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JGWeissman14y10

If that were implemented I would encourage users who desired to delete a comment to instead edit it such that no text remains.

I would also like to see a history of edits, as is common in wikis.

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15 Meta: How should LW account deletion work?

by matt

8th Apr 2011

1 min read

15

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.)

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[-]Skatche14y580

My vote was for disabling, but I think this should also change your username to something suitably anonymous (like "Account deleted").

[-]kpreid14y150

How about username-change as an option without also necessary disabling? Possibly with restrictions against abuse.

[-]JGWeissman14y20

The necessary disabling is a restriction against abuse.

[-]kpreid14y-10

Yes, and a reasonably good one, but is it the best one?

[-]JGWeissman14y40

Unless someone proposes a specific better one, I don't want to let the best be the enemy of the good.

[-]ata14y130

Agreed, it should be possible to fully withdraw from the site without breaking all conversations one was involved in. People shouldn't have to choose between leaving their username visible in some places and deleting all their comments.

[-]gjm14y70

Except that deleted accounts should all have different deleted-account usernames, so that if some unfortunate thread has two participants who later delete their accounts it doesn't become completely impossible to make sense of the discussion.

[-]Spencer_Sleep14y10

What if it just kept the first three (or so) letters of the login name? The chances of two people with the same first three letters discussing the same thing is, while not infinitesimally low, well within acceptable limits. If you knew the person before deletion, it would let your recognize them, but it would keep their name from turning up in searches (the main reason, that I know of, for deleting accounts).

[-]Alicorn14y20

There's a nonzero number of people with three-letter usernames.

[-]gjm14y60

What's more, Spencer was replying to one of them!

[-]wedrifid14y30

My vote was for disabling, but I think this should also change your username to something suitably anonymous (like "Account deleted").

That is a very good idea.

[-]Eliezer Yudkowsky14y10

This. In fact you should still be able to login and edit, in case you put specific private info in a comment you want to delete. Just your display name should change to (Account deleted).

[-]wedrifid14y40

This. In fact you should still be able to login and edit, in case you put specific private info in a comment you want to delete. Just your display name should change to (Account deleted).

Your preferences in this thread appear incompatible with each other.

[-]Eliezer Yudkowsky14y00

Hm. True. Perhaps someone could request an unlock from a moderator. The way the interface is currently set up, I can't edit other user's comments.

[-]Armok_GoB14y00

You should probably be given the ability to modify deleted accounts posts.

[-][anonymous]14y00

Agreed.

[-]matt14y560

VOTE: 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, one by one. 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.

[-]JGWeissman14y240

I favor disabling over deletion, and further, I would like to remove the ability to delete comments that have replies.

For people who really want to disassociate their user name from their comments and posts, it could work to have an "anonymize account" feature, that would change the user name (perhaps to a meaningless string of numbers) and disable the account.

[-]wedrifid14y20

I favor disabling over deletion, and further, I would like to remove the ability to delete comments that have replies.

If that were implemented I would encourage users who desired to delete a comment to instead edit it such that no text remains. Unfortunately that wouldn't allow them to wash their hands of the entire debacle but it is better than nothing.

[-]JGWeissman14y10

If that were implemented I would encourage users who desired to delete a comment to instead edit it such that no text remains.

I would also like to see a history of edits, as is common in wikis.

[+]Eliezer Yudkowsky14y-60

[-]wedrifid14y110

I would not like to see an 'easy complete deletion' feature available. That would be too tempting for people to use impulsively while disgruntled and mean people who just aren't interested in LW for whatever reason to remove all their contributions without thinking much even though they don't have a strong desire to do so.

I support the continued ability to delete individual comments. If for some reason a commenter wishes to delete everything they have ever commented then that is fair enough.

[-]jimrandomh14y60

How about disabling login, leaving comments in place, and also replacing all instances of the user's name on their comments with something that looks the same but is obfuscated in such a way that it won't turn up in searches for that name? The anonymous user who recently asked how to delete his account was specifically concerned with search results, and as a result he went through and individually deleted all his comments, which we want to discourage.

[-]Armok_GoB14y20

I'd suggest deletion removes the account entirely, and has an option for deleting all posts that is of by default. Posts from deleted accounts should simply say "deleted account" as the poster. There should be an extra, trivial inconvenience added for deleting all the posts to discourage people from doing it.

[-]wedrifid14y20

Errr... what is the status quo exactly? I know it isn't complete deletion. That takes work.

The 'account disabled' feature we more or less have available now within a couple of steps. That is, change email address for recovery and then change password without writing it down. (And clear it from your browser's cache.)

[-]David_Gerard14y10

Errr... what is the status quo exactly?

Account deletion apparently doesn't work at all right now.

[-]rabidchicken14y00

I approve of Delete = Disable account, for the reasons you outlined.

[-]RHollerith14y00

BTW, Roko gave permission for LW to restore his comments "under an anonymous username (if it's technically possible)".

The fact that Roko's comments were not restored is understandable because restoring them from e.g. back-up media probably would have been a heck of a lot of work.

But I would like the maintainers of the software to keep an eye out for opportunities to make it easier to restore a whole mess of deleted comments and posts the next time someone mass deletes in a moment of high emotion.

[-]Clippy14y-40

I think that, in addition to whichever choice is implemented, the code should be modified so that post titles are parsed as SQL so that if you want to delete a User, you can just inject commands to that effect.

[-]wedrifid14y-20

Why did the parent receive downvotes? It does not seem to be an objectionable suggestion.

[+]matt14y-90

[+]matt14y-260

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