I meant to search, not start new topic.  But with that said, I hope that the new membership fees will cause all those old inactive accounts to be closed when they don't pay the fee (because they have disappeared years ago).

It won't; they'll just become a la carte accounts.

It takes a year for an account to be considered dormant or inactive.  If someone does not do anything with their account by 2/15 it will then be considered an A la carte membership.

What happens after a year?

I would love to see, as part of the change, the need for members to sign on once in a 60-90 day period to keep their account active. There are so many abandoned account that clog up the system and frustrate members by not responding to book requests and book offerings, etc. Since we are now about to support the club thru fees, I would like to see TPTB take a proactive approach to inactive/abandoned accounts.

I absolutely agree with Sally.  There can even be a reminder sent every 60 days to remind them that they have 30 days to sign in before their account is closed.

The only good thing with the a la carte, is that if those inactive or less active people have their WL on auto and no PBS money, then they will automatically be passed over in line. 48 hour hold will still notify them and give them time to add funds and request the book. It's not much, but might help the lines a bit.

I agree with Sally as well..

It will help the lines when people post books wish-listed by inactive members, but it won't help people who request a book that has several copies in the system and the first few are all from inactive members.

Sadly no. I wonder if the system has any kind of threshold in place like say 3 to 5 timed out requests and an account goes on hold until the person logs in and verifies the account?

I would *hope* that people would be decent enough to either A) delete their shelves or B) come on to decline the request within a timely manner.

Melissa, unfortunately there are huge numbers of members who have totally abandoned their accounts (the system does have a threshold, but no one knows what it actually is, where if a member does not respond to X offers/requests thier account will go on hold). It is possible that if they did not have many books listed and/or they are heavily listed books, it could take years to weed those members out. And sometimes it feels like years waiting to have a book you have requested accepted as it rolls through countless inactive members who each have 5 days to accept. I have waited up to 3-1/2 weeks to have a request accepted on a book that has 100s in the system. That is totally unacceptable if I am paying for membership.

Sadly no. I wonder if the system has any kind of threshold in place like say 3 to 5 timed out requests and an account goes on hold until the person logs in and verifies the account?

Yes, though I am pretty sure the count of missed transactions is less than that for the system to put the account on Hold.

If an account is deemed dormant (no login for a full year) PBS closes the account.

Sally, those could very well be active members that just aren't responding to your rollovers, not dormant accounts. Apparently some genres must have a lot more of it by the reports by some that it is happening to them so much, I've really not experienced it enough to remember any instance of a long stretch of rollovers.

"Apparently some genres must have a lot more of it by the reports by some that it is happening to them so much, I've really not experienced it enough to remember any instance of a long stretch of rollovers."

Yes, this! ^  I don't think I've had more than a few roll over out of 633 books requested/received (as of today).

I also remember a member posting at some point that they'd gone on vacation, forgot to put their bookshelf on hold, and had their account frozen because they'd had TWO requests time-out.  Don't know if this is a hard and fast PBS rule, but that's what she said happened to her.

(the system does have a threshold, but no one knows what it actually is, where if a member does not respond to X offers/requests thier account will go on hold).

I can speak to this. When I first signed up I left town unexpectedly for a family emergency and forgot to put my account on vacation hold. My weekend visit became an extended stay and I did not get the chance to check in for a couple weeks. When I finally checked in my account had been place on hold because a few requests had timed out. I don't remember exactly how few but it was just a handfull I specifically remember one request for 3 books because I kicked myself for missing a multi-request! 

Yes, I got sick once and didn't check PBS for a couple weeks, and my account had been put on hold because I hadn't responded to some requests. I think it was more than one, but was certainly less than five. So it seems to happen pretty quickly, on the inactive sender's end. On the inactive requestor's end, it's not going to be any worse than it already was with the 48-hour hold. People post on the forums about having to wait for weeks, but I've personally never had a request or a wishlisted book posted that cycled through more than two 'passers' before it got processed one way or the other. Maybe it's more common in highly-posted MMPBs?