Thinking About Deleting My Account

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It's a thought that's pondered me a while.

But from the Moderators' point of view, how would you go about removing my account and all posts with it?

Yes, I understand about how you can't delete posts that have responses to them, but I feel like I don't use this website as much as I used to anymore, and I know I did leave for about a year beforehand, before coming back, but this time, I want to leave this website for good.

Nothing has been said, or has occurred, I just wish to not use this forum again. Life outside WP is good, and without a doubt, appreciate all the advice, support, and humour that this place has given me over the years.

This won't be my final post ever, it is just a heads-up and consultation as to how Alternative can be safely escorted out of the forums.

You may not have seen this, from the FAQ thread: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp3870313.html#3870313
The short answer is that we can't remove your account or all of the posts made from it; just lock it and prevent it from being used.
Eventually your posts will fade into the background, buried under the weight of newer posts.

Ahh, I see.

I'm still thinking about this, and will PM you or another Moderator when I'm ready to lock my account.

Thanks Cornflake.

No problem.

Do you ever think you would be better just letting your account be dormant instead?

Maybe.

I still need to think this over.

This is a general problem on the internet: Nearly all social/community software is designed to never forget, never forgive and make everything a permanent record.

(Some of the best articles I've every found on this subject are:
Right to Leave
Right to Vanish
Forgive and Forget
Forgive And Forget In Software)

My humble suggestion would be to extend the software of this forum to:
AUTOLOCK (no more posts can be added) all topics where the last (youngest) post is older then X days
HIDE from the INDEX (or other list) all topic where the last (youngest) post is older then Y days
AUTOLOCKED and HIDDEN topics will stil show up in SEARCH for logged in users and only they can view them. Also, maybe anonymize the account information (incl. the account name) for anyone who asked for this?

You can lock my account now. I don't want to say goodbye or anything like that please.

Nice knowing you all. See ya.

Aww, shame.

I hope everything goes well for you and of course you can come back any time.
Take care...

This isn't true at all, not in the slightest. Most forum software is perfectly capable of allowing a moderator or administrator to delete a large number of posts with one action. Pruning functions are not unusual at all and are about as common as the ability to create user accounts and make posts, I wouldn't expect this site to be any different.

I can only assume that the owner of this site is blatantly lying about the difficulty with mass deletions, because it is better for the site's success if it has a lot of posts. Due to the nature of this forum, a lot of people who publicly discuss their personal problems might like to delete what they have said afterwards. It wouldn't help the site attract new users with similar problems if those posts no longer existed, and the site owner would lose money from advertisers.

The fact that the link in the second post of this thread says that posts can't be edited after a week makes it seem blatantly obvious that this is the plan. There is probably nothing stopping the administrator from deleting posts, other than the selfish desire to retain as much website content as possible, for the purpose of maintaining a steady stream of traffic from search engines etc.

Pretty shady, if you ask me.

From a moderator's viewpoint, this forum software doesn't.
From any viewpoint, deleting all of a user's posts - and especially if there are several - wrecks any threads they're in: the conversation is broken apart. Plus, I doubt any mass removal tool would take quotes into account and carefully snip them out - irrespective of the embedding depth.
Well, it is different.
The same can be said for almost any Internet forum allowing public access and provided we're not expected to trawl through many posts, we are sympathetic to the removal of inadvertently/unwisely posted personal information. The "Members Only" forum is just that: it's accessible by registered members only and ideally, is the only place where any such information is posted.
This (from the FAQ) provides useful information on dealing with Internet privacy: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp3870313.html#3870313 It's just as valid for Internet access anywhere.
And what? "blatantly lying"? Oh dear...
You should be aware that forum software can just as easily be configured to allow no editing of a post once it's been made. How does that grab you?
It seems that allowing an edit window of around 1 week is pretty generous, and I'm sure you can understand that some sort of a limit should be imposed otherwise history can be rewritten and the flow of threads made useless.
You're rather quick off the mark with the conspiracies - unfortunately you're somewhat short on the facts.
I don't believe anyone did, but thanks for your contribution.

I actually recently left another forum where there is no option to close or delete your own account, even leaving your posts there. Your option, if you want to leave, is to just not sign back in. If for some reason you get offended and want to leave, the only option is once you have tried over and over again to explain in a post why you said what you did, and that you didn't mean it to be rude (my sin was asking someone where he got an article he posted because I wanted to send a copy to a friend - I got attacked and told that I was being mean to him) is for them to ban you, and either remove or edit your posts so that you look like a troll and they can go around with their self righteous attitudes and look like the victims.

I know that doesn't have anything to do with this, but it was just wierd to me that a forum doesn't have any way to close or cancel your account. Even FB has an option to disable the account for now. I think that other forum did it on purpose. After I got there I found out they are a**holes, and seeing that they edited others posts after they banned them for no good reason, I just told them to go ahead and ban me.

Wierd, huh?

Most forum software does have the ability to mass delete, and/or remove a user along with all posts etc. as described.

The issue is whether or not it's a good idea to use such tools. Sometimes, if it's very early in an account's lifetime, it's not much of a problem. Usually though, mass deletions are a bad idea because they mess up the conversational flow, the database, and links all over the site.

Broken links cause a site's search engine ratings to drop. Broken links cause a frustrating user experience. Broken or bent conversations add to that. Sloppy or careless editing by admins or moderators can wreck the user experience.

Mass editing tools, even if you do have them, are a bad idea all around to use most of the time, and if ever used at all, should be used very sparingly and carefully.

While the statement, "Once on the web always on the web" isn't always necessarily true, the statement is meant as a cautionary to all internet users. You as a user should keep the statement in mind, not because it's always true, but because webmasters, even if (s)he does delete your content, CANNOT guarantee no one has already downloaded or copied your content, and can thereby place it somewhere else on the web.

Bottom line? Be careful what you post anywhere on the web. Personally, I won't post anything without first assuming (whether or not it is true), that everyone on earth can see it, and it is permanently part of history forever. Keeping that in mind changes what I say and do dramatically.

It's worth pointing out that even if the forum software doesn't provide such tools - the forum is just a pretty front-end to a database, and posts can be removed by directly interfacing with the database.

However, the point that "once on the web, always on the web" goes beyond just that. Countless services index and archive everything on the web they can find. If I wanted to go back and look at what microsoft.com looked like in 1999, I can absolutely do that. Same principle applies to forums - *anything* posted is saved *somewhere*. Finding it is just a matter of finding some place that has the specific page archived (which is not difficult by any means).

A very good point about web histories. ^^^^^

Interfacing directly with the database however is almost always very limited for good reason (as I'm sure you know). Web page interfaces are specifically designed so the average user can manipulate the database without (hopefully) screwing it up badly and breaking the entire site, but even the tools available to phpBB forums can still sometimes do just that if mass editing tools are available to moderators, which is why said tools are often configured so as not to be so freely available to but a few admins who understand the possible consequences of using them and how to avoid the bad consequences. I know you understand this sliqua-jcooter but the average member probably does not.

With respect to the purpose of this website, I think the main reason why mass deletion isn't readily available or encouraged is because of the mess it makes of threads, irrespective of whether a means already exists or one could be written. I don't mean a technical mess, from a logical database viewpoint (although it's a risk, of course), but simply from the viewpoint of a user viewing a shredded conversation.

A removal process would be blind: it would happily demolish chatter amongst friends along with very useful, serious articles or links to others.
Plus, there would be little point unless quoted posts were also properly handled, but that would have to go beyond database manipulation and into grepping post content, stripping bits out, and rewriting the content.
Finally, as sliqua-jcooter touches on, deletion is ultimately pointless unless every single reader and potential cache of that information can be traced and erased - hardly a practical proposition.

Alternatively the whole website could be accessible to members only - but that shuts out the easy, anonymous search for information/help and I think would be a backward step.
This place is actually an incredibly useful resource and as ol' timers, I think we tend to lose sight of that aspect a little.