I noticed that daniweb doesn't prune it's members. Most of other tech forums prune their inactive members.

Pruning the members would give a more accurate statistic on how many people actually use daniweb.

Perhaps not prune but maybe an inactive list. If a user suddenly becomes active then DaniWeb could send them a Welcome Message -
"Welcome back, Kotter! DaniWeb has made a few improvements while you have been away. Please allow a few moments while we put you back into Active Service......please hold the line, your patience is appreciated ......Almost complete .......All done! Proceed to the forum but make sure you read our Rules and Guidelines."

Due to legal reasons, we actually are not permitted to prune our mailing list. Because of our monthly newsletter and all of the other email we send out on a daily basis, to comply with anti-spam regulations, we must retain on record detailed information about every user we have ever sent email to.

That being said, the bottom of our forum index does include the number of 'Active Members' which is the number who have visited DaniWeb recently. Additionally, we already do just as Jupiter 2 suggested, emailing users who have not visited in a couple of months, encouraging them to return.

Just one last point, or two, i'd like to add -
- I answered a question that was 12 months old. the original poster actually replied, and the question is still being debated.

- Many inactive members are probably not logged in and are guests just viewing to catch snippets of code.

- It is good not to delete old answers because sometimes they are the best solutions to current problems.

I think that's about all I need to say. Thank you.

That is exactly why we do not delete old posts, they form part of the 'interactive knowledge resource' at the heart of this great community.

And the 75% of the membership which have ZERO posts, what contribution are they making, apart from puffing up the numbers?

While we would love people to post on DaniWeb, people are quite welcome to participate by reading and learning as well. This community is about sharing knowledge, we do not exclude lurkers. Participation does not have to be vocal, people with zero posts contribute by becoming better coders and hopefully coming back and saying something when they have something to say.

Why don't you email each one a can of prunes?

I just want to add ... if a member registers and their email instantly bounces, then they're thrown into a special permaban usergroup.

I, for one, would like to express my appreciation for not being culled from the membership since last year when I joined. I've been enjoying the sometimes lively discussions and have been waiting for an opportunity to post something useful.

This is not necessarily it. ;-) -Jim

P.S. Not a big prune fan either, if it matters . . .