Earlier this afternoon I played a short, 5 question quiz in the sports category on archery. I decided, after playing, to send a note to the author regarding some differences in USA/UK terminology. Just after I had sent the note/compliment, I thought I'd search for the member to see exactly whereabouts they were living. I was surprised to see that they had joined on the 13th February 2001 and were last seen on that same date!!

Surely after over 11 years of complete inactivity this account should be removed?

If the accounts were removed, we'd have no way of accessing their author list. Imagine if ten years from now Nightmare's account page fell off the site-- that'd be about 1500 quizzes floating around. :p

I agree that accounts shouldn't be deleted due to inactivity, only for cheating & other actions(different subject).Besides, how could anyone arbitrarily decide a proper length of time? 1, 2, 3, 5yrs, somtimes events happen in life or people lose interest. What if someone comes back & finds their account missing?
What I was wondering is if someone deletes their own account do their quizzes dissappear into cyperspace? I know you can't access their quizzes through a player account but what about subject matter in the find quiz section? Maybe this has been discussed before but it got me thinking.

Their quizzes are still in the directories-- you just can't access their user page. Corrections can still be sent and editors will be able to take care of them.

I completely agree with this. One of our teammates has come back to the site after being inactive for years (I forget the exact length of time). Besides, people can still like a quiz written 10 years ago, and if they want to find more quizzes on the same topic, where would they go? The writer's profile would be the first place I would check.

>> Corrections can still be sent and editors will be able to take care of them.

I don't think that's right. The system returns this error message: "Destination user no longer exists."
It's a bug on Terry's to-do list.

Whoops-- I thought that bug was only on the crosswords for some reason. My mistake. :s

It's now working! Terry rejigged the code.

Here's my 2 cents coming from someone that disappeared for awhile. I originally joined FT in 2006 and was only casually playing every now and again. Then something came up and I was away from FT for nearly 4 years, but when I resumed activity in 2010, luckily my account was just as I left it. And now I have been here daily for the last 2 years straight.

I for one am glad that Terry doesn't delete inactive accounts.

Me too! I was away from the site for several years while I was changing schools and cities and didn't have much time to spend online. When I came back, everything was just as I had left it, including the quiz that I was in the middle of writing (which I had put "DND" for "Do not delete" in the title of, because the editors clean house every once in awhile to clear out abandoned quizzes).

Thanks very much to the editors who handled the correction notes on my quizzes during my absence.

Another case would be when one of our prolific authors were to die (speaking hypothetically). They wouldn't ever be back, but having an organized list of their quizzes on their profile page would make it easy to play them and remember that contributor.

So, bottom line, if you want your Fun Trivia Alias and account slot held open, you should write a quiz? As good a reason as any, I'd say. Ah, Immortality, so nice to meet you.

No-- if you want your FunTrivia account to stay open, don't get yourself banned. There's nothing we've said indicating that accounts get deleted.

lol, that really would be a nightmare.

I too, first joined FunTrivia back in 2006. I was on a lot for a year or two, but HS Senior year, and college got in the way, and I wasn't on this site for 5 yrs. I recently came back, a few months ago. I'm so glad that I didn't lose my account in my absence, since I already had quizzes online, and points that I didn't want to lose.