There are presently 35 'inactive' members - these are people who have either never logged in to the site, or have not done so since requesting a new password.

On 31st July, I sent an email to all of them; there were 41 at the time, and so six have now signed in.

I've also sent messages to those whom I could find on Gay Romeo, Gaydar and Recon, asking them to sign in to their BLUF profile, or risk it being deleted.

So, a few have done. A few more haven't - though some have obviously read the messages on other sites, since they've managed to look at my profile after I sent them one.

I'll sent out another reminder next week, but then I think in September, these profiles will start to be deleted.

Meanwhile, if anyone wants to see if they can track down some of these members, or point me to other places to look for them, you can type

inactive

in the quick search box on the site, to see the current list.

Nigel.

BRIGHTONBOSS wrote to me to ask if I knew any of the 'missing members' (for the want of a better description!) but unfortunately I did not recall any communication with the listed. It's a pity that this sort of thing is happening as I am sure you and the other administrators have far more important things to deal with re the improvements of BLUF. However, on a positive note, if a member hasn't signed in for a lengthy period of time it could be for a very valid reason, eg illness. But, on the other hand, if a member hasn't used the site for a long time or doesn't think they will be using the site for a period of time, surely it is courteous to send a small message to yourself or one of the other administrators just to let BLUF know that their membership needs deactivating.

It is frustrating, and if people don't even have an email address where we can reach them, then I don't think there's much we can do. And those who have failed to log in or respond to contact requests for years will be the first to be deleted - the database does record when people were issued passwords, and we have one issued in 2004 never used, 3 in 2006 and five from 2007. Even allowing for illness, that's an awfully long time.

On a more positive note, having emailed all those who haven't logged in for 300 days, the number of 'dormant' members has dropped to 552, from around 620 or so. Since the email was only sent out on Friday morning, I think we'll see that drop a fair bit more over the course of the weekend.

So, I think the prodding will likely get at least another 100 members back into circulation, which is good.

I have been told by another active bluf member in antwerp that member 1666 from Antwerp ,on the missing list, has quit the leather scene.

Thanks; he still seems to be using his Recon profile from time to time, so I've sent him another message on there.

Thanks to our efforts so far, we're 'recovered' a few more of those inactive members, and the total's down to 32 (it was 44 at one stage).

Meanwhile, now that the regular emails are going out and the automatic tracking is in place, we can start to see how many members don't have valid email addresses. Once three emails to a member have been rejected, they are flagged as not having a valid address. The current list is at

http://www.bluf.com/private/memberIndex ... php?nomail

If you, or someone you know, appears on that list, then you need to sign in to BLUF and change your email address; if you've already done that, then you need to click the link in the confirmation email.

The current list of inactive (never logged in, or asked for a new password then never logged in) members is

http://www.bluf.com/private/memberIndex ... p?inactive

On the positive side, since we added the new member prefs system and email tracking at the start of this month, over 700 members have set their options for language and email, and I have yet to do mailshots to the US and German members, which are the next two big groups to get an email, sometime this week most likely.

Nigel.