Hello,

Over the next 48 hours, you may see a massive decrease in the member count on this site.

As most of you are aware, we do everything we can in an effort to prevent spam bots, spam users, and non-active users from joining the site.

I have added several different safe guards to deter such activity and am in the process of adding yet another utility.

This new utility scans our member base and removes those users that have not activated their email accounts. Email activation ensures that the person who registered on the site is an actual human and not someone looking to spam, or even a spam bot itself.

We have stated from the beginning of HC's creation that we are not interested in the "numbers" game. In fact, myself and Marsha have been physically removing members who have attempted to join as "spammers". HC's actual member count would reflect OVER 5000 users if we did not do this.

There are several sites online, particularly those that display large member counts, that do not prune their member base. Its a catch 22 really.

If they prune their member base, they display less users. If they don't prune the member base, they show an inaccurate depiction of how many users they have, but more users join becausethey "think" the site must be good because the sites list 15,000+ users.

We aren't interested in that type of membership and want our numbers to reflect "actual" users and not the artificial ones who join using fake email accounts and bots.

So with that said, do not be alarmed to see the numbers decrease. The threads and posts will remain the same as those are all 100% factual items. I am not certain how many users will be dropped when i run this, but I want the HC Network to NOT become some mindless site just interested in inflating its numbers.

__________________
.:: Rich ::.

+ Spread The Info

Hello,

I just manually executed the script for the first time and the member count has dropped from 4,094 to 3,973.

The 3,973 members depicted are REAL members. They are not "bots", users with a fake email address, or spammers.

This new implementation is now an automated script. It will send users who have not confirmed their email address a reminder 3 days after they have registered, and again 5 days after they have registered, asking them to confirm their account. A final email will be sent on the 8th day after they registered. This email will warn them that their account will be deleted if they do not confirm registration within 2 days. On the 10th day following their registration, the site will automatically delete their account if they have not confirmed it.

HC is more interested in reflecting our TRUE and active users than we are artificially inflated numbers, as some individuals have expressed on other websites.

Note: HC was recently being disrespected by another site. They were attempting to inform their participants that HC was primarily made up of spammers and spam bots. As the numbers depict, and as I had stated to these individuals, this is not the case.

We have always made a valiant effort to reflect the most accurate numbers we can that depict "real" users on the HC Network. With this new script doing the work for us, our numbers will always be accurate within a 10 day time frame.

__________________
.:: Rich ::.

+ Spread The Info

Us? Bots and spammers? Hardly!

__________________

"The power of imagination makes us infinite." - John Muir

~Lacey~

My Photos

"Warning Warning Will Robinson"...ok...Im aging myself....no bots here!!!

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Warmest Regards from Lyn

We are not spam bots.

****WOULD U LIKE 400 GRATE PROGRAMS 4 UNDER $2!!!!!111!!!!****

I resent the implication!

__________________
"Let's eat, Grandpa!"
"Let's eat Grandpa!"

Punctuation. It saves lives.

I wouldn't mind if there were just 100 users on this site. Generally, the same few people post anyway and I like that. I like recognizing the screen names and "knowing" who people are. I would rather have this than be one among thousands of random posters who I don't know or trust when asking for advice.

Hmmmmm!
I have been accused of a lot of things in my life but never being a bot!
An alien from another planet maybe but never a bot!

__________________
Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!

Hello,

There are always the "core" users on every forum that post regularly. Most people just get an answer and move on. Some never post at all, but join to access things only available to registered users, or to hide the ads from showing.

The statistics for this site is how we gauge the sites progress. It's also how I determine if my Search Engine Optimization tactics have been successful.

We want everyone who visits HC to know that the stats the site displays are accurate depictions of the site. We haven't juiced our stats, and we don't list bots,known spammers, etc. as was being stated by an envious site elsewhere online.

__________________
.:: Rich ::.

+ Spread The Info

here is a photo of me doing the ro[bot]. I'm on the right. My friend is a ro[bot] too.

__________________
My name is Liz
Do what's best for the animal, not what's best for you.

There ARE bots among us...but they look like bridesmaids!

__________________

"The power of imagination makes us infinite." - John Muir

~Lacey~

My Photos