It is an option, as evidenced by the member who started this thread. It just can’t be done at solely a member’s discretion.
These two things run contrary to each other. Someone who wants Internet privacy likely practices “cyber hygiene” by not reusing usernames or passwords.
It’s doable, on a case by case basis, with the help of a Mod/Admin. It definitely shouldn’t be easy, because people would do it more often.
We play whack-a-mole already when trolls pop up. Making it even easier for them to appear, cause trouble, delete themselves after they get their pathetic jollies, and then come back again to start over isn’t something we need.
We’ve also had cases where people want threads/accounts deleted simply because they got an answer to their question. Like, they’ll start a thread, get awesome on-point replies, and then want to delete it because they think the thread isn’t useful to the forum as a whole.
Then there’s the people who talk themselves into a corner, start arguments/“debates” with multiple members, and want to disappear to save face instead of simply being wrong. That’s also a no-go.
You are addressing points I didn’t bring up (deleting threads), so I’m
Not going to respond to those.
You shouldn’t need to start a thread to ask to be deleted… I don’t even know why that occurs to the tech people to be a reasonable solution to this relatively common occurrence. That would be akin to posting “@Mark_Zuckerberg, please delete my Facebook account ” over on FB and hoping he’s in a charitable mood.
And I’ve seen plenty of people request to be deleted over the years and get denied for whatever reason, usually that it wouldn’t be fair to the other members who interacted with them. You don’t need to delete the content, just anonymize or change the user name to a default one like “deleted account” or something.
Many times when the site makes a big change and we discuss it we are told “we are bringing t nation in line with current industry standards” , and Delete account options are definitely an industry standard, or becoming one.
I don’t work on the tech side here obviously, but Are trolls such a problem that having a useful feature that some “normal” people want to use would get so abused it’s not possible? Are trolls even so disruptive that they need to be dealt with at all? Are they costing you guys money and dealing with account deletions in this manner saves you all money because of them? It’s quite baffling from the cheap seats, I have to say. I’m not even sure what not allowing them to delete an account accomplishes.
I wasn’t trying to veer off-topic. Just meant to respond to points from your post, via the quotes.
That’s exactly what happens. Usernames are anonymized. It’s why this thread now shows are being started by “anon50325502” instead of whatever their username used to be.
Yep. The majority of thread/user deletion requests we get fall under the three categories I mentioned earlier (trolls, “/thread”, and saving face). People with legitimate concerns about personal privacy or intermingling offline/online are in the minority. When they reach out to Mods/Admins, it’s taken care of.
Yep. If we stopped dealing with trolls, we’d end up like bb.com’s Misc section eventually. Nobody wants that.
No, they don’t cost the site money. They cost the site quality and they cost members time.