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?

Why should you be allowed to edit recorded history so that you have always thought what you think now?

Because it is a reality of human psychology that people will status-penalize your current self for the mistakes of your past self, even if they (say that they) try not to.

Also, it would be undesirable to have a bunch of new comments of the form "I've changed my mind about that semicolon". Such comments might even be downvoted, resulting in a no-win situation for the commenter.

And you're not actually editing recorded history. People know the rules, and know that comments can be edited, so expect that people will try if possible to make all their comments make their current self look good.

And if someone quotes your comment before you edit it, you still suffer all the consequences.

It would furthermore be unfair to freeze edits without also freezing voting.

Why should those issues be linked?

To prevent a situation where someone is hemorrhaging karma and unable to do anything about it.

In general, this a case of "leave well enough alone", or, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Editing comments -- like any feature -- has potential for abuse, but it's not currently causing any problems severe enough to outweigh the benefits.

Why should you be allowed to edit recorded history so that you have always thought what you think now?

Because it is a reality of human psychology that people will status-penalize your current self for the mistakes of your past self, even if they (say that they) try not to.

That may be a general problem, but on Less Wrong, what I typically observe is that people get upvoted for accepting counter arguments and changing their mind and for apologizing for rude behavior. Sometimes downvotes are even removed from the rude comment that required the apology.

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Meta: How should LW account deletion work?

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Meta: How should LW account deletion work?

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