Pulicaus, thanks for creating this thread and starting the conversation. And thanks too to everyone who has posted their thoughts here. Always a treat when someone brings up the lurker issue. Typically we do see some lurkers come in from the cold and make their, hopefully, first post. Sometimes that is all it takes to get another good member going. As for the question, I can understand those who feel long inactive lurkers should be deleted, but I don't agree. As a practical matter unless we ban them by IP -which has it's own consequences - any lurker will just reopen another account. Plus it really won't do much to affect reposting. Too many ways to get around the lurker status and all too often reposters have made posts here anyway. So no real advantage to deleting the lurkers. On the other side, we have a lot of lurkers who do one day decide to get active. Then they find they like the interaction and we have another active member. We want to encourage that any way we can, even if it means accepting a LOT of lurkers.

For the lurkers out there, I just want to say you are hurting yourself if you see something you REALLY like and you don't let the OP know it. People who upload do it partially because they want the feedback. If they don't get it they typically post less or, sometimes, stop posting for awhile. So even if you don't have anything to share yourself, at least thank people for the stuff you truly enjoy. Do that and you will see more of it, guaranteed!