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Countries in need of Moochers
The following countries have inactive accounts that need clearing. Please check the "http://bookmooch.com/m/thread/inactive_accounts_cleanup_project/5" thread for links to accounts that have already been found and some countries have their own threads started: Mexico
Singapore
Started:
Austria
Chile
China
Colombia
Denmark
Hong Kong
India
Indonesia
Italy
Japan
Netherlands
Pakistan
Philippines
Portugal
Sweden
All Mooched or Vacationed Argentina
Australia
Belgium
Brazil
Finland
Greece
Ireland
Israel
Malaysia
New Zealand
South Africa
Spain
Switzerland
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Cara
13 years ago
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Comments
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Hi Cara - I cancelled my first lot of Canadians today. I have already been through Argentina and Belgium. - they will be cancelled on Tues. I will pick a new country after that.......
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That's great Debbie! I'm trying to enlist a few people from some of these countries to help as well since we can't get the "ask first" and "only to my country" folks. But any "worldwide" accounts that any of us can help with is great. I've done quite a few of those from the other end of the alphabet.
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I already started working in Spain a week ago. So far 5 vacationed, 1 closed, 2 rejections and I think 2 reactivated.
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Mosca, That's great! thanks for the update
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Hello there, I live in Italy and I'd like to help this group, but I have not many points left - what can I do?
would listing inactive accounts ( say, 365+ days ) suffice?
should I open a new thread for this? thanks in advance for the help!
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Update on Spain: so far 2 accounts closed, 3 reactivated/mooched from, 16 vacationed.
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@MarchRose,
Thanks for your offer of help. I sent you some points so you can mooch from at least some of the "my country only" or "ask first" accounts. A couple of us are mooching internationally so we can take care of any "worldwide" accounts. If you know any other moochers in Italy that you can ask to help as well, that would be great.
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@ Cara thanks! I sent you a message through a private email but I repeat my question here, should it help somebody else: what shall I do now? try to mooch from some of these inactive accounts, then cancelling the mooch if the user does not reply? is this enough? shall I check first the "only to my country" accounts?
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@MarchRose You have heard this privately from Cara, but posting in case anyone else has the same question. To vacation accounts you request a mooch and then you must wait a full 7 days (note that the time displayed on your pending page is US Pacific time). Use the reason: Owner never responded when you cancel and that will trigger Bookmooch to put the account on vacation. Thanks for joining us, glad to have you helping out! -Kerry-
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@ Kerry thanks for the explanation! I'll start with the ones I just listed, let's see what happens... Just one more thing, what if an account is "temporarily on hold"?
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If an account is on hold, then you should not be able to mooch from it, but there also should be no inventory showing, at least that's what I think? I would hold that one back. maybe someone else knows for sure. One other thing, it would be helpful if you can go back and edit your post to remove a accounts you have mooched from, so we are not duplicating our efforts. Let me know if you need instructions on how to do this.
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My thought in that case would be to ignore accounts on hold and concentrate on inactive members only.
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thanks to everybody for the suggestions and help.
I updated the previous comment indicating the accounts I'm working on.One of my request already bounced back, that is there was a mail delivery failure, reason: "mailbox unavailable". What to do in these cases? wait for the 7 days and then cancel the mooch request, or something else?
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@MarchRose, Yes, wait the 7 days and cancel with "did not respond" as the reason, but add an extra note feedback section in the cancellation email about the bounced email. If they do come back they will see that in the feedback and possibly fix the problem.
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Lynn,
Could you start with any of the E.U. countries that are not already looked at (ie Spain, Italy, France and Germany)? Debbie S. has done some in Belgium but I don't know if any more need mooching. We really need more people helping with the "my country only" people in these various countries. Although the U.S. and U.K. are the two most populous, with Canada third and we have people chipping away at those. thanks!
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@vivir Thanks! I'll update Finland in the list.
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We could still use help with the countries listed above. Anyone who wants to grab one that hasn't been started and start listing inactives that would be a help. thanks!
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I looked at Columbia and posted a list in a new thread.
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Honduras has one (new) member who has not visited the site in 536 days:  alfredo. 1 book.
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Chile is also posted in a separate thread.
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HI thanks for posting this Robin, I had a hard time finding this forum thread. THANK YOU so much for the additional points, I will use them to mooch from other inactive accounts right away. The list of Austrian inactive accounts is here: http://bookmooch.com/m/thread/inactive_accounts_cleanup_project/5 I am really shocked that one book I mooched from an inactive account not an hour ago is already IN THE MAIL! :-D
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I could check out some of the Portuguese moochers. I don't think anyone has volunteered for Portugal yet, right? I do have to be careful of my mooch ratio though.
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@Xeyra Yes please, if you could look at Portugal that would be great, post any accounts you can't mooch from in a separate thread or in the inactive accounts that need mooching thread.
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Whoa, there are a lot of inactive moochers in Portugal (>100 days). So far I've mooched from 8 but I left more than double of that unmooched so far and I'm still halfway! I did get an e-mail reply from one of the inactive moochers willing to send the book I asked for.
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That's good advice, Robin. I'll probably watch who I mooch from and let you guys know of all the others I find.
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I got an email from Cara about this, and while I would like to help, I have some quibbles over if this is a good idea. think a lot of the bookmoochers listed in Portugal have just one book listed, they have no option being inactive for a long time till somebody mooches that book from them - and even then they might be willing to send. I know some of the bookmoochers from your list, I have no reason to think they would not send the one book they have listed if somebody mooched. Also, I think it would be a better idea to just email these users before mooching. Some of these people might perfectly well love to send me their one book if I mooch it, and I really do not want to spend points randomly like that or get unnecessary cancellations on my stats. Plus I do not see the point - imagine somebody has one book only listed for dunno 500 days and has not checked site since then. BUT if somebody mooches it they will send it - it surely is better for BM to keep that book listed for somebody who might really want it!
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I totally see T's point as I am having similar qualms ;-), however have proceeded anyway to help with the inactive accounts cleanup. I think these are all good questions, though. I have done this for only 2 days or so, mooched from 15 or so inactive accounts and heard back promptly (within 24 hrs) from 3 of them. Out of these I have received 2 books already!!! I may be in for a surprise but I don't expect to hear from most of the others, many who have one book-accounts. I think many of these are "trial" accounts by people who just want to try out bookmooch - they list a book, see what happens - nothing does - so they forget about it. I also wonder whether the 1-book accounts are the ones we should really be tackling - maybe the ones who have 20+ books in their inventories are really the ones we should try to reactivate? As for books we don't want: I am passing them on to people I know who want them, or dropping them off at the local flea market. Best of all would be to relist them in our inventories so we can get them to circulate again. Limited points for this exercise as well as unnecessary cancellations on stats is an issue for me as well. I am not sure what can be done about this. Without the help of other bookmoochers here who have smooched me points for this purpose I wouldn't have been able to do this, either. :-)
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I think you raise some good points T. I have been thinking about the many "trial" accounts I have been finding, especially in non-US accounts, and I think it is a puzzle. The thing for me is that those people who have added one book to their inventory and then walked away, waiting to see what happens are unlikely ever to get a mooch unless their book is unique and is the only copy. If there are other options, most people will mooch from someone with a history and/or someone who has been active more recently. So, I think it is a valuable thing for us to make an attempt at gaining their interest in Bookmooch by mooching that one book and giving them a point to play with (or three points in some cases if you are willing). The longer they sit inactive the less chance they will get a mooch and the greater the chance they will forget their passwords and about the site. Of course, not all of these folks will become active, but maybe a small percentage will find other books to give and get. There is no way to know in advance. But for me, I do think it's worth a try. And if they don't become active after sending one book then at least that book is in an inventory where it is more likely to be mooched. If that makes sense.
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I agree Kerry. When making lists of accounts that need mooching I usually don't list the one book accounts, feeling the others are a higher priority. But in a future round of this project, trying to entice those people to join in would be nice. Perhaps an initial email for those people to see if you could get them to reactive their accounts would be a good strategy. I'm afraid we have been blitzing all the accounts in all the countries we could as fast as we could just to clear up a few years worth of inactive accounts. As this project proceeds in the future, after this initial push is done, I think we could take a more thoughtful and encouraging approach. That's one of the reasons I started the Newbie Introductions thread in the Newbie forum, in the hopes of giving some people who are just "sticking their toe in the water" a positive first experience. Also, if anyone needs some points, please email me off list and I would be happy to send some to you to help with this project.
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What about only trying to mark as inactive accounts where moocher has several books, and there is an history on their page of ignoring mooches - i.e. on the past books got mooched and eventually the moocher cancelled. Because frankly if somebody logged in, listed a book 500 days ago, and has not been around since because nobody mooch it, I do not want to go bother them or tell them they should have to do anything. So the account is marked as potentially inactive, but I do not see that being a problem. Anybody mooching is warned of it and they can make their own choices.I If the "pruning" was about people on whose histories have cancelled requests, as a last transaction and have not been on site for a while. If that is so, I can help. But I am not going to email or mooch books out of the blue just so it there are less "inactive" people, because I do not think being inactive is a problem. Ignoring requests is, being inactive no.
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My 2 cents is that I think everyone should be able to participate in the project under their own terms and in a way that makes them feel comfortable. Also, not participating is perfectly fine too. What I would not like is narrowing the criteria too far for everyone. My solution so far is to post as much information as I can about each member I list for mooching, so others can decide whether they are willing to address that account or not. That way, it seems to me, everyone can participate based on their own view of what they would like to see change. if some accounts are left inactive this round, then so be it. But by providing information people can pick and choose accounts that they feel better about addressing. That being said, I am not sure that I want or need the extra step of delving into points histories, as that is not really relevant to my criteria. But I will do so if enough people think it is a good idea.
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T, I see your point, but as far as I am understanding this whole thing - and I haven't followed this to great detail - the high number of inactives on bookmooch apparently IS a problem. As far as I'm understanding this, it is a problem that affects the overall health of bookmooch. It's related to the wishlist-problem and why many of us don't receive emails of our wishlisted books: inactive accounts clutter up wishlists. Newbies think they can't ever get a wishlisted book or wonder why no one mooches an apparently highly wishlisted book - and give up. Without newbies, bookmooch stagnates, etc. It's all sort of linked together. Also, the real number of moochable books is skewed because of the inventories of inactive accounts. BM says there are 20 copies of say, Wuthering Heights available, but out of those 20, 19 are inactive because they have set up "trial" one-book accounts and then gave up .... They might or might not send those books, true. We won't know unless we try to mooch from them. You are assuming that many inactives are, in fact, willing to send: this is good, I like optimists :-) But fact of the matter is that we won't know whether they will really send a book unless we actually mooch from them. Not sure whether we can conclude from people's histories whether they will send me a book NOW: their circumstances have probably changed in the meantime, so who knows what prompted them in the past to ignore mooches. For example, I have had one send me a book in 24 hrs, but they are showing cancelled mooches in their history - because of ignored requests. So their history doesn't really say much about their willingness to send NOW. Other people are doing a better job at explaining the whole issue of inactive accounts and why this is a problem here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/112693
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Kerry, as you said in the FAQ this was created by the community of Bookmooch members who have embarked on a project to identify and if possible, reactivate inactive accounts. I think the operative word is reactivate. As much as I really don't want to get another copy of a Dan Brown or John Grisham book I am actually happy when my mooch request results in an acceptance. I don't think mooching from Bookmooch accounts can be a negative, regardless of your motivation to do so. You are giving someone else points that they will hopefully use to mooch books and keep the Bookmooch economy moving and hopefully encouraging someone to participate more fully in Bookmooch. I don't look at this activity as punitive or somehow policing other people's accounts. If I do end up canceling and vacation an account, I always include a note explaining how they can reactivate their account and encouraging them to do so.
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I know for sure that some people listed, at least in my country, are willing to send books. Just happened. Giving points to other bookmoochers, I think I prefer to decide that for myself how to spend my points on a book-per-book basis. And for me, and maybe a few other people, spending money sending books that will not be read does not make much logical or environmental sense.
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Of course you can decide for yourself how to spend your Bookmooch points. I don't think anyone is trying to force you to participate. If you are not interested, then that is your prerogative. But I appreciate you raising the issues, it is always good to hear other perspectives.
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T, I see your point, especially concerning some of the people we both know who are in the list as inactives, and I do agree. I did make the list of all inactives, including those with only 1 book, but I noted that a lot of these have mostly hand-entered portuguese language books, which I'm not sure are really that problematic in terms of inactive inventory because there's not a lot of search for those (and I'm not sure you get notifications on hand-entered books). I think the suggestion about only trying to vacation accounts from those with more than one books and/or a history of ignoring mooches is a good idea, at least so far as it concerns countries where the inventories contain a lot of non-english books whose ISBNs aren't on the amazon database and so are probably hand-entered. I did mooch from a few of the portuguese inactive accounts because they had one book I would like to read (but wouldn't have mooched for 2-3 points internationally) and got two nice replies from a couple of moochers. I don't know, for every person you may have to vacation, finding someone who comes back to bookmooch would be a nice end result.
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An update from Spain: After several dozen accounts vacationed, closed or reactivated, there are around 10 left now under 200 pts., hoping to finish over the next couple of weeks.
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I just checked Pakistan. Not ONE of the 33 members has been online in over 100 days, and 99% have been away at least three years. I mooched from one who was set to worldwide, but we don't even have any active Pakistani readers to help with those set to "my country only." I'll go work on some more of the Pakistani ones. (English is their universal second language.) Unfortunately, most of them will probably be obsolete computer books. :-)
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Robin,
Maybe one of the Pakistan members one of us mooches from will become an active member?
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I think you can take New Zealand off the list, we have mooched from all their inactive members now.
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I'm starting to look at Ireland now the UK has been completed.
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This is beginning to look quite hopeful! Good work everyone. I've got at least one angel from Japan on the case as well.
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Austria is COMPLETED: 11 vacationed and 4 reactivated (from a total of 58 bookmoochers).
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@Kalise Well done! thanks for letting us know
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HI Stephanie, thanks for explaining and Yes, it makes sense that wishlists still show up in inactive accounts & that they still get emails about them, it might prompt them to return, after all. BUT what about this issue of books on OUR wishlists that show up as available though the owners have long left bookmooch (so the books aren't really available after all). That, to me, is a "wishlist problem," because I can't get a wishlisted book that on my wishlist appears as available. Maybe the "problem of identifying the total number of **truly** moochable books" is a more accurate way of saying this, though it's a mouthful. On the other hand we never know, do we? Some apparently hopeless inactives might send the book after all. (Out of 11, 4 sent. That's good. Or bad? Is the glass half full or half empty?) :-)
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I have just finished the over 200s in Spain. I'll keep an eye from now on. Sadly, most of them did not respond...
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Well done Mosca, thanks for letting us know. I am feeling a bit sad about the results in Canada too. Vacationed lots and lots of folks. Got a few friendly lovely responses and a couple of lovely books, but mostly no response. It's sad.
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I took a quick look at India - there are 260 members listed, the majority of whom have 1-5 books, many with 1 book and .1 points, so you pretty much know they listed one book and it was never requested -- several I looked at were over 1000 days. I actually stuck my neck out and mooched from two that were set to worldwide; unfortunately most are not. Several I opened have just one old computer or otherwise not desirable book. Most do not even have a wishlisted book.
I was thinking that if we can't mooch from a "ask/my country only" member, maybe sending an email would help - either to activate the account (only slim chance, I know) or to get the member to close it. I would bet that many have completely forgotten about ever entering it.
There is the problem that with the BM email system, we have no way to track emails have been sent -- by whom or to whom.
Any thoughts ?
This is why I do wish there was a BM policy of sending email as a reminder- not a threat, just a reminder - after a long period of inactivity.
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The list is getting shorter;)
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I just mooched from kati in Israel  Kati
will update when I receive a reply.
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Yeah Tamar, thanks!
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updating the list;)
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I just vacationed Kati
and I see rafaela is already vacationed- so I guess Israel is complete.
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I'm going to work on India next, I think. Anyone else want to pick a country?
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Went through Hong Kong since it was small. None I could mooch from as most are set to 'my country only' or 'ask first. I started a new thread for Hong Kong with an email I sent out.
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How about this for a radical idea? If you can "ask first" you do that, and then if you get no response in 6 days, go ahead and mooch, using MarchRose's version of the letter in the comments. As a former "ask first" person, I know you don't actually have to wait for are response to be able to mooch after you've asked. You are risking 3 points on the transaction, but you will be able to vacation the account in a week. What do people think? Is this too unethical? Or pushy;)
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Wow, it never occured to me that you could do that. When/if I get some of my points back I may start doing that - it will certainly help clear up some of the accounts where we don't have angels to help. I personally don't see a problem in doing it, as the accounts we are working on are long time inactive and it's very easy for a member to un-vacate themself.
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I'll find an hour or so tomorrow to go through the Philippines and do a list.
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I can work on Singapore. I've not been following this much, but what do I do if they accept the mooch?
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BTW, Spain was finished a couple of weeks ago.
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@Heok Hee Thank you, that would be great! Yes, just mooch from any accounts that have been inactive for 200 days or one year or whatever date you set and then cancel the mooch after 7 days using "owner did not respond" as the reason.
@Mosca. Oh right, I forgot. Thanks for reminding me, I'll fix that.
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@Heok Hee sorry, you can put a note in the comments when you mooch explaining that you are working on this project and asking that they get in contact with you. That way, they may just reject the mooch themselves, or you can cancel if it is a book you do not want once they have contacted you. Many of us have put a note in our bio's explaining what we are doing and why we have so many cancelations on our accounts.
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I'm back from vacation, and fresh with 160 points! I've cleared up old, obsolete messages, and I see that we've been working hard on foreign accounts. I liked the "ask first" then "mooch" idea...has that helped much? Has anybody tracked where we're at for things, anybody heard anything more from John or the admins? Cara, have you tried any more of our little trick? It seemed to work well, and I'm open to working on that. Hi Everybody!!
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Robin.
I've had astounding luck finding local moochers in all the countries except the one we were talking about before. Most everyone I have asked has been delighted to help. Also, the clever idea of contacting people with stale pendings and asking them to cancel as helped some too. We've been able to get so many countries started or done. Things are moving along swimmingly.
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Any updates? Any more countries I can move from Started to Done?
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South Africa and Malaysia are completed.
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Also Vivir has stated that Finland is done.
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France done and dusted ages ago.
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I didn't even put France the list since I knew you had jumped in there and finished it right away;) I'll update the others.
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