When you order a book, the sender has five days to respond.   Because of the FIFO system, the request might have gone to an inactive member.  Then it will time out and go to the next.  . The problem is, however, that the inactive member has an "active" bookshelf which could be tying up multiple people ordering books.

If the sender is an active member, they can choose to deny the request anytime during that five day period.  If the sender is an inactive member, then it will just time out.  I think that if a sender allows a request to time out in five days, then their account should be put on automatic vacation hold or something.  This will keep anyone else ordering a book from being tied up for five days.

The same with wishlist books. 

The member can come back and take themselves off 'vacation hold' easily.  Inactive members obviously don't care, so their account would stay on hold and prevent others from being tied up because of their non-response.  Perhaps a six month period and then delete them entirely.   Or whatever amount of time seems fair.

There has to be some way to weed out the inactives because it ties up the whole process.

that would be good because something could have happened to a member and they can't get to a computer to put their account on hold.  It would weed out a lot of people that don't respond in that 5 day period!

It is my understanding that after so many book requests timing out that account is put on "inactive" status and they aren't in the FIFO line.  Not sure how many times it takes for them to be taken out but, it does happen.

If they go to auto vacation hold, it can happen after the first time-out.  This really wouldn't impact active members who either don't check for a week or go away, because they can take themselves off 'vacation hold' as soon as they come back wtihout losing any FIFO status.  Inactives would stay on 'vacation hold' until whatever amount of time the system decides to make them permanently inactive.

I like that idea too!  Send the idea in via the feedback link.  I asked for something a while back, and it happened.  You never know!

I think it's a wondeful idea.  I'm now on the fourth member for a book I requested on February 20th (it's March 11th).  The book has been timed out due to lack of response by the member from whom the book was requested three times and since I'm now on day 3 of the fourth request, I'm already assuming this one will also time out.  However, when I go back and look at the bookshelves of the members who let my request just linger, the bookshelves still appear active.  I think they should be on hold from the first time this happens.  I wouldn't object if I were placed on vacation hold if I ever let a request slide for six days.  After all, as previously mentioned, it's very easy to unhold your account and I wouldn't want any other books to lose there place in the FIFO lineup.