How Does A User Delete Their Account?

[spaniel]

I can't find anywhere in IM141 where a user can delete their account - are we allowed to keep people against their will?

[tmotley]

I would say they could just ask you to delete their account or alternatively they could just edit out all relevant information and then abandon it.

I did see a mod on phpbbhacks.com that allows a user to delete their own account. I don't know how compatible it is with IM.

[spaniel]

Well methinks we need one pretty quickly. On a busy forum it's somewhat unworkable to expect users to know they have to ask admin to delete them - often people want to leave quietly.

Some people even find a site suspicious if they don't see such an option <img>

[tmotley]

I'm guessing since the mod involves a button in users' profiles that it would have to be 'fixed' to work with IM's PCP.

[spaniel]

exactly - so that puts pay to that idea lol.

[Helter]

ive got accounts on many types of forums and Ive never seen an option to delete my account on any of them

[spaniel]

If it's good enough for Myspace, facebook, faceparty, Yahoo 360, and YouTube, it's good enough for phpBB <img>

[CaNNon]

I don't think I would want this, what if a user got X number yellow flags and then deletes the account to create a new one and start at 0? How would you keep up with that odd A-hole if they could just delete there account you would have no record of them?

[spaniel]

Would you prefer people not join to start with cos they can't leave when they want?

It's common for people to want to delete themselves cos they want to move on to other things in their lives. It's much less common for people to want to delete their account just to set up another one. What's wrong with ip address logging?

And a trouble-maker will usually be deleted by Admin before s/he thinks of deleting themselves.

Why deny the majority because of some minority that'll almost never use it anyway?


I'm sure Habeas Corpus & Data Protection Acts cover this.

[Helter]

this could and probably would create havoc on your site. If they could delete an account that had made several posts and replies you would be left with one of two things. If their posts were deleted when they deleted their account, there would be many threads that make no sense, due to part of the conversation missing. If the posts were not deleted, your post count would be messed up, and as soon as you accidentally clicked acp/general admin/DB Maintenance/Sync Post Count, all their post would be deleted anyway. Every user account is much too integrated in IM to allow frivolous account deletions.
If you think that out of 100,000 people, 1 might not join because there is no account delete button, I would say you are wrong.

[spaniel]

Is your IM-based website like...

[youtube:1ewou8v4]http://youtube.com/watch?v=IBJTNx5qrVU[/youtube:1ewou8v4]


Did you know that in the minds of many members, when you force them to message you to allow them to be "set free" from your website, that you're effectively telling your members they're "prisoners of their own device" and that they can "check out any time but can never leave"? Does your website sound like Hotel California?

Ever read your members private messages where they pour pity on your little dot-com pipe dream with lines like: "he must be so desperate for members he won't even let us delete ourselves... we hav to do that dreaded thing of messaging admin, but most just end up posting it on the forum for all to see..."

Great! If you can afford a PR agent, s/he just haemorrhaged at that one <img>

Still it's got to be better reading it than going to a social event where it's offered as proof your site is in perennial decline.


Ever wondered why you only have a few hundred members tops and no delete option desperately trying to hold on to every last member, and Myspace, Bebo and even Yahoo 360 have millions of members and easy access to a delete button? In fact their hourly growth is probably double what you could achieve in a year...yet their members are free to leave at any time. Funny that!

If this sounds like your little dot-com operation isn't it about time we learnt from the internet's success stories and stopped creating an atmosphere where people feel they can't or shouldn't leave or if they can, then they either have to beg or demand to be set free...(and often publicly on the forum!)

Is phpBB the product of the American Dream, or [url=http]a Communist one[/url]?

[spaniel]

So Helter it is your intention to keep people from leaving cos it might throw your forum out of sync.

I would say you are wrong (and probably for the first time lol) cos i kno of a huge php-forum based site where members are free to delete themselves at any time. Their posts and avatar stay on the forum, it's only their profile that is deleted, yet no problem with syncing or anything else.

And delete button or no delete button, won't a high turnover rate of people *requesting* to be deleted cause the same problems you listed? The only difference I can see is the delete button frees up admin from having to do it vs. the Communist system where admin is plagued with private messages and whinges on the forum for members to be released from your website's stranglehold...not to mention what that does to your site's reputation as the site you can never leave.


And seeing as we're dealing with the demanding Myspace generation now, guess which option they prefer and they'll demand <img>

[spaniel]

Found it!

How to show your members you have faith in them by trusting them with one of these:

http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=135876


If faith in your own members works for the dot-com billion dollar profit-making household-name sites, I dont see why it'd send phpBB into a frenzy.

[Helter]

Im not sure what kind of forum you run, but between all my sites, including this one, I have thousands of members. In 5 years ive had 2 requests for account deletion and in both cases, it was due to forgetting username/login info.

Forum software, is not Social Networking software. The sites your referring to are completely different in both purpose and function. Social networking sites give users a space to make a proprietary web page. There is no public forum with mixed user inputs. If a user deletes his space it has no affect on anyone else. If you want a social networking site, IM is not for you. There are a few mods out there that will give you a few of the features of the sites you named, but they are very basic in comparison.
There are no good reasons to do what your suggesting to your forum. There are dozens of reasons not to do so. If you think you know better than the ppl who made the software, then by all means go ahead and add the button, but if by some chance, it does not break your site, it will deffinatly be a maintenance nightmare.

btw... Private Message, means PRIVATE Message. If your reading your users private messages, that would explain why they want to delete their accounts. I know I would not want to be a member of a site that didnt understand this.

[CaNNon]

Their posts and avatar stay on the forum, it's only their profile that is deleted, yet no problem with syncing or anything else.

This is a different thing and to do that you could simply deactivate there account.
Very easy to do and the forum has it all ready. So if you were to offer users a "deactivate account button" you could make it work.

[spaniel]

Im not sure what kind of forum you run, but between all my sites, including this one, I have thousands of members. In 5 years ive had 2 requests for account deletion and in both cases, it was due to forgetting username/login info.

Only thousands in 5 years? And if you only have 2 cases, what are you afraid of? Everybody running for the border?

I've been wanting to change my username on here having outgrown the current one, but my only hope of doing that is either to pester you to do it or ask you to delete the account so I can set up a new one. I haven't done either because I know you're busy doing more important things, plus it puts people in a situation where they feel they have to explain which makes them feel stupid. I can only guess that there are lots of others among your thousands who simply "went quiet" for similar reasons. And why carry that dead weight around?

Do you think it looks impressive that your have 75,000 members but only 1,000 ever really log in?

Forum software, is not Social Networking software. The sites your referring to are completely different in both purpose and function. Social networking sites give users a space to make a proprietary web page. There is no public forum with mixed user inputs. If a user deletes his space it has no affect on anyone else. If you want a social networking site, IM is not for you. There are a few mods out there that will give you a few of the features of the sites you named, but they are very basic in comparison.

Well we can't all be visionaries, we can't all see a piece of software's full potential. The fact is all that can change and if savvy internet users have their way, it will have to change. You can get away with only sometimes giving people what they want, but if you tamper with the Holy Grail of what they expect, you're through.

As for what makes a social network - all you in fact need is a forum, a profile, and a messaging system. The rest as they say is bells and whistles (which can all be coded in as the site grows). Many websites have those three ingredients as their basis (e.g. YouTube), yet when users on there delete themselves, we don't see YouTube in a crisis.

I would have thought you'd take it as a compliment that IntegraMod is on par with such high-end sites... I've used it before as a social networking site (probably v. 1.3.2) and it worked as good as any dot-com billionaire's site. It just involves giving people a little of what they want (when possible) and respecting what they expect.

Facebook btw is a load of software crap - but it's popular because of the atmosphere of freedom it has created.

There are no good reasons to do what your suggesting to your forum. There are dozens of reasons not to do so.

Except the one good reason to allow it vastly outweighs all the technical fears. People *trust* you with their personal details - their name (often), their date of birth (very useful in identity theft), and their precious email address. That delete button gives them the piece of mind that they can remove that data as quickly as they added it should they feel the need to.

But not on IM! "Due to technical issues, we ask that you stay against your will for the overall good of the forum." is your basic message. Sounds just like the USSR's reason for the Berlin Wall - "for your own protection!" <img>

It's not true that this software has to be like this. It can be coded so that the removal of a user doesn't affect the forum - just like on dozens of php-based sites with profiles and forums and hundreds of thousands of members, not just thousands.

If you think you know better than the ppl who made the software, then by all means go ahead and add the button, but if by some chance, it does not break your site, it will deffinatly be a maintenance nightmare.

Now you're contradicting yourself. If according to you only 2 people would use it anyway, what's all the fear for? I fear that a lot more would actually use it given the chance, but that is their right. They freely trusted us with their personal details, they should have the right and the freedom to remove it when *they* wish, not when you get round to it in admin. What it does to your forum is your problem, not theirs. Recode it so a deletion in phpbb_user, doesnt affect any other table if it's such a problem.

But like Moses & Reagan before me: "Let your members go, Helter." Quite a few hundred out of those "thousands" have probably stopped logging in anyway...

btw... Private Message, means PRIVATE Message. If your reading your users private messages, that would explain why they want to delete their accounts. I know I would not want to be a member of a site that didnt understand this.

Oh the great misnomer (not to mention insult to people's intelligence). Only an idiot thinks that something stored on a server unencrypted is actually private. It's only due to a lack of a law suit, that it hasn't been more appropriately renamed as Personal Messaging. And the fact that our Admin panel has a whole USSR-style spying feature in its User Admin section suggests that you perhaps don't really believe your own argument.

People want to leave as soon as you take away their freedom to leave, not cos something unencrypted is visible to others. In fact, thanks to the internet, people are more and more willing to share in public what they say in private.

On behalf of some of your unhappy members on here, allow me to mention the request and re-request for a PCP forum. It was requested on the forum and ignored, but the request for one hasn't gone away. It's still of great need and interest to us - but you probably don't know that if you haven't been reading our "private" messages...

[spaniel]

This is a different thing and to do that you could simply deactivate there account. Very easy to do and the forum has it all ready. So if you were to offer users a "deactivate account button" you could make it work.

Sounds perfect. As long as they see an exit that *they* have direct access to, they'll be happy to stay.

Having to request Admin to do it might make them fear admin saying "no, you've posted too much on the forum, you'll have to stay as our prisoner for now" lol.

[spaniel]

LOL. Chatting to someone on MSN about my new site (that hasn't launched yet) and after showing them a preview, the first question they asked was:

"how does someone cancel/delete them selves??"

I replied: it's funny you should ask that...

[DjPorkchop]

this could and probably would create havoc on your site. If they could delete an account that had made several posts and replies you would be left with one of two things. If their posts were deleted when they deleted their account, there would be many threads that make no sense, due to part of the conversation missing. If the posts were not deleted, your post count would be messed up, and as soon as you accidentally clicked acp/general admin/DB Maintenance/Sync Post Count, all their post would be deleted anyway. Every user account is much too integrated in IM to allow frivolous account deletions.
If you think that out of 100,000 people, 1 might not join because there is no account delete button, I would say you are wrong.

I do have to agree with Helterskelter here. I on my site do have that option for them to delete themselves, I have just been to lazy to go get rid of it. I had to delete ALLLLLL kinds of stuff last year to make posts look right again. and MANY posts on my forum are now empty totally because of this. My site was never really very active anyhow, but it created a small mess anyhow by using the delete account feature.

If someone wanted to slip out gracefully, all they really need to do is get rid of all pertinent profile info and be gone never to log back in. If the user hasnt logged on in over a year or what ever let it auto prune them like foundit did to my account once on his site. <img> BUt then again there we go with a not so busy site again. Him deleting me did absolutely nothing to his forums at all as my post count was only like 2 or 3

[DjPorkchop]

[quote=""spaniel";p="30975""] I think CaNNon has found the perfect compromise: a user deactivation option in their profile section that actually keeps the user id in phpbb_users but deletes the data on the profile (or replaces it with gibberish).

Then it might be a good idea to deactivate the link to the profile or if it's still active, let it show a default page saying: "sorry, that member has gone"

And on the forum a new rank to appear under their avatar saying something like "account deactivated" or "this member has left the site".

This way all the other tables in the db are barely touched.


I say: Let's done this already!

[CaNNon]

[tab]I'm not saying delete or obscure any info, just a simple deactivate the account button. It could also add that user to a "user has left group" so it could also display a "user gone" rank under the avatar.

[tab]All info would have too stay in place, as you have to consider what you can do with in reason of what the package offers.

[tmotley]

I'm not going to get into a whizzing match with anyone but I guess I'm just not seeing the need for users to be able to delete themselves. As an admin, I like knowing about all account deletions before they happen. I don't have any problem deleting someone's account for them but I've never been asked to except for when they've created multiple accounts and just want to get rid of the extras.

I guess here's the issue I have with it. My members are middle school and high school kids who routinely leave themselves logged in at a school/public computer on accident. If someone visits my site and is already logged in as that member, they can delete that person's account in seconds if there is self-deletion. I have problems with that.

When members have asked me to delete their extra accounts, I always confirm with them what their intentions are and I always wait a couple of days. That way I don't delete an account they wanted.

Perhaps if you just put in the rules upon registering a blurb such as "If, after creating your account, you no longer wish to be a member, simply send a private message to ADMINACCOUNT and your profile will be deleted... no questions asked."

[CaNNon]

I'm not going to get into a whizzing match with anyone

I agree it's a complete waste of time and unproductive!

[DjPorkchop]

[tab]I'm not saying delete or obscure any info, just a simple deactivate the account button. It could also add that user to a "user has left group" so it could also display a "user gone" rank under the avatar.

[tab]All info would have too stay in place, as you have to consider what you can do with in reason of what the package offers.

Yeah, this is exactly what I was agreeing to rather then a complete deletion of the users account. I just think site wise, there would be to big of a mess to clean up everytime a user deletes their account. So yeah, no deletes, just a deactivate.

[Helter]

well i think Mr Spaniel is arguing for the sake of arguing and Im done with it. I am here to support Integramod and its members, not compromise the software for the sake of one stubborn, short sighted user who seems upset that he cannot take a Cadillac off the show room floor and race formula1 with it.
Mr Spaniel, your question has been asked and answered. If your so sure that you know more than everyone who has replied to this thread, feel free to do it yourself.