Member Account Deletions

[Cierra]

Do you allow them? What's your process if so?

 

[Teg]

I have no control over whether or not a user deletes their account. That said, I will NOT delete an account at the request of a user. If they want to delete their own account that's fine. If a parent or guardian of a minor contacts myself or my team, I will remove the account immediately, otherwise I don't bother.

 

[Nebulous]

Do you allow them? What's your process if so?

Yeah, I'll delete someone's account if that's what they want.

Refusing to delete someone's account will result in a disgruntled person who may end up coming back to spam or troll your forum.

It's better to comply with their request and say something like "If you wish to return to the forum at some point in the future, feel free to make a new account" ...that way you can end things on good terms instead of possibly creating an enemy that you don't need.

 

[VirusZero]

I don't offer a way for users to delete their own accounts simply because I've been on other sites that did offer such a feature and whenever it was used it made a mess of things. Posts made by that deleted member were renamed guest (or whatever was the default) and it just looked bad. Plus when they rejoined they were unable to edit their older posts. (Deleting an account does not delete the posts...)

Granted this was another software/host... And sure I could fix that now by editing the sql... but I'm not going to even offer that because I don't want to have to go through the hassle in the first place.


As for deleting accounts, in general I don't like to once they've made even one non-spam post. I mean I've had people join then years later return. (EX- They upgraded to a new computer because the old one died and they lost access to all their links.)

So for the most part I won't delete an account. If they don't want their account anymore they can simply log out and not log back in.

 

[John]

I don't delete on request. It really does make the forum look really cluttered with a bunch of deleted accounts, especially if that member had a very high post count.