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Is it safe to delete information in GDN_User.sql?

I recently have been getting some bots on my site. After deleting them, I'd like to completely wipe them from GDN_User so that the user registration count isn't skewed. For example, my latest registrant is the 31st user, but in reality he's the 18th. I went in to GDN_User and deleted any lines that said [DELETED USER], I then renumbered all of the actual users (1 through 18). When uploading this updated file, it totally screwed up the users saying their username was unknown and stuff. Obviously this was terrible so I reverted back to the old file and now everything is fine. But if possible, I'd still like to find a way to accomplish this. What if instead of deleting these lines, I just modify the number associated with their account to something ridiculous (like 100,000, 100,001, 100,002, 100,003, 100,004, etc.)? Would this still cause the same issue? If so, it's fine and I'll just deal with it. I know that once I actually start promoting the site and getting users on a more constant basis, it would be unrealistic to try and constantly update this anyways...

Comments

  • hgtonighthgtonight ∞ · New Moderator

    I wouldn't worry about the IDs. The number doesn't mean anything, and you can always sort on the join date if you want to find out who registered first. In addition to that, some addons register their own user which is going to "skew" the IDs. Millions of users is no problem for a 32bit ID (unsigned the max ID is 4,294,967,295).

    If you really want to get rid of the User records of the deleted accounts, go for it.

    If you want to modify User IDs, you will have to update every column that stores the a User ID to reflect the new ID. You will also have to handle collisions before you update.

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