. Members would wear me and my moderators out restoring their accounts.

I'm suggesting that there's a choice given for both usergroups. At the moment there's only one Restore Feature option to tick which relates to both groups.

Then users of the mod could go with what works best for them.

Personally I'd like to have it set so that anyone who gets moved for being a lurker has to contact admin to have their account restored. My own opinion is that lurkers are offenders in one sense, whereas inactive might have simply had life get in the way for a while. As I see them differently then I'd like to treat them differently too.

I guess different situations apply to different sites

[Alibass]

Originally Posted by Rob F

I'm suggesting that there's a choice given for both usergroups. At the moment there's only one Restore Feature option to tick which relates to both groups.

Then users of the mod could go with what works best for them.

Personally I'd like to have it set so that anyone who gets moved for being a lurker has to contact admin to have their account restored. My own opinion is that lurkers are offenders in one sense, whereas inactive might have simply had life get in the way for a while. As I see them differently then I'd like to treat them differently too.

I guess different situations apply to different sites

Then again it's how you use Paul's mod. As he has it now, I created a lurkers group and restricted all permissions except for creating a thread in the forums. I don't allow them to even reply, they half to start a new thread. Once they post they are immediately restored to their original group or wherever you put them. How tight you set your days for lurkers will keep them posting more often if they want to read or post anything in your forums. There are other mods here to stopping them from lurking as a guest also.

[Rob F]

Originally Posted by Alibass

Then again it's how you use Paul's mod. As he has it now, I created a lurkers group and restricted all permissions except for creating a thread in the forums. I don't allow them to even reply, they half to start a new thread. Once they post they are immediately restored to their original group or wherever you put them. How tight you set your days for lurkers will keep them posting more often if they want to read or post anything in your forums. There are other mods here to stopping them from lurking as a guest also.

I agree with you completely that its how you use the mod.

For me, I don't want the lurkers being immediately restored. Some in particular only visit my site now to copy ideas that I've implemented (mods) for their own site. They don't contribute at all anymore, and I genuinely don't see that situation changing any time soon. I also don't think they have the balls to appeal for the re-instatement of their account to its previous status once it gets moved. In the past week alone I've seen 3 new mods that I've added amazingly appear on another site - trust me, its not co-incidence

Hence my viewing lurkers & inactive as completely different categories. For the moment though, I'll be lumping them in together with the Auto Restore turned off

[dynamite]

This mod is exactly what I was looking for!
For lurkers, is there a way to change the required number of posts that have to be made to activate the trigger in the time period. for example 5 instead of just 1?

[Paul M]

Assuming you mean the restore ? No, that isnt possible.

[sixdemons]

instead of moving the user to an other group, can I just delete the inactive users with this mod?

[Paul M]

No.

[sixdemons]

It will be cool if you include this feature in future versions, because I was looking a mod in order to delete inactive users for v4 and there is no mod yet that delete inactive users...

[Sador]

Originally Posted by Sador

Nice mod, used it on vb 3.x as well.

I do wonder though, if I have the 3.x version of this mod installed, do I need to upgrade to this version (I suppose so) and if I do, will the usergroups all correct themselves when I upgrade the script (assuming I set up a special usergroup for the inactive people) or do I need to change those manually?

Thanks.

Any help on this?