This is very confusing

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So judging by your response that these banned people keep making multiple accounts why count them at all towards the total users. .If the red x was implemented you could see how many accounts are fake and that would detract from that

The issue regarding total users was addressed in another thread, Parts - I even went through and gave a rough approximation of the number of active members, although I used a constant rate of membership increase instead of representing the actual and expanding rate. The number of members seems to be a trigger point for some individuals, but I don't see where it comes into play when discussing indicators on banned members. Two different issues, and I fail to see the importance of this particular one, whereas having an indicator to show who is banned does has a relevant effect on the membership as a whole.


M.

You know Lau I read everything you have said and whilst I appreciate you taking time to say it, exactly which point of this above exchange, addresses the real concern that has been raised.

I don't believe any of it does. Sure you talk of people with previously banned accounts, you also talk of people having meltdowns and you also talk of some secret power of red X's.

What you have not addressed is the simple concern shared by some of the forum (who's interests I guess you represent), that there is not transparency in a members ability to see who is banned and there is rulings that people can not talk about banned members and risk banning by doing so.

If you read your reply you will noticed that you (inadvertently or not) side-stepped this issue completely. You can see that right?

Where is a member's guarantee that they will not inadvertently talk about a member that is banned and then be punished for it as per the rules and all because there is no effort on WP admin part to make it transparent to the member that they are unable to talk about that particular individual because they are secretly banned? You may fob it off. It is your right. You may ignore a sensible query and that is fine.

I believe though it is a pretty blatant problem and one that has the potential to trap unknowing members into actions that will be rather unpleasant.

I would like to say further that mistakes in this instance will not be used against people making such inadvertent mistakes but as I say I have seen worse behaviour and unjustified punishments of late, by mods.

I liked that. Awesome figures.

No, the red x wouldn't tell us how many accounts are "fake". It would just tell us which accounts in threads we read are "fake".

Thanks. Since it seems to be a common topic of interest, I'll probably go back and get the annual figures out of the member list so I can chart growth rate and run projections, and try to get more specific numbers on banned accounts (including spammers) and duration of active membership (though I think the 50% annual attrition of 'active' members seemed to be pretty accurate from what I saw at first glance of the member list.) Also want to incorporate an estimate of 'silent lurkers' as there are a few instances I can think of off the top of my head from account opened 2-3 years earlier but who were just having their first post within the past 3-6 months. Discarding all the zero-post accounts isn't giving a true representation, even if they are not vocal contributors to the forums. Numbers have always been an area of enjoyment for me, strangely enough... so this is a good little equation for me to tinker with, and eventually I might have something that would be helpful in projecting site needs for years down the road.


M.

I was reading the members list and did notice a negative post count on a few members
I was bored so I was counting members that actually posted
49 members per page
18113 posters 371 over pages
the 1 posters begin on page 299
O post members 14649 ends on page 299
I would love to see a graph of the posting members

How so? Can you elaborate?

I wonder why a few people have negative posts numbers? Is that a glitch?

The software of WP is completely obsolete now. The version of the forum software no longer even has any documentation. That got withdrawn fairly recently. The phpBB2 itself was not supported since a year ago. The version on WP is even older, by how much, I'm not sure. Glitches abound.

Hey Sins. Long time. I was talking about you the other day.

and this is the crux of the whole discussion. The Rules,

The rules said "no discussion of banned members" but there was no provision on how members would KNOW they were banned. While I was moderator the moderation team followed the rules but without a bridge in the gap in knowing how to make that actually happen. Moderator communications to Alex for clarification were not answered, they have not been answered to this day.

So, every time that rule was bumped up against, the chasm between the the two had to be crossed confusing the member and frustrating the mod. Rule clarification would seem to be the most efficient start to reconciliation of this ongoing issue. I am certain other rules would be candidates for clarification as well.


Merle

Oh I see, you mods were taking that rule too literal so it was implying us members were supposed to be psychics. Maybe Alex should fix that rule and have it say "No discussion of banned members you know who are banned." But seriously, if you fully know members won't know who is banned, you should at least tell them that member is banned than giving them warnings about it or telling them it is against the rules to discuss banned members. I don't what the rule says. I think it's common sense if you full well know members aren't going to know who is banned.

There were no instructions that the rules should not be taken literally. No authority gave leave to relax or create new rules or even just clarify the standing rules in the absence of the owner. Requests were made for the rules to be addressed , however this clarification was never given to the moderation team. Moderators have no authority to change the rules. I am not certain what you think the moderation team was expected to do in the absence of this information.

I thought personally the moderators also have the same rules as the members on this site? But I didn't think for a minute they have seperate rules.

But the discussion of banned members should be made clear and for those who didn't know that who was banned should be told via PM without a warning since they didn't know and would be simply more fair.

Plus not all members have the banned 'X' on there so that's very confusing.

Yes I am actually rather surprised Sins.
You are very good at summing this up from the other side of the fence and have ratified the position very well.
Transparency is the key and without that not only is it impossible for the members to really understand how to stay within the rules but allows no clear ground for how the arbitrators and governors of the rules (Mods) to effectively do their job.
They have little to work with and give guesses and this allows them to get it wrong and thus "the crux" as you put it.