I have a problem with the following:
Terms of Use
3 e You may cease being a participant on the WCG Site or any WCG Projects at any time for any reason or no reason at all. If you cease your participation in WCG, your member name will be deactivated (so you cannot access the site anymore), but your User Content (associated with your member name) will remain on the Site visible to other participants. IBM may, if it so chooses, archive and retain copies of your User Content. In addition, IBM and other participants may continue to use User Content as provided in Section 3.b and 3.d above.

I stopped participating in this endeavor quite some time ago. I had to stop my efforts with WCG for a number years. Then I came back into the fold, so to speak and started new projects.

My point for this post is that if I could not use my old member name I would be running SETI or something else right now.

What is the benefit of removing one's member name and having to start all over again?
Is this retribution for not "giving us your free computer time" or what?

I don't think I have to remind you that you are the only game in town.

I could say more about this but I"ll see what response I get first. If I seem a bit disturbed by this, it is because I have put a lot effort into this entity to help make it successful.

I would worry a little as this may just be the first step, in a series of steps, to be able to start deactivating member names and cleaning up the database....

I asked this question back in July and this was the reply from jhindo:

I think it would be fair to to assume that this policy would be implemented carefully and judiciously, and not to be aggressive. I was satisfied with her answer as this appears to be more of a way to eliminate dead accounts from their system where no contact has occurred for years. If you are ever concerned, you could always post something in one of the threads, such as "What are you listening to"? to let them know you are still around. Just a guess on my part but appears to be reasonable way to let them know you are still present.

That clause is certainly not intended to penalize volunteers who have stopped contributing, but more of an option for us to (for example) clean up our database. To my knowledge, we have never exercised that option. Should we need to, I would first want to contact the volunteer in question to confirm their intention to stop contributing permanently before taking such a drastic measure.

Echo4, as noted earlier in this thread, we haven't defined the exact criteria but it would probably be complete lack of *any* kind of activity, for an extended period of time.