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Having browsed through the "top 50" user profiles, I noted that quite a few of them haven't visited the website in a while, some even in years.

Whilst it's understandable that many people change their interests over time and some just naturally move on due to time constraints, etc, it would still be valuable for the site if some of these high-rep users made even an occasional contribution sometimes.

Can we think of any ways that some of these users could be brought back to at least semi-active participation?

Here are some of my own thoughts, please share yours if you can think of any, and perhaps some of these could then be implemented?

  • Reminder email once per 6-months (or once per year), along the lines of: "We miss your contribution, and would love to see you back on Quant SE. Here are the 5 highest rated questions and 5 highest rated answers over the past year whilst you've been gone" (perhaps at least the user would be interested in clicking on the linked questions & answers, and this could bring some interest back. Of course, the user could unsubscribe...)

  • Some sort of badge: I know there is the silver badge if you're active with at least 200 rep. But what about something like a badge , if someone with rep > 5K (or something similar) goes inactive for a year and then comes back and makes a contribution >1K ?

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    $\begingroup$ For what it's worth, I very much like and support both ideas! $\endgroup$
    – Kevin
    Mar 22, 2021 at 19:03
  • $\begingroup$ I would first try to find out why that person left in the first place. Might give great insight as to what community needs to do to retain members. $\endgroup$
    – Ralph Winters
    May 11, 2022 at 15:31

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I don't think SE has this feature:

Users with sufficient reputation should be able to forward posted questions to either other SE users, or to arbitrary e-mail addresses, with an invitation to answer, and a personal note.

(There should be reasonable limits on the number of forwards per week, the ability of the recipients to block these e-mails, etc.)

So, for example, you see a question, how does one price a LIBOR range accrual after transition to SOFR, and no good answers, you could forward it to userNNN who you think might know the answer; and to your buddy who, as far as you know, doesn't use SE yet.

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    $\begingroup$ I like this proposal. It is somewhat orthogonal to bringing dormant users back, but there is a bit of an intersection, in that it's a way of keeping active higher-rep users engaged directly by other high-rep users. I'd say 3 forwards per week could work as the right balance (with no carry forward)? $\endgroup$
    – Jan Stuller
    Mar 25, 2021 at 7:46
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    $\begingroup$ I forwarded a recently posted question to a fdound who I hope willl respond :) $\endgroup$
    – Dimitri Vulis
    Mar 26, 2021 at 20:14

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