How should I handle nonposting members?

This is a problem with every forum. You'll always get people who sign up and not post much - if anything.

Obviously, you need content and to have content, you need active members. You may want to try putting in some content in there yourself to begin with. Try starting up some discussions relevant to your forum's topic/genre etc.

Regarding this: "I'd like opinions on whether I should deactivate nonposting members, delete them, just leave them (though it looks terrible on the Membership List to see all the names with ZERO posts), or how you handle this?"
it may not be a good idea to deactivate or delete non posting members. because they are not enough motivated to post. so provide some motivation for them. make it more useful for them.

It's like a school dance, boys on one side, girls on another, both too shy to approach the other. Some incentive would help but then they could go back to their sides once incentive has gone.
Trying to find the answer yourself can often be tough, so why try, why not ask a unrelated question that could answer your one. ask questions to get your members involved (not sure what), but you will always have the ones that never say boo, and always the ones that never shut up. I think the worse thing that can happen is the forums becoming a social group, these are very hard for newbies to get into as they feel small and uninteresting

I've signed up on several forums just so I can read the members only bits (no intention of posting), kinda weird why a lot of people have member only sections that don't need to be.

Absolutely the right thing to do here is to contact them. Send out a group email telling them some information and asking them to revisit the site. I have a rugby forum and regularly email out a newsletter. Not on a set basis, but as a gentle nudge to them. An Ideal way is to pick some popular threads, and write a hook about it. eg

Inertnet Explorer, Firefox Opera or another. Make your vote count, and battle for your browser on this thread the-forum-thread-address here.............

Don't you just hate cats? horrible fluffy good for nothings. or do you love em? are you a Meower or a barker? thread-here-.................

Coax them not punish them. every email out should bring a handfull back who might post if they like what they see.

This has been the problem with a lot of forums. You won't find forums with a big percentage of active members. You'll need to offer some sort of an incentive to active members or run contests. Also allow non registered members to view the posts rather than just the categories.

Good point Etech-Peter. and something many people overlook. If you are preventing guests from viewing the content, then you are also preventing the site from getting spidered.

Just to add to it, I think the root cause of your problem of inactive members is you do not allow non registered members to view the posts, so to view the quality of posts in your forum they may be registering and then if it doesn't interest them they leave. This leaves your forum with a lot of inactive members.

the trouble is there are a LOT of people who just like reading other's posts for information but not posting anything. these people coud still click ads on your site.

yes, I meant to have posted that on my last post with regard my rugby forum. (scumv.co.uk ) if you look you will se there are only some 500 or so members, but in less than 2 years there are almost 200,000 posts. I regularly send out the newsletter asking people who are registered and do not want their acounts disabled to contact me. I now have notes on many accounts informing me that they read (and as pointed out click ads) but have no real wish to post. Occasionally they might make the odd post but in no great measure.

Yeah. Agreed, as frustrating as it is don't delete any user accounts. It sends a different type of message than asking for participation. The newsletter thing is a good idea.

its actually a weird online trend, reading and not posting. but in the real world we can listen to our friend talk about something we don't really know much about and not join in. we listen to learn. its the same thing online, and they still have an interest so they click ads.