Dealing with (non-paying) obsolete users...

[sfbay_sail]

Ever since I am with Pbase I tried to get the username which I use
otherwise on news: ThomasH. But it was taken, what is a common
case in our huge world-wide-web world! But: This user seem to
have never paid nor has he posted any single image since the
beginning!!!

http://www.pbase.com/thomash/profile

On one side I admire Slug's mild and tolerant dealing with all
these "trial accounts" and preservation of images, regardless
of their origin and content, but the flood of obsolete user names
is a burden to the system. Search, access and space are all
impacted in terms of efficiency and... cost.

I am not even talking about ethic aspects of some users.
I spotted one particular user from a country with annual income
a bit over the US level, who made a biweekly or so new "trial
account" and posted another series of images of his $10,000
mountaineering equipment and even far more expensive bike and
adventures on it.

He got his priorities straight, as I see. Hey, rich people are
people who really value a dollar!!

Thus to our all benefit I propose to:

1) Send out an email to all users asking them to confirm its validity.

2) Put the galleries of non-paying and non-current email users to a safety storage,
keep thumbnails only and wait for these people to come back and ask.

3) Remove all empty accounts of non replying users

This could for the first time maybe lower the amount of images on Pbase
("quality over quantity"!) and put the resources needed to backup them
and to install yet more servers or drives into software development!

Just a thought!

ThomasH

[srijith]

If I am not mistake, pbase is planning to take some (don't ask me what, i dont know) steps to tackle this issue. I am sure they realise the resources that is being wasted with no benefit to anyone.

Anyway, as for your particular case, you could try to email accounts@pbase.com and explain your needs and ask them if they can help you get your desired username.