87 replies to this topic 6 votes

[+devHead]

xplatinum, on 07 November 2010 - 17:13, said:

I originally posted my question in the General Discussion forum and my thread was moved/merged with this one. I never """returned""" because I had other things to attend to in between my original post and now.

I did not know there was a policy about not deleting user accounts. I don't like the idea of having hundreds of subscription across the internet (even if I don't use them). That boils down to personal preference. I like having my subscriptions list "clean". If I move away from place A I want to leave for good. Same goes for the Facebook debate. I don't want traces to be left and nobody can argue with that. You don't have to agree with the way I see things but that does not make my way of seeing things wrong.

For those who wondered why I wanted to leave. Neowin is not what it used to be anymore, and I noticed that a while ago. Yesterday I replied to a news story only to find out the next morning that my post was DELETED without notice. And no, I did not break any rules doing so. And even if I did, I should have received a PM or a warning of some sort.

So yeah, case closed. I will remove all my personal details and block notifications.

Thanks to those who actually contributed to the debate.

xplatinum, I wasn't meaning anything negative to you about you're not returning, and I never said I disagree with your desire to have your account and info deleted. I just thought it was kind of funny that from your original post, we have this huge multi-page discussion about such a thing. That's all. Sorry I didn't actually contribute to the debate. I didn't realize there was a debate, per se.

[Toe]

For the record..

http://www.facebook....=delete_account

I haven't posted on here in a long time, and in an effort to clean up my scattered online information I came across this.

In my recent experience, I have found sites like Digg, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, ect ect all have deletion available to the end user.

Forum based solutions such as Neowin (and many many others) Steadfastly refuse.

It's a bit frustrating, I have no problems with the site itself, I just personally dislike the idea of accounts that I can easily forget about and have hijacked (sadly it has happened once before.) running chaotically without my control. (for those thinking it was something to do with on my part, no sadly. It was a combination of forgot my password features and easily obtainable information (DOB, secret questions etc etc))

Edit: The best I can do for forum situations is scramble as much information as possible inc. password. But it is not the most satisfactory outcome

[Fred Derf]

It is a bit different on forums. Deleting posts cause threads to be unreadable as we have members quoting posts or answering questions that no longer exist. Just think what it would do to posts that were started by a user who later deletes his account. The first reply (post #2) would become the first post and we'd all be wondering why that person started the thread (when, if fact, they didn't). It leads to much confusion.

We also wouldn't want to delete an entire thread just because the thread starter wanted to delete his account. We generally do our best to preserve content that follows the community rules and so I wouldn't want to delete the legitimate posts that answered a question even if the question asker wanted it to go away.

I could paraphrase Star Trek and suggest that the rights of the many outweigh the rights of a few (or the one).

I could further paraphrase Star Trek by suggesting this whole situation is a Kobayashi Maru for us (but at some point these Trek references get to be a bit much).

[hwany]

Apologies for bumping such an old thread, but is there a way to edit posts that quote your username which also happens to contain your full name?
I've cleaned out as much as I can and there are just two posts remaining, but they require editing by the quoter and apparently editing old posts is not possible.

[Neobond]

Yes, PM me those particular posts and I will edit them for you.

[bryonhowley]

Smigit, on 17 May 2008 - 04:46, said:

I dont agree with deletion either.

On an aside I registered here on September 10 2004 but didnt post on the forums until Jan 25 2005, so 4 months. I still came daily, read news and such just didn't post. Duno why but I tend to ghosts forums a bit until I jump in and really join in with the discussions. Probably see a similar behaviour on other forums I visit. So yeah, I don't like post count being a bar for whether a user should be deleted or not and it's really not necessary.

Same here I joined in 2002 but did not post for a long time but was reading news and post a few times a day.

[+Asik]

The members base could use some clean up. Here are a few numbers from the member list, in terms of number of pages returned by a search:

All members : 12841
Members with at least 1 post: 2908 (22.6%)
Members with at least 10 posts: 1233 (9.6%)

In other words, above 75% of registered members have never posted, and above 90% do not contribute regularly. Certainly not all of those should be deleted, but I'm sure at least a good amount could, those who never activated for instance.

[jeston]

Dr_Asik, on 17 November 2011 - 00:29, said:

The members base could use some clean up. Here are a few numbers from the member list, in terms of number of pages returned by a search:

All members : 12841
Members with at least 1 post: 2908 (22.6%)
Members with at least 10 posts: 1233 (9.6%)

In other words, above 75% of registered members have never posted, and above 90% do not contribute regularly. Certainly not all of those should be deleted, but I'm sure at least a good amount could, those who never activated for instance.

Did you not read the OP? It clearly states why they don't delete those inactive members...

[Raa]

I think they should be deleted, IMO.

[wahoospa]

I can't even get them to delete my email address out of one of my posts that I didn't mean for the world to see. I send a message to one of the moderators but over 2 weeks later the email address is still there. (reason for wanting my email address out of post-- SPAM)

.

[+Asik]

jeston, on 17 November 2011 - 00:33, said:

Did you not read the OP? It clearly states why they don't delete those inactive members...

Read the rest of the thread...

Neobond, on 23 April 2008 - 14:13, said:

We do that every now and then already.

Edit: We haven't done that for ages, we will look into this. Some members register just to see the hidden forums.

Fred Derf, on 17 May 2008 - 04:34, said:

We have done at least one mass pruning of zero post users. Perhaps that was done during a board upgrade.

[gigapixels]

wahoospa, on 17 November 2011 - 00:43, said:

I can't even get them to delete my email address out of one of my posts that I didn't mean for the world to see. I send a message to one of the moderators but over 2 weeks later the email address is still there. (reason for wanting my email address out of post-- SPAM)

.

I would suggest not PMing a specific mod, but rather just using the report button. Sometimes we see PMs and don't have a chance to actually take care of them, and then end up forgetting about it. A report will stay open and visible until it is taken care of by somebody.

[wahoospa]

gigapixels, on 17 November 2011 - 02:15, said:

I would suggest not PMing a specific mod, but rather just using the report button. Sometimes we see PMs and don't have a chance to actually take care of them, and then end up forgetting about it. A report will stay open and visible until it is taken care of by somebody.

Thanks, I'll try that.