152,113 users. Wow! If I'm not mistaken, I seem to remember seeing the number of users decrease slightly once in a while. If so, what is the reason for this? Do inactive accounts get deleted after some time?

Just a guess, but I suspect that you may be referring to the number of users currently logged in rather than the total number of members. As far as accounts being deleted, I believe the answer is No, they don't get deleted. There are 2 reasons for this, first, it would be unfair to people have limited spare time and can only visit LQ infrequently, and secondly, in terms of database integrity, removing user ID's would also require removing their posts, which would cause some threads to look like Swiss cheese. So, at least to my knowledge, No, user accounts do not get deleted (which is the same policy LQ takes with posts). Personally, my view is that the only reason to 86 someone would be if they had deliberately and repeatedly done things that were seriously out of line, and to my knowledge that (fortunately) pretty much never happens. -- J.W.

thank you for the response. i wasn't referring to the number of users online, but rather to the total number of users registered -- so, my impression was incorrect. this brings up an interesting question, in that case: out of these 150,000 of so registered users, how many are still "active", say, in the way of having logged in at least once the last six months? just a rhetorical question.

Inactive users who have 0 posts are pruned periodically (so you are correct, you have seen the number of registered users drop).

--jeremy

Good to know. Thank you very much, Jeremy.

Likewise, thanks for the clarification, sorry if my comments caused any confusion -- J.W.