What to do when someone wants to delete themselves?

[anidea]

Hi All,

What do you all do when a member asks that their account be deleted?

Is there any way of "suspending" (permanently) a member account?

Can the "ban" terminology be changed?

We're going through some growing pains and this seems to be coming up lately.  I can't really "delete" a member's account, because 1. that makes the forum discussions kind of strange, and 2. we have a policy of one username per member.  So instead of deleting the member name, we've been "banning" it.  This way, they can't make a 2nd username or log in as someone else, and nobody else can take their member name.  And we put in the explanation "Account deleted at member's request.  If you wish to be reinstated, please contact [email protected]."

Now the problem is that they go to other (unmoderated) forums telling people they've been banned from ours when that really isn't true.  Typically after asking to be deleted--and we do discuss it with them prior to taking any action--they'll try to log in and get the message saying they were banned...and even with the explanation that they were deleted at their own request, they still see banned and use that as a reason to flame even more.

Is there any way to change the language when you ban someone?  (other than adding the explanation, which adds to the ban, but doesn't change the language about being banned)  Is there another method of "suspending" someone's account?  In other words, create a ban that isn't called a ban?

Thanks for your opinions on this. 

Cecilia 

[flapjack]

watermark their avatar with the word "suspended" or add custom title

[anidea]

watermark their avatar with the word "suspended" or add custom title

Can you explain what you mean?

[Looking]

I beleiev everyone should be able to delete their account.

Delete their account and then ban their username and email from being used to register?

[Matthew-me]

Cecilia,

In my forum sign up agreement and TOS I have the following wording:

10) Deletion of accounts. You may decide to leave this forum. Your account will not automatically be deleted, but will be deleted by the forum management after a grace period. This is in case you change your mind.

Please note that your posts and threads will not be deleted, even if your account is deleted. However all personal information in your public profile will no longer be accessible for public view and your posts will not be linked to any personal information you provided other than the username you chose upon registration.


This way it is perfectly clear to members on sign up that they will not be able to have their posts deleted (mucking up threads and topics) - even if their account is deleted.

In addition I write to anyone who wants their account deleted asking them why? ... Nine times out of ten they change their mind.

Hope something there helps.

Matthew

[anidea]

I beleiev everyone should be able to delete their account.

Delete their account and then ban their username and email from being used to register?

How can you ban them after they've deleted themselves?

[Looking]

Not ban them, ban their former info.

In Admin settings ban the username and email if you are worried about someone else using the same name.

[anidea]

Cecilia,

In my forum sign up agreement and TOS I have the following wording:

10) Deletion of accounts. You may decide to leave this forum. Your account will not automatically be deleted, but will be deleted by the forum management after a grace period. This is in case you change your mind.

Please note that your posts and threads will not be deleted, even if your account is deleted. However all personal information in your public profile will no longer be accessible for public view and your posts will not be linked to any personal information you provided other than the username you chose upon registration.


This way it is perfectly clear to members on sign up that they will not be able to have their posts deleted (mucking up threads and topics) - even if their account is deleted.

In addition I write to anyone who wants their account deleted asking them why? ... Nine times out of ten they change their mind.

Hope something there helps.

Matthew

Thanks, Matthew.  We do have very clear TOS, too, but I like the way you worded that.  Mind if I plagiarize a bit? 

Although TOS doesn't seem to help.  They ignore everything they agreed to.

Right now we're going through some growing pains.  We made the mistake of creating ourselves in a similar fashion after the original forum that disappeared earlier this year.  The original forum owner has personal issues and couldn't continue on and had left the forum unmoderated for a looooong time.  Anyway, the flaming was out of hand on the original forum, and now it's carried over onto the new forum.  And in between the old forum and the new one, there were several failed attempts at making a new forum...anyway, it's a big mess.

In a few cases, people asked me to delete their profiles because they didn't like our moderation of the forum.  I'm trying to take the "you can't please everybody" approach, but in some other cases people wouldn't take the hint "vote with your feet" and felt the need to continue flaming, and insisting that the owners of the forum ban themselves lolololol so we had to force them a bit.

I'm exhausted just explaining it.  Maybe I wasn't cut out for this line of work lololololol

[Matthew-me]

10) Deletion of accounts. You may decide to leave this forum. Your account will not automatically be deleted, but will be deleted by the forum management after a grace period. This is in case you change your mind.

Please note that your posts and threads will not be deleted, even if your account is deleted. However all personal information in your public profile will no longer be accessible for public view and your posts will not be linked to any personal information you provided other than the username you chose upon registration.

.....

Thanks, Matthew.  We do have very clear TOS, too, but I like the way you worded that.  Mind if I plagiarize a bit? 

Although TOS doesn't seem to help.  They ignore everything they agreed to.
........

Take it away use what you want. And though they may ignore TOS (most people do not even read it) you can throw it back at them when they complain with a on your face.

M

[flapjack]

watermark their avatar with the word "suspended" or add custom title

Can you explain what you mean?

I've just used this: http://www.watermarktool.com/
but there are other tools like this, just google it

[anidea]

watermark their avatar with the word "suspended" or add custom title

Can you explain what you mean?

I've just used this: http://www.watermarktool.com/
but there are other tools like this, just google it

Thanks!  That's a great idea to get the message through.

I think the last thing I need to figure out is how to change the language that says "Sorry Guest, you are banned from using this forum!"  So that it can say "Sorry, you requested deletion of your user name.  If you wish to return to the forum..." etc. instead of the reference to ban, change it to deleted.

[Ensiferous]

Simply just ignore it, you have no obligation to delete content they willingly offered to you through forum posts or during sign up. You can mess around with watermarking avatar or whatever but I personally have better things to do. Have a page explaining that it's not possible to delete and then ignore requests.

[flapjack]

every time you are issuing a ban you can put an explanation for the user to see

[anidea]

every time you are issuing a ban you can put an explanation for the user to see

They don't care that it says "account deleted per user request" all they care about is that they see "banned" lol Yeah, you would think that if they chose deletion, that they'd realize that it was THEIR choice and that we spoke to them about it several times.  :-/

[anidea]

Simply just ignore it, you have no obligation to delete content they willingly offered to you through forum posts or during sign up. You can mess around with watermarking avatar or whatever but I personally have better things to do. Have a page explaining that it's not possible to delete and then ignore requests.

That's kind of how I feel at this point.  I'm not going to make them happy no matter what I do, so I might as well do what I want to do and be done with it.  It's just that seeing your name compared to Fidel on other sites kinda makes your head spin.

Here's what I added to our terms of service:

Finally, at some point, you may decide to leave this forum. If that time comes, please contact an administrator. Your account will not automatically be deleted, but will be suspended by forum management after a grace period. If you ever wish to change your mind, contact [email protected].

Please note that your posts and threads will not be deleted, even if your account is deleted. However all personal information in your public profile will no longer be accessible for member view and your posts will not be linked to any personal information you provided other than the user name you chose upon registration.  The entire forum is private and not available to public view.

Once your account is suspended, you may notice that there is a "ban" on your ip address, email address and/or member name.  This is done to prevent members from creating multiple user names, as well as to prevent other users from registering with your former member name.

[flapjack]

you can always change the wording in the language files, and instead "You are banned from viewing this forum" add something like "This forum cannot be accessed" and give proper explanation in the second line ("Reason: account suspended upon request")

I myself wouldn't bother.

[Bookmama]

...

In addition I write to anyone who wants their account deleted asking them why? ... Nine times out of ten they change their mind.

Hope something there helps.

Matthew

I'm curious, why DO people want to have their accounts deleted?  I can't think of a motivation.

[anidea]

...

In addition I write to anyone who wants their account deleted asking them why? ... Nine times out of ten they change their mind.

Hope something there helps.

Matthew

I'm curious, why DO people want to have their accounts deleted?  I can't think of a motivation.

I think it's an emotional reaction.  As if deleting themselves from the site somehow distances them from the subject.

In other cases, I think they think that they can delete their account and come back as someone else (ie. a different username), but that's against our TOS.

[Bookmama]

Well that makes some sense (the idea of distancing themselves).  Actually a couple days ago, I saw a post in another forum that requested to be deleted and the person made some comment about not having made any friends in the forum.  It sounded a bit like a 6 year old saying they were just going to take their toy home, because their friends weren't playing the way they wanted them too. 

Since I guess the person had in fact made some friends, the post was followed by a bit of soothing, "There, there now..." sort of replies. 

Seesh....