geekhack
Site Announcements and Feedback => Announcements/Feedback/Suggestions => Topic started by: labtexc on Fri, 30 May 2014, 03:15:14
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Hi,
i did not find any option to delete my account within the user control settings.
Please delete my account!
Thanks!
Best regards,
labtexc
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We're sorry to see you go - is there any particular reason?
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Hi,
No, my interests have changed - that's all. :)
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Have you contacted a mod/admin? I'm sure they'll help you out.
Current admins online are mkawa and rknize, try PMing one of them.
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I don't think GH accounts gets deleted, unless it's under special circumstances.
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I don't think GH accounts gets deleted, unless it's under special circumstances.
This was my impression as well.
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You can always delete all your posts, change all your info and change your password to something random. Not sure why erasing your username off this site is going to give you closure.
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You can always delete all your posts, change all your info and change your password to something random. Not sure why erasing your username off this site is going to give you closure.
That sounds like a PITA. You should be able to request that you account be deleted.
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http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=43642.0 (http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=43642.0)
Unless things have changed they don't delete accounts anymore.
There was another thread but I can't find it where I'm pretty sure some technical reasons were given about why it is a bad idea to delete accounts.
I guess it really depends on the account how big a hole would be left if your entire forum existence was disappeared, for as many people as would probably celebrate if all my ramblings were deleted it would make for some confusion no doubt.
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we do not delete accounts here. it creates a big mess in the post database.
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Why do you even need it deleted?
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http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=43642.0 (http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=43642.0)
Unless things have changed they don't delete accounts anymore.
There was another thread but I can't find it where I'm pretty sure some technical reasons were given about why it is a bad idea to delete accounts.
I guess it really depends on the account how big a hole would be left if your entire forum existence was disappeared, for as many people as would probably celebrate if all my ramblings were deleted it would make for some confusion no doubt.
Jejeje! coolness, you just cannot disappear on us Mr. Ray... We may hunt you.
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we do not delete accounts here. it creates a big mess in the post database.
Sorry but if an deleted account messes up the post database, then you use some really crappy forum software.
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we do not delete accounts here. it creates a big mess in the post database.
Sorry but if an deleted account messes up the post database, then you use some really crappy forum software.
> Simple Machines
> Crappy
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we do not delete accounts here. it creates a big mess in the post database.
Sorry but if an deleted account messes up the post database, then you use some really crappy forum software.
Shame if you want your account deleted admins should agree, because in the EU now you have a right for Google to delete any data relating to yourself so that you remain untouched on the internet :thumb: .
Plus most other forums allow full deletion of your account when you request it, they have no right to hold onto your details whatsoever. That's unless Geekhack has to hold onto all of your information for NSA and other US Government agencies to spy upon everyone's posts for future investigations 8) .
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we do not delete accounts here. it creates a big mess in the post database.
Sorry but if an deleted account messes up the post database, then you use some really crappy forum software.
Shame if you want your account deleted admins should agree, because in the EU now you have a right for Google to delete any data relating to yourself so that you remain untouched on the internet :thumb: .
Plus most other forums allow full deletion of your account when you request it, they have no right to hold onto your details whatsoever.
We can permanently ban you instead, if you'd like?
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We can permanently ban you instead, if you'd like?
Then do it....... :thumb: .
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we do not delete accounts here. it creates a big mess in the post database.
Unless your ripster :))
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we do not delete accounts here. it creates a big mess in the post database.
Unless your ripster :))
Unless my ripster what? Whines about geekwhack on the Internet?
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we do not delete accounts here. it creates a big mess in the post database.
Unless your ripster :))
Unless my ripster what? Whines about geekwhack on the Internet?
I thought his account and all posts got deleted?
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we also don't hand out bans on request.
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we also don't hand out bans on request.
So what does a person have to do to get PERMANENTLY banned, deleted and abolished out of Geekhack forever?
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we also don't hand out bans on request.
So what does a person have to do to get PERMANENTLY banned, deleted and abolished out of Geekhack forever?
That should be pretty obvious from some recent members who are not here currently.....
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we also don't hand out bans on request.
So what does a person have to do to get PERMANENTLY banned, deleted and abolished out of Geekhack forever?
That should be pretty obvious from some recent members who are not here currently.....
So this place operates like some kind of ridiculous grade-school, you have to pester a good deal of people before you get axed. Very immature and stupid to say the least because most people here are okay and the rest don't bother me in any way. Again, a stupid policy enacted by admins for their own enjoyment to see how they can get someone to react ridiculously, just to be kicked off. More to do with the admins own failure as 'decent people' rather than being mature and respecting someone's own decisions to leave here on their own terms.
Why not join the rest of the net and offer a simple "request to terminate account" like with any other forum, why is that so difficult to implement here for 2014 and who will it offend?
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So this place operates like some kind of ridiculous grade-school,
This has been my experience with a lot of forums. Moderators/admins on power trips.
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i don't really understand. if you don't want to be able to use the forum, then please just exercise your own ability to stop using the forum. it's completely contrary to any variant of reason that us _not banning you_ could be some kind of abuse of power on our part.
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pretty sure he's just asking you nicely to delete his account
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Elrick, are you on drugs? Show me another discussion board that has a user-facing "delete account and all posts" option. Even without the back-end issues that mkawa mentioned, your posts are part of the continuity on hundreds of threads. Mass post removal is a last resort option that only happens when absolutely necessary. It definitely does not happen because you are bored with keyboards or had an argument with someone.
If you want to leave, then leave. Change your password to random text if it helps. We almost never permaban people. The people that ray is referring (demik and MW I guess?) are temp-banned, and if they don't come back when their bans expire, it will be because they chose not to.
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pretty sure he's just asking you nicely to delete his account
Pretty sure he's responding to Elrick, who is pretty hostile.
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pretty sure he's just asking you nicely to delete his account
Pretty sure he's responding to Elrick, who is pretty hostile.
Pretty sure Elrick's hostility could have been avoided if he just deleted OP's account like they asked.
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pretty sure he's just asking you nicely to delete his account
Pretty sure he's responding to Elrick, who is pretty hostile.
Pretty sure Elrick's hostility could have been avoided if he just deleted OP's account like they asked.
Pretty sure you don't know Elrick very well.
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pretty sure he's just asking you nicely to delete his account
Pretty sure he's responding to Elrick, who is pretty hostile.
Pretty sure Elrick's hostility could have been avoided if he just deleted OP's account like they asked.
Pretty sure you don't know Elrick very well.
I'm pretty sure too!
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Elrick, are you on drugs? Show me another discussion board that has a user-facing "delete account and all posts" option. Even without the back-end issues that mkawa mentioned, your posts are part of the continuity on hundreds of threads. Mass post removal is a last resort option that only happens when absolutely necessary. It definitely does not happen because you are bored with keyboards or had an argument with someone.
If you want to leave, then leave. Change your password to random text if it helps. We almost never permaban people. The people that ray is referring (demik and MW I guess?) are temp-banned, and if they don't come back when their bans expire, it will be because they chose not to.
Who said "delete my post"?
Delete my account! I dont care about any posts.
Search and replace my username with "guest" - there is forum software out there that can perfom this simple thing since '98.
I know a lot of forums where the user is able to delete his account (account, not posts!) himself in the control center. I dont get whats the problem?
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Elrick, are you on drugs? Show me another discussion board that has a user-facing "delete account and all posts" option. Even without the back-end issues that mkawa mentioned, your posts are part of the continuity on hundreds of threads. Mass post removal is a last resort option that only happens when absolutely necessary. It definitely does not happen because you are bored with keyboards or had an argument with someone.
If you want to leave, then leave. Change your password to random text if it helps. We almost never permaban people. The people that ray is referring (demik and MW I guess?) are temp-banned, and if they don't come back when their bans expire, it will be because they chose not to.
Who said "delete my post"?
Delete my account! I dont care about any posts.
Search and replace my username with "guest" - there is forum software out there that can perfom this simple thing since '98.
I know a lot of forums where the user is able to delete his account (account, not posts!) himself in the control center. I dont get whats the problem?
is your geekhack account going to haunt you in your sleep? maybe you should see a psychiatrist.
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nobody asked about your opinion. why are you posting in threads of other people? maybe you should see a psychiatrist.
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Why are you posting at all? I thought you were quitting geekhack? :p
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Just to be clear, I've been responding to Elrick and his idiotic rants. A fool's errand, I know.
labtexc, you have your answer ("we don't do that"). Changing posts to "guest" is only marginally better than deletion in terms of maintaining thread coherence and continuity.
Can I ask why you care so much? What's wrong with just not using the forum anymore?
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Isn't it in almost every forum that accounts will not be deleted, but renamed, post content deleted, password changed and things like that?
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Isn't it in almost every forum that accounts will not be deleted, but renamed, post content deleted, password changed and things like that?
It took me like 30 seconds tops to google "delete account on a forum", and find out almost all forum types have this feature, though it may be turned off by default and an admin must turn it on.
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I just said it's a common method in a lot of discussion boards not to delete accounts, but to rename them and delete personal user data. I think you also do not have to delete posts itself as long as they do not contain personal user data.
Thanks for your googeling info! Didn't know to search for 'delete account on a forum'.
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I knew r1pster likes to troll using his sock puppet accounts but I never knew they provide technical information to each other, that's a new one. :o
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Elrick, are you on drugs? Show me another discussion board that has a user-facing "delete account and all posts" option. Even without the back-end issues that mkawa mentioned, your posts are part of the continuity on hundreds of threads. Mass post removal is a last resort option that only happens when absolutely necessary. It definitely does not happen because you are bored with keyboards or had an argument with someone.
If you want to leave, then leave. Change your password to random text if it helps. We almost never permaban people. The people that ray is referring (demik and MW I guess?) are temp-banned, and if they don't come back when their bans expire, it will be because they chose not to.
Who said "delete my post"?
Delete my account! I dont care about any posts.
Search and replace my username with "guest" - there is forum software out there that can perfom this simple thing since '98.
I know a lot of forums where the user is able to delete his account (account, not posts!) himself in the control center. I dont get whats the problem?
If your account is deleted but the posts remain, who's mane should appear next to them?
That would leave orphaned records in the database.
Unless the account name was changed to "Deleted User 0001" or something.
Or the posts were deleted too, which is what I think the admins were getting at.
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Seems that the DB don't support foreign keys with cascade delete or update
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Seems that the DB don't support foreign keys with cascade delete or update
But even if it did - that would leave a lot (not that many in this case though) of threads with huge gaps.
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Okay, let me see if I can sum up this thread in a non-offensive manner.
Is it technically possible to delete an account? Yes.
Will it be done? No.
The administration team does not delete accounts because it would cause disruption to the community. If posts were deleted along with accounts, it would destroy the continuity of threads. If posts were not deleted, who do we attribute them to? A 'guest' user is one option, but what if multiple deleted accounts are present in the same thread? Hard to tell who said what, particularly if the two (or more!) interacted. It is possible to replace the username with something along the lines of "deleted user 00001" or some such, but at that point, how is it any better than just keeping the original username attached to the posts? If not having your username there is a huge concern to you, my suggestion is to see if you can get the admin team to do a username change.
The rest of the personal information in your profile can be deleted, changed or otherwise dealt with.
Now, you don't have a lot of posts, so you may feel that it's fair that your account be deleted, as it didn't have much impact on the community. But that sets a bad precedent for the admin team. It requires questions be answered, such as "how many posts are too many for an account to be deleted?" If an exception is made for one person, there will be three people tomorrow asking for the same thing. Rules are only useful if applied unilaterally, and it's no good to make an exception for anyone.
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Deleting accounts leads to "hide the evidence" style scams aswell. There are a lot of bad sittuations which can arrise if people are allowed to freely delete their accounts. Logfiles of their activity on this forum act as a vouch for legitimacy. If people delete their account then return wishing for it back later they will have to make a new account; which means new history.. they can leave themselves behind with no trace of their former account. If people have something to come back to it is much more healthy for the community. People are on paper one by one so less scams happen and the community is more connected.
--- Also deleting account = someone else can register your username. You may want to think about that one.
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Why not join the rest of the net and offer a simple "request to terminate account" like with any other forum, why is that so difficult to implement here for 2014 and who will it offend?
I'm a member of another (very large) forum that does not offer account deletion - permabans, yes, but not erasing every post from the forum.
I'm guessing the OP is using an alt account to post this? After all they only have 11 posts according to their profile, it would be easy enough to manually edit them all.
As for my take on it I do find it odd wanting to completely erase all posts as an anonymous poster on an internet forum. If there are specific posts that a user felt made them less anonymous they could always edit them (if indeed anonymity or regretting posting something was the issue). I'm curious what the reasoning behind such a choice would be otherwise.
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If people have something to come back to it is much more healthy for the community. People are on paper one by one so less scams happen and the community is more connected.
Do you really belive that?
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Seems that the DB don't support foreign keys with cascade delete or update
But even if it did - that would leave a lot (not that many in this case though) of threads with huge gaps.
If you update it in some "nobody" trash account you don't have gaps but just a ****ty mess you can live with if you want to.
But it's not worth imo.
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Agreed with most of you.
GH should not allow to delete an account.
Technical speaking, deleting an account is possible but it may lead to far more troubles than it seems to be.
Security - someone hack your account and delete it instantly. For example, someone are running a GB and their accounts have been deleted/renamed :blank: . It doesn't make sense.
Post sequence - the sequence of thread discussion will be totally destroyed. Even if a account has been deleted / renamed, there are still many quotes related to it. How to handle those quotes is a big messy question.
Performance - Cascade update / delete will lead to a slower forum performance. It may even require a difference db engine like MyISAM vs InnoDB engine.
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Just to be clear, I've been responding to Elrick and his idiotic rants. A fool's errand, I know.
So someone suggests something and you start calling them an Idiot. I suspect your own inept attempts to control people's criticism seems to show your own lack of etiquette in any case.
labtexc, you have your answer ("we don't do that"). Changing posts to "guest" is only marginally better than deletion in terms of maintaining thread coherence and continuity.
Can I ask why you care so much? What's wrong with just not using the forum anymore?
He wants to control his own account and having it deleted is his concern, not yours in any case. He isn't seeking your approval or recommendations, so why do you think that it's worth anything to him?
If you had the decency to allow his account deletion then do it, he doesn't need the shills or your mates berating him consistently for his decision here. It's more to do with his own freedom to choose, which you have proven to all here he doesn't have that. Don't make excuses as to why you can't do it because it's easily done but he doesn't need the typical nastiness from respondents here on this forum to make him feel horrible for even asking this question.
Of course I don't care what anyone's opinions are, except when it comes to removing someone's basic choice to do what they want with their own account here on Geekhack. Remember he didn't sign nor approve to have his account to be held indefinitely hence if he was in the United States he could have a lawful case against this establishment and I'm sure the general media would love to here about his particulars (if this place denies his original request).
Of course in the EU Geekhack would have no standing whatsoever when it comes to retaining accounts or any other details relating to forum users, more power to the EU :thumb: .
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Of course I don't care what anyone's opinions are, except when it comes to removing someone's basic choice to do what they want with their own account here on Geekhack. Remember he didn't sign nor approve to have his account to be held indefinitely hence if he was in the United States he could have a lawful case against this establishment and I'm sure the general media would love to here about his particulars (if this place denies his original request).
Doesn't the copyright on every post make it so they don't have to delete accounts?
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Remember he didn't sign nor approve to have his account to be held indefinitely hence if he was in the United States he could have a lawful case against this establishment and I'm sure the general media would love to here about his particulars (if this place denies his original request).
His account is not his property. Just because you are an account holder on the internet doesn't mean you own the rights to the account legally. Due to that and many othr things, you cant bring legality up in this; otherwise you just look foolish. Stick to what you do best; embellishing on injustice. Facebook accounts cannot be deleted. Do something about it. Google data will never be cleared. Do something about it. When you create an account on a page you are agreeing to publish whatever you put into the fields and configure it however you wish in your settings. If an admin wants to ban you and keep your account as a record of that ban then that is within their power. Not that it is the case here but I'm just saiya-jin.
And by the way, nobody was 'nasty' until the OP insulted the forum and the admins in his retort about it being easy and having terrible forum software; then proceeded to demand his account be deleted.
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According to the TOS, messages posted to GH are the property of GH.
Now, the way I look at this, is that while the content of the message belongs to the user, the message and the space it occupies on the board belongs to the board, and in a way, to the community.
The user is free to remove his or her personal information from the account, that's entirely possible and not an issue. The non-personal information (the post contents) are by definition not personal information, and are not protected under any sort of personal information protection law. It is now community content, and removing it from the community would cause damage to the community, and there's no real reason to have the information removed in the first place.
If he's truly concerned about the privacy aspect of it, all the information can be removed from his profile without much trouble. He can even do it himself -- profiles are freely editable. He can then throw in a random string as his new password, and essentially brick the account to stop anyone else posting in his name. However, I feel that's rather excessive.
Despite this, it has been politely requested and politely denied, so I don't see why we're still arguing about it. Possibly because we've had some people being somewhat less than polite at this point? In any case, unless someone specifically addresses me again, I'm washing my hands of this thread. It's a job for the admin team.
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So someone suggests something and you start calling them an Idiot. I suspect your own inept attempts to control people's criticism seems to show your own lack of etiquette in any case.
[snip]
He wants to control his own account and having it deleted is his concern, not yours in any case. He isn't seeking your approval or recommendations, so why do you think that it's worth anything to him?
If you had the decency to allow his account deletion then do it, he doesn't need the shills or your mates berating him consistently for his decision here. It's more to do with his own freedom to choose, which you have proven to all here he doesn't have that. Don't make excuses as to why you can't do it because it's easily done but he doesn't need the typical nastiness from respondents here on this forum to make him feel horrible for even asking this question.
Of course I don't care what anyone's opinions are, except when it comes to removing someone's basic choice to do what they want with their own account here on Geekhack. Remember he didn't sign nor approve to have his account to be held indefinitely hence if he was in the United States he could have a lawful case against this establishment and I'm sure the general media would love to here about his particulars (if this place denies his original request).
Of course in the EU Geekhack would have no standing whatsoever when it comes to retaining accounts or any other details relating to forum users, more power to the EU :thumb: .
Elrick and his idiotic rants.
^^Thank you for demonstrating, yet again.
OP's question has been asked and answered. user 18 has summarized the situation very well. I'd still like to know why it's so important to have the account itself nuked, but in the end, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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OP's question has been asked and answered.
Time to lock this thread? ;)
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Case in point (if that is the right phrase): http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/ibm-key-does-not-click-any-more-t1063.html
The original post is "[Account and posts deleted on request]", so the first replace is totally without context.
The OP's other replies are also "[Account and posts deleted on request]" - so it's kinda like listening to only one half of a phone call.
Silly :p
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As i said ... i dont think deleteing posts is necessary (on the other hand, i could edit every post by myself) - but replacing the username with something like "guest" oder "deleted user (#0001)" and delete the account is from my point of view not a big deal.
but anyway ... thanks for all your feedback!
if you ever consider to change your opinion and start to delete account, dont froget mine ;)
Bye :)
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OP's question has been asked and answered. user 18 has summarized the situation very well. I'd still like to know why it's so important to have the account itself nuked, but in the end, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Playing devils advocate:
Many people inadvertently post a lot of personal information over time on a form that they are involved with. Having an option to nuke an account is peace of mind that you did not leave something silly up when you permanently leave a community. Also, it seems like it is a bit of a liability having a lot of accounts open that you do not use for security reasons. Many people unfortunately reuse login credentials across forums. If a user database is hacked, you are potentially exposed.
The loss of continuity seems like a bit of a stretch of an excuse. A very determined person can go back and replace all of their posts with "...", which will have the same effect as just having the post deleted. Also the loss of one post in a discussion doesn't necessarily mean major loss of continuity to any given discussion. Furthermore, it seems that in reality there is a s small fraction of past discussions where continuity in reality would really matter.
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Many people inadvertently post a lot of personal information over time on a form that they are involved with. Having an option to nuke an account is peace of mind that you did not leave something silly up when you permanently leave a community.
Again, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This is an internet discussion board. We've all done things to be embarrassed about in fits of nerd rage.
Also, it seems like it is a bit of a liability having a lot of accounts open that you do not use for security reasons. Many people unfortunately reuse login credentials across forums. If a user database is hacked, you are potentially exposed.
This is probably the best argument for account deletion or banning, though it is very easily mitigated. You can change your forum password to something random to effectively lock it and remove the threat to your other accounts, and you should be changing the passwords on those other accounts regularly anyway.
The loss of continuity seems like a bit of a stretch of an excuse. A very determined person can go back and replace all of their posts with "...", which will have the same effect as just having the post deleted. Also the loss of one post in a discussion doesn't necessarily mean major loss of continuity to any given discussion. Furthermore, it seems that in reality there is a s small fraction of past discussions where continuity in reality would really matter.
It's not a stretch at all. If we routinely mass-deleted posts, old threads would eventually become unreadable. It's one of those things where, yeah, for a single user it's no biggie but if we did it on request it would quickly become a biggie. So as a matter of policy we have to refuse because we definitely don't want to do it for everyone.
As i said ... i dont think deleteing posts is necessary (on the other hand, i could edit every post by myself) - but replacing the username with something like "guest" oder "deleted user (#0001)" and delete the account is from my point of view not a big deal.
but anyway ... thanks for all your feedback!
if you ever consider to change your opinion and start to delete account, dont froget mine ;)
Bye :)
Good luck in your new endeavors! :thumb: