What is a lurker?

The term lurker comes from the verb to lurk. So a person who lurks around, is a lurker. So in the case of our forums, it’s a member who sits around, reads fanfictions, views different threads and posts, but does not participate.

Why does it matter?

It matter because a community, such as ours, is built and depends upon people who participate. With no one participating, we won’t have new content in the form of music videos, fanfictions, artwork and more. The community would die out rather fast.

What does that mean for me?

If you’re a member of NS Forums, you have to participate in order to get all the features active members have.

Difference between inactive users and lurker users

A lurker is a user who haven’t posted within the last 30 days.

We also have a group for inactive users. An inactive user is someone who hasn’t visited the forums in the last 180 days.

The difference is that, with inactive users, when 180 passes without activity, they’re moved to a special group, and when/if they come back to the forums, shortly after they log in, they’re moved back to their original group and have the same benefits and access as their original group.

A lurker, when not having made a post in 30 days, is moved to a special group. Even if they surf the forums often, they are not moved back to their original group until they’ve made a post.

What can I do to not be labeled as a lurker, or inactive user?

To avoid being labeled as either a lurker or an inactive user, follow these simple steps:

To avoid being labeled an inactive user:

Simply visit the forums from time to time, at least once every 180 days. NOTE: You need to be logged into your user account!

To avoid being labeled a lurker:

Simply make at least one (1) post every 30 days. It doesn’t matter where you make that post, as long as you make it*.

That’s it! Doesn’t that sound simple?

Is there an alternative to the options above?

An alternative is getting a paid subscription. Paying members aren’t affected by the script that looks for inactive and lurker users. As a paying member you also get an ad-free board, as well as more features like upgraded private messages inbox capacity, the ability to upload your own avatar and more.

* I see people trying to sneak out of lurker status, why is that, and what happens to those users?

Some users, when they are marked as a lurker, see that they have limited access to the forums, and read that they have to post one (1) post somewhere to gain access again. And some users will then go to a random thread and simply post something that is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. Such examples are things like a mere “hello” in a thread about an award show, I’ve even seen “post”. These posts don’t add anything to the topic, they are simple posted for the sake of posting.

What constitutes a “sneaking out of lurker mode” post is usually decided by me, the administrator, since I am the one doing user management and have access to give out infractions.

When I come across posts like that, I will give the user an infraction, either as a warning if it’s a first time offence, or an actual infraction point. I then manually move the user back into the lurker group.

And should I come across someone who repeatedly violates this rule, I might ban their account for a short time period, or something similar. So don’t violate the rules!

I hope that answered some questions you might have about this policy!

If you have any questions not answered here, you can either send me a private message at the forums, reply to the thread about this policy, or simply comment below.

Thanks for reading!

Log into your account at NS forums, go to your UserCP, then paid subscriptions and follow the on-screen instructions.