Meta: How should LW account deletion work?

matt

At 2011-04-08 LW user account deletion is broken. We (Trike) will fix it… but how should it work?

Options:

Easy complete deletion: At the click of a button you can remove your account, all of your posts, and all of your comments. It's just that easy to scrub your activity from the site.
Delete = Disable account: The account deletion process removes your ability to log in and your user page. Your posts and comments remain. (You get warned that you're about to lose the ability to change anything you've previously posted and that your username will continue to be associated with your previous account activity.) Actually deleting everything requires you to do it manually.

I favour 2 (Delete = Disable account). Poking a hole into all of the conversations you've been a part of should be hard - it reduces the quality of the site's archive.

I've made three comments below: "VOTE: Easy complete deletion", "VOTE: Delete = Disable account", and "VOTE: Karma balance". What do y'reckon?

(Detail - Under the Delete = Disable account option: Your username would continue to be unavailable to others. Your user account page would be replaced with a "User account deleted" page. Your old account activity would remain and link back to the "Account deleted" page.)

At 2011-04-08 LW user account deletion is broken. We (Trike) will fix it… but how should it work?

Options:

Easy complete deletion: At the click of a button you can remove your account, all of your posts, and all of your comments. It's just that easy to scrub your activity from the site.
Delete = Disable account: The account deletion process removes your ability to log in and your user page. Your posts and comments remain. (You get warned that you're about to lose the ability to change anything you've previously posted and that your username will continue to be associated with your previous account activity.) Actually deleting everything requires you to do it manually.

I favour 2 (Delete = Disable account). Poking a hole into all of the conversations you've been a part of should be hard - it reduces the quality of the site's archive.

I've made three comments below: "VOTE: Easy complete deletion", "VOTE: Delete = Disable account", and "VOTE: Karma balance". What do y'reckon?

What about some sort of a "waiting period"? I agree that having this as the default or even one of the options might make this too easy... but what if you could request it, and the system would start some sort of timer, allowing the option to be granted, say, after a month.

This way, you can't just hit the "wipe" button without having to go through the waiting period.

Actually... after typing this suggestion, I guess I don't see why if someone really, really wants their stuff eradicated... they shouldn't have to go do it themselves. I just have a hard time envisioning what could be that bad here, even though it has come up. I'm still going to leave the suggestion as it stands. It's an idea.

Actually... after typing this suggestion, I guess I don't see why if someone really, really wants their stuff eradicated... they shouldn't have to go do it themselves. I just have a hard time envisioning what could be that bad here, even though it has come up.

I could see why Roko deleted his entire account when he did. And I expect the experience of clicking each comment individually was cathartic!

I'm trying to estimate how long it would take me to delete all of my comments manually. I'm thinking in the order of 4 or so hours. A LOT of text would be gone! On the other hand writing a bot that would refresh my user page and click every delete/confirm would take about 15 minutes. :)