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Conseqences of deleting a member account?

Started by landyvlad, June 08, 2017, 11:45:03 PM

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landyvlad


I have had a request from a member to delete their account.  I can see in SMF admin / members  where to do this, but what concerns me is what happens then?

I do not want, for example, any of the posts that member has made to be lost.

If someone could let me know how this works I'd appreciate it.

Yes I did look in the online manual and couldn't find the answer.
Happy for someone to point me to the relevant section if I've missed it.

Thanks
"Put as much effort into your question as you'd expect someone to give in an answer"

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with questions on astrophysics or theology.  You will get better and faster responses by asking homeless people in the street. Thank you.

Be the person your dog thinks you are.

HDB

If you delete an account you will be given an option regarding post and topic deletion. You can select None, All Posts or Topics and Posts.  When you select None you will leave their posts and the member is then shown as a Guest. All their posts will remain unless you remove them.

landyvlad

"Put as much effort into your question as you'd expect someone to give in an answer"

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with questions on astrophysics or theology.  You will get better and faster responses by asking homeless people in the street. Thank you.

Be the person your dog thinks you are.

Paulo.chon

Another consequence of deleting a member account to know is that you're unable to search easily this ex-member's topics.

landyvlad

I there a way to 'delete' the account as above (with it being changed to 'guest' but no posts / topics deleted)

BUT instead of 'guest' - some different name eg "ex-(membername)"
e.g ex-landyvlad
"Put as much effort into your question as you'd expect someone to give in an answer"

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with questions on astrophysics or theology.  You will get better and faster responses by asking homeless people in the street. Thank you.

Be the person your dog thinks you are.

tjbalon

Quote from: landyvlad on June 19, 2017, 09:30:50 PM
I there a way to 'delete' the account as above (with it being changed to 'guest' but no posts / topics deleted)

BUT instead of 'guest' - some different name eg "ex-(membername)"
e.g ex-landyvlad

You can make a new account and re-assign all the posts.

Gwenwyfar

Quote from: landyvlad on June 19, 2017, 09:30:50 PM
I there a way to 'delete' the account as above (with it being changed to 'guest' but no posts / topics deleted)

BUT instead of 'guest' - some different name eg "ex-(membername)"
e.g ex-landyvlad
Guests are allowed to have custom names, so it will be shown as something like:

Member-name
Guest
"It is impossible to communicate with one that does not wish to communicate"

Kindred

You would have to change the assigned name in the database...  after deleting the account, change the username directly in smf_messages table
Слaва
Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

landyvlad

OK so there are three proposed solutions. On the face of it some seem contradictory?

One implies the only way to do it is via the database directly; the others seem to be two ways of doing so.

Which is the best (most foolproof) way of attacking this?
"Put as much effort into your question as you'd expect someone to give in an answer"

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with questions on astrophysics or theology.  You will get better and faster responses by asking homeless people in the street. Thank you.

Be the person your dog thinks you are.

br360

Personally, I would just go into their account settings and change their name to whatever you want (ex-membername for example). Make sure to change username and not just display name.

Then when doing that, you can change their password and email address to whatever you want(to ensure they don't get an email notifying them of a name change)

This way they don't have any access to their account and if they were to ever try to log in with their old username, they would get a message saying username doesn't exist. You can even create a guest user or deleted member usergroup and put that member into that group.

Easy way to do it without having to mess with the database

Gwenwyfar

Quote from: landyvlad on June 22, 2017, 08:26:33 PM
OK so there are three proposed solutions. On the face of it some seem contradictory?

One implies the only way to do it is via the database directly; the others seem to be two ways of doing so.

Which is the best (most foolproof) way of attacking this?
They are not contradictory. When you delete a user's account but leave their posts, their posts become assigned to "guest", with their name. It is possible to reassign guest posts (by name) to any other account. And you can edit the database to add any name you prefer to a guest post.

But br360 method seems easier, and you could also use it to change the user name and then delete afterwards (to show what you want), if that's how you prefer.
"It is impossible to communicate with one that does not wish to communicate"

br360

Quote from: Gwenwyfar on June 22, 2017, 11:08:32 PM
you could also use it to change the user name and then delete afterwards (to show what you want), if that's how you prefer.

It's been a while since I tried that, but I'm nearly positive that if you change a member's username and then delete the account, their original username they registered with (not the one you changed it to) would be the one that would reappear as the guest

Kindred

nope...  when you delete the account, whatever the value in the USERNAME (not display name) field is will be used....

so, yes... you can change the username (aka login name) and then delete the account.
The only reason that I did it in the database was because I typically have already deleted the account when I decide that a different name should be displayed.
Слaва
Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

landyvlad

Cheers.  I can't quite get my head around this so I may create a user, make a few posts and then follow the tips above, to see the end result.

Thank you.
"Put as much effort into your question as you'd expect someone to give in an answer"

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with questions on astrophysics or theology.  You will get better and faster responses by asking homeless people in the street. Thank you.

Be the person your dog thinks you are.

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