Members Asking for Their Account to be Deleted???

Moderation
1

I’ve never deleted a member from the board.  But, I had Oliver asking to be deleted (I talked to him, and he decided he no longer wanted it deleted), and now Snuffbox is upset and is asking to be deleted.

Here’s my question:  What do you guys do with people asking to be deleted?

If you delete them, do all their posts disappear from the board?  Does that mess up a lot of the conversations in which they participated?

Personally, I’d rather have a no delete policy  But, I of course want to follow whatever you guys normally do.  Someone fill me in?

Mark

2

It does make post look out of sync, normally it’s just a deactivation so the posts remain iirc.

3

Yes… I recall the post stays and the user name changes to “user deleted” or something like that. I think people that specifically ask to be deleted are trying to make some kind of statement, something like taking their ball and going home.

1 Like
4

They usually eventually calm down and return to normal, it’s massive toys out of the pram behaviour and usually attention seeking.

5

I don’t intend to delete anyone.  If they want to stop participating, fine.  But, when people post here in the forum, I believe they lose the ability to say, “Delete me and my 1000 posts on the board,” just because they are having a bad day or are a little grumpy about something they don’t really care to understand.

I’ve run many forums on other topics, and occasionally, if someone had a good reason, I would change their username and change their password, and this way they were “effectively” deleted, but the continuity of the forum didn’t look weird or lose posts…or have a “User Deleted” flag on it.

I’ve had 2 people ask me this week to delete them.  In the future, I’m just going to say, “I don’t do that.  I’ll be glad to change your identity and remove your access to the board, but I’m not outright deleting you.”

Mark

6

I usually just ask why first, an option I have offered is I will just change the password so they can’t gain access again, unless they use the reset option, but if they’re not coming back it never happens.

1 Like
7

Thank you.  That’s a good option.

Mark