I understand why so many choose not to renew their paid subscription. They are then demoted to Guests.
What I really miss with these old-timers is the number of posts racked up, and their location.
Is it at all feasible to restore those for old members who slumped to pitiful guests? 
I think this is wrong. In fact for the disloyalty that they have shown by letting their subscription lapse they should suffer additional degradations of service.
For a start their usernames should be replaced with random character strings and their IDs be up for grabs. This could lead to some amusing misunderstandings when someone latches onto a former nutcase’s ID and starts posting.
Oh, and a really shit search function for them too. Make them wait ages between searches or something.
There’s no nice way I can say this so I’ll just be short here: No.
Geoff, click on the guest’s name, then “View Public Profile.”
The information is still there.
This just happened, didn’t it? It seems to me only a day or two ago that I still saw my lifetime post count.
I hope there’s some kind of warning if they decide to take away the join date too.
This is a helpful response. 
(I can confirm I have lots of posts!)
:smack: I knew that. Or I used to. Thanks for the reminder.
Yes sadly there is nothing that can be done about that. Us former charter members who are now guests really have no good way to show our join date, location and post count.
The people in charge here seem to think that hiding this info from paying members will prompt people to pay.
Seriously.
Really, I’m not joking.
This, and variants thereof, has been rehashed many times. I know nothing can be done, but I’m an old sentimentalist, and I do think it’s sad that the characteristics of long time posters aren’t readily visible - even if it’s their fault for either choosing not to re-up, or missing the deadline.
Yep. Having your info displayed to everyone if you pay is apparently a bigger perk than if they did it so that paying members see everyone’s info and non-paying members don’t see the info. I don’t see the logic in that, but apparently Ed does.
That’s really not the reason. Remember that previously the distinction between guests and members was that guests could post for only thirty days, while members could post as long as their membership was current. Now, that both guests and members can post indefinitely, what is the incentive to become a paid member? One of the few tangible ones is the display of one’s location and post count in one’s post.
KlondikeGeoff was suggesting that we extend that benefit to former members whose membership lapsed (the “old-timers” as he put it). That would result in two tiers of guests; those who are former members and get this information displayed and those who are not. Imagine trying to police that system. Who wants to decide who qualifies as an old-timer? Hence TubaDiva’s response of no to the request.
Yookeroo’s point is that it’s the paid members, just as much as the guests, who benefit from being able to see guests’ join date, location and post count. In other words, why should I pay for a membership if I still won’t be able to see the join date, location and post count of all the guests?
If only there was some other way for guests to show their join date, location and post count, this wouldn’t even be an issue.
It doesn’t bother me that no one can see my post count or location. It only bothers me that I can’t see other people’s post count and location, and currently no amount of paying will get me that.
You’re right. It’s free. It’s a PITA, but I can click on your name, see your profile, how many posts you have, location, stuff you have added in your profile. So, you CAN actually see these things. Not easily.
Ok, I’m going to give your idea a try, but I’m not sure I’m completely following it.
Join Date: May 20, 1999
Male/45/Washington DC
Posts: 6,981
Right. Being able to display the info isn’t much incentive to pay up. Displaying my info doesn’t really do me much good. I don’t need to see it. The incentive is ass backward. It would be much better to only let paying members see this info.
I think it would be totally awesome if there were, like, quests we could do to get more status points.
You mean like capturing a unicorn?