[SIM-2501407]

Excuse me for sort of challenging rules here, but I do have a suggestion.

Current Rules:
Spoiler (Click to View)

Do you prune members?
We do. We delete members that have not activated their accounts fairly often. We also delete 0 post members older than 2 months. So most of our member base is actually posting members. 

Can you delete an account so I can get the username?
No, don't even ask. If it's a zero post member you can wait till the account is pruned but don't ask us to delete an individual account for you. Even if it has one post from 2 years ago and they've never returned we will not delete the account just so you can have a username. 

What else do you prune?
Well we've covered PMs, posts, and members. There isn't anything else that's not MyBB standard like clearing out the search terms daily or the other things that do not affect your account. 

My account is "closed". What happened?
Regular member accounts (not upgraded) that have not been logged into for 6 months or more are subject to being closed. The account will no longer function. We will not recover these accounts. We do this to protect old inactive accounts from being stolen then used inappropriately by someone else. If you wish to rejoin HF you can may do so as long as you were not intentionally banned from HF due to a violation. You will need to use a different username and email.  

To reiterate, members will only be pruned/deleted if they are not activated or are new accounts & after two months still do not have posts. Staff will not delete accounts for simply for being inactive, but if a user goes inactive, they will be closed.

Even if it has one post from 2 years ago and they've never returned we will not delete the account just so you can have a username. 

If I understand correctly, currently these inactive accounts do not get pruned, only closed.

I am not asking for these accounts to be deleted, I am suggesting that if there is a way to have the username become available, it should be done. Maybe have their usernames turn into uid? For example, my username would turn into 2501407 if I went inactive for a year.

And would it be possible to make members who are closed to be pruned after 6 months from their last login date? Meaning that if a user goes inactive, it takes exactly 1 year for that username to become available (for those who do not know, it takes 6 months for an inactive user to get closed). 
If it is, I suggest doing it as well. Private messages are already automatically being pruned (for Ub3r) each year.

Seems to be a theme that prunes occur in the 4th quarter of the year.
History of prunes:
8/31/16 - PM and Junks
2015 - PMs automatically pruned after 1 year
9/12/14 - Posts, Junks, also pruning PM table as per the Pruning help doc for each group.
5/30/13 - Junk, Ub3r Junk, Posts and Rep Abuse
9/16/12 - Junk, Ub3r Junk, and Posts
5/01/09 - PMs

Been waiting on a username for a little over a year now, so it was kind of a disappointment when I reread the helpdocs to find I wouldn't be able to get the username of a closed user during the next prune.

For those just reading, here is Omniscient's thoughts (unverified):

I asked Omni about removing usernames from old accounts on Hacker.IM when the new updates were being done.

He said he'll consider it.

[DevSquad]

Asked many times before and Omni said he wouldn't do that.
Doubt he has changed his mind.

[Riyu]

I remember when he was upgrading to 1.8x, he talked about doing something like this.

[test]

Would love for old names to be freed up. The idea of automatically changing inactive accounts to their respective UIDs isn't a bad work-around for keeping all their content either. Even including a prefix like [BANNED]-12344321 or something.

[SIM-2501407]

Asked many times before and Omni said he wouldn't do that.
Doubt he has changed his mind.

Please link me to the posts by Omni specifically stating he would not do it. I've searched around and all I found was this from 2011: https://hackforums.net/showthread.php?tid=1601288
He never replied to it.

The way I see it, it has been 6 years since the unaddressed topic was made. Also, with everything changing around the forum already, it does not hurt to bring up the topic once again.

I remember when he was upgrading to 1.8x, he talked about doing something like this.

Perhaps, with the upgrade of MyBB came many changes. I just recall him saying that he already has to do some work for usernames: https://hackforums.net/showthread.php?ti...ngle&uid=1

Would love for old names to be freed up. The idea of automatically changing inactive accounts to their respective UIDs isn't a bad work-around for keeping all their content either. Even including a prefix like [BANNED]-12344321 or something.

Just due to Omniscient not adding ban/close reasons to trust scanner in the past & it kind of being unnecessary, I do not think he would add the prefix if he were to make it happen.
Thanks for your input.

We'll see what the big cheese has to say.

[luke]

I asked Omni about removing usernames from old accounts on Hacker.IM when the new updates were being done.

He said he'll consider it.

[Omniscient]

Thank you for your suggestion.