Account Deletion

[Lisa 5,553]

Not that I'm thinking of never coming back to these forums - no, I love this forum. But, I was wondering why there was never an option to delete your own account.

[Princess Periwinkle 3,778]

Because it's rather pointless, and only creates complications should the user have a change of heart and decide to come back.

[BonkTot 111]

This is what Feld0 said on This thread about this question posed.

 

"We will not delete your account because you cannot bring yourself to get off the site. That's a personal problem that goes well beyond the scope of the admins' responsibilities to you as staff, and is up to you to resolve. Learn a bit of self-control.

Besides that, Kyro said it all. I've seen it happen on other forums that someone ragequits the site and asks for their account to be deleted, only to return the following week but with all of their content dissociated from their new account. A variety of logged information is also associated with each account that can be extremely useful to staff at times, which we generally do not want to lose."

 

 

Hope this answers you.

[Justin ZW 396]

I can understand this, coming from a wiki. Basically, if you delete an account from a database, the posts made by the account will have nothing to link to. Usually, this might not matter, but there is actually a pretty good chance that this will cause all sorts of database errors which can crash a website. That's why account deletion is generally not an option.

 

Plus, it's just all kinds of server strain to actually change the author of the posts to avoid such errors, especially if said member had a lot of posts.

[Swoop 2,279]

There are a few reasons why we refrain from deleting member accounts:

• Deleting an account would entail the removal of the member's topics, posts and blog entries. An action that could likely leave large gaps in the flow of conversations, or if the member happens to be the OP of a topic, potentially remove an entire thread.

• Generally, those who wish to have their accounts deleted, are the ones who end up returning at a later date. While this is not always the case, we've had members mark their return the the forums after weeks, months, or even over a year of absence. It's much simpler for us to leave inactive accounts intact, than it is for us to encounter a member who wishes to return after having their entire history here wiped.

• Most users wish to have their accounts deleted due to privacy concerns. Given that members are capable of changing all the information listed on their profile, in addition to their display name and log-in information, we are of the opinion that members are able to sufficiently cover their tracks if need be. It's also worth noting that we're often happy to oblige if a member wishes to have a specific post or thread of theirs removed due to personal matters (within reason of course).

• From an administrative perspective, it's of benefit for us to take a conservative approach to removing member content – you never know what information may be of use when dealing with issues in the future. 

I hope this clears things up for you.