Privacy concerns when deleting a member

[mortenz]

Where i come from, the current procedure for deleting a member is actually not in agreement with the laws on privacy protection.
After deleting a member the username is still displayed with all his or her posts. That means I have to run a manual SQL query every time I delete a member.

I'm quite sure that this is a problem in other countries as well and I therefore suggest that this is changed for the next upgrade.

[Planetby]

Well all you have to do really is mass delete his / her posts and PM's BEFORE you delete there account, these options are in ACP ;)

[martin-al]

The way I see it, there is no option to delete all the members posts.
You will at worst break the communication flow in the forum, and can set topics out of context.

But, I will probably agree with you, it could be a problem for members using their full name..

[sunrisecc]

The way I see it, there is no option to delete all the members posts.

What about Delete All Posts when viewing/editing a member (the ACP) un the drop-down lst under Actions?

[martin-al]

Okay, that was bad formulated on my part.
I meant that it is a bad choice to delete all user posts, of the reason mentioned above.

You will at worst break the communication flow in the forum, and can set topics out of context.

[sunrisecc]

I concur with you 100%.

[Jυra]

You can change the username to whatever you want before deleting, I'm sure?

[Wolfie]

You can change the username to whatever you want before deleting, I'm sure?

Yeah, just change their name before deleting. Also, I'm sure that this would only apply to real names being used, not screen names. Name could be changed to something like "deleted member (member id #)" that way there's some reference.

[mortenz]

Yes, changing the name before deleting is an easier option than running a query. However, I still think that username should be deleted automatically. I have looked in to the legal matters of this and it doesn't matter if the member uses real name or not. The member has a right to have their account entirely anonymized. I'm not sure, but I would expect that to be the case for other European countries as well.

[Wolfie]

Yes, changing the name before deleting is an easier option than running a query. However, I still think that username should be deleted automatically. I have looked in to the legal matters of this and it doesn't matter if the member uses real name or not. The member has a right to have their account entirely anonymized. I'm not sure, but I would expect that to be the case for other European countries as well.

Then the answer would be to change their display name to something like "FormerUser###" where the ### is the member number. Only thing I could see requesting on this is to option to automate this process when deleting the member.

[mortenz]

Actually, I just tested this procedure and the result was strange. From ACP I selected the member and changed his Log In Name. I clicked "Save Member" and saving was confirmed. After that I deleted the member. On the board however, the deleted member was still displayed as Guest_originalusername_*

Can anybody else reproduce this?

[martin-al]

You must change the display name, witch is used in the forums.

[mortenz]

Ok, thanks, but I am not able to change display name for user (or I haven't found the place).
It could because I have set Allow "Display Names" to "No"

[Eurycide]

mortenz is right... There is NO simple solution. Even if you change user login name or user display name BEFORE you delete the account all of the remaining posts will be signed as Guest_USER_DISPLAY_NAME_*, BUT please take a note that in database each post record has a "author_name" field that stores the user display name that was used AT THE TIME OF POSTING.

Now the worst thing. After account deletion this field is used to sign user remaining posts on the forum.

In my opinion this is a serious issue. Do you have any solution for this?