My Dear Friends...

[Arnox]

I have been noticing lately that some of our members are getting just a little upset that I will not delete any account willy nilly and have decided to take it upon themselves to start scrubbing their posts clean of content.

No more.

As you've already been made aware of in my most recent site update, posts will now have edit history which means you may no longer edit out your posts completely because you got a little flustered.

What gets posted here, stays here. (For the most part...) Thank you.

[Σ]

If I may ask why will you don't delete a users account if they want it deleted?

[Arnox]

why will you don't

What?

[Σ]

Can you really not see past a simple error long enough to answer the god damn question? You know what I meant so don't be a fucking moron.

[Spectre]

Can you really not see past a simple error long enough to answer the god damn question? You know what I meant so don't be a fucking moron.

Agreed I would like to hear the answer to that question

Hansen's question was legitamate for someone who constantly spouts off about professionalism this kind of administrating is anything but

[Arnox]

Can you really not see past a simple error long enough to answer the god damn question? You know what I meant so don't be a fucking moron.

*sigh* You know, actually I can see why you'd be angry at my response because it looks very much like a sarcastic dismissal. But it wasn't. It was a legit question. A single word in any of that area could change the sentences entire meaning. So please tell me again what you're trying to say.

[Σ]

If I may ask why will you don't delete a users account if they want it deleted?

How would it change the meaning in any way? let me give some examples:
"If I may ask why will you not delete a users account if they want it deleted?"
"If I may ask why wont you delete a users account if they want it deleted?"
"If I may ask why dont you delete a users account if they want it deleted?"

We could even try a fill in the blank! Given the context of the OP you should be able to deduce the missing word.
"If I may ask why will you _____ delete a users account if they want it deleted?"
"If I may ask why _____ you delete a users account if they want it deleted?"
 
Lets be real here, the only realistic, reasonable and logical options you had at interpretation are those listed above. Did you really think I meant something like this:
"If I may ask why will you esophagus delete a users account if they want it deleted?"

[Σ]

Accidentally quoted instead of hitting modify.


I mean really, what did you think I meant?!

[Arnox]

How would it change the meaning in any way? let me give some examples:
"If I may ask why will you not delete a users account if they want it deleted?"
"If I may ask why wont you delete a users account if they want it deleted?"
"If I may ask why dont you delete a users account if they want it deleted?"

We could even try a fill in the blank! Given the context of the OP you should be able to deduce the missing word.
"If I may ask why will you _____ delete a users account if they want it deleted?"
"If I may ask why _____ you delete a users account if they want it deleted?"
 
Lets be real here, the only realistic, reasonable and logical options you had at interpretation are those listed above. Did you really think I meant something like this:
"If I may ask why will you esophagus delete a users account if they want it deleted?"

Obviously those are the most probable, but I'd like to make sure I'm actually understanding what the other person is saying. For example, how do I know you didn't wildly misunderstand the OP, put in another word accidentally and actually meant:

If I may ask why will you delete a users account if they want it deleted?

Either way, I'm really losing my ability to give two craps about this sort of thing, so let's get back on topic, shall we?

Why won't I delete an account? Because as I said, posts are here to stay, and since they are, there's most of the time no good reason at all to delete an account if you're not going to delete the posts associated with it. Put something bad in your username? I can change it. And everything else can be edited by the user. As such, I don't want to get a bunch of dumb requests from people to do something that's, in the end, very pointless and just creates unnecessary work for me.

However, if someone can think of a good reason to delete an account but not the posts, I'll reconsider the policy.

[Spectre]

You really aren't giving a legitimate reason why an account can't be deleted or why posts even have to stay you just seem to be arbitrarily limiting your users by forcing them to be unable to make meaningful edits to there posts should they need to change in the future or allow them to dissociate with the site. Pretty shitty attitude tbh

[Idiosyncrasy]

Here's a little ammo for you, Arnox.

I posted this on totse2 in response to an account deletion:

We haven't ever needed to delete an account for a serious reason, which is why I would be hesitant.  A generic post like this wouldn't warrant me to delete a "senior" account of over 1,600 posts, so that's why I'm hesitant.

What is the reason, RU, if you don't mind me asking?  PM me if you need to, but I doubt it is something job related.  If an employer can somehow connect a few posts together with the handle "rogueunicorn," then there may be other things to worry about.

If there is a certain incriminating thread you are worried about, we can fix that, but a thread simply stating "please delete my totse2 account and all related items" with no other info sometimes mean someone hacked the account, or they are just wanting a break for a while.

Often times, we would be cautious of these requests because there is no going back. If someone's account did happen to get hacked, or they just stayed logged in and someone else used it for shiggles, then there is no going back. You can edit your posts all you want, but it is best not to create unnecessary liabilities. 

Ghost Prototype, a fellow admin at T2, had this response at one point, which holds good points:

We don't have that option, and the reason for it, is that when you delete your account, all your posts disappear.  Then, we've got potentially hundreds of threads with pieces of conversation missing - it ruins the readability of any thread you've been active in.

Allow me to rephrase that.  I've never been told why we don't, but if I had to make a decision today as to if we would or not, I'd say no, for the above reason.

If you really want to disappear, I'll change your password to a random stream of characters, and change the username to be something unlinked with you.

GP had a good point. His thinking is also shared by this administrator of PoliticsForum:
Source: http://www.politicsforum.org/documents/faq/account_deletion.php

Answer: As a general rule the answer to this will be "no". For reasons and exceptions read on.

The primary reason for not deleting user accounts is that it destroys the functionality of the search feature. All posts made by a forum account are associated with that account to allow users to see who made the post (obviously). If an account is deleted then all those post links are lost and as far as the database is concerned they become "guest" posts. This prevents people researching who find a certain post made by a given user interesting from searching for other posts made by that same user. It is no longer possible to sort out different posts made by different accounts, since they are all just "guests". If your reason for wanting your account deleted is to damage the functionality of the search feature then the answer will be "no".

One might seek to remove these orphaned posts by deleting them all. This will however destroy many past topics, making them unreadable. This is unfair to people who might find reading past topics very useful. Preserving old topics is important since it is a historical record of events and public opinion of events that might be useful for others to read in the future. As such, all an account's posts will not be deleted to enable an account to be deleted.

If an account only has a few posts and the account holder wishes it removed after a relatively short time, then in this case the posts might be deleted and then the account removed, since it will cause minimal disruption. Especially if the posts are "off topic".

If your wish is simply to "leave" the forum because you do not wish to continue posting for whatever reason then there is no reason that this necessitates your account being deleted. Old accounts left on the board do no harm by being there, and as we have discussed, removing them actively damages the board. It also leaves the option open to the user to return to the same account at a later date. There are many cases of users who's lives have changed leading them to decide that they did not have time to take part in the forum any more, who have later returned to their accounts months or even years later. There is nothing wrong in doing this.

If you have more than one forum account (which is a violation of the forum rules) then you can message an administrator and they can arrange to have your accounts merged.

If you feel that you have some special reason for needing your account to be deleted then you may message a forum administrator to discuss it. But there must be a genuinely good reason for doing so. Accounts are not deleted whimsically or "just because".

We also had this verbiage in the site rules at totse2:

Account Deletion: We will not delete your account for any reason. What you post here is permanent and is backed up frequently.

[Spectre]

Often times, we would be cautious of these requests because there is no going back. If someone's account did happen to get hacked, or they just stayed logged in and someone else used it for shiggles, then there is no going back. You can edit your posts all you want, but it is best not to create unnecessary liabilities. 

Except you cannot edit posts now according to the latest updates as that information will now be in some nebulous "edit history" which just seems silly. Especially if someone just constantly edits the same thing causing a massive and unwieldy edit history.

I have been noticing lately that some of our members are getting just a little upset that I will not delete any account willy nilly and have decided to take it upon themselves to start scrubbing their posts clean of content.

No more.

As you've already been made aware of in my most recent site update, posts will now have edit history which means you may no longer edit out your posts completely because you got a little flustered.

What gets posted here, stays here. (For the most part...) Thank you.

[oppenheimmer]

your all forgetting that the content lose was caused by the faggots that never add anything but bitching and moaning and now there moaning agein

will this ever stop you imbecile twat's

[Arnox]

Here's a little ammo for you, Arnox.

snip

Actually, I couldn't have said it better myself, Idio. Thanks.

Except you cannot edit posts now according to the latest updates as that information will now be in some nebulous "edit history" which just seems silly.

vBulletin had edit history and so did phpBB I think.