Delete My Account

[Josiah Wallingford]

Is it possible to have a "restore" account feature put into place? This way if the user ever comes back their content is restored as if they had never left.

[Adriano Faria]

Nope. This one deletes the account. There is one in marketplace that deactivate the account so you activate them back: 

 

Edited June 6, 2018 by Adriano Faria

[DSystem]

Has this also...

 

[Graeme S.]

@Adriano Faria, does this send an email to the email address of the account that was deleted to let them know their account was removed?

[Adriano Faria]

Yes:

It'll send out emails: 

• When the request is received (with a direct link to cancel it)
• When the request is approved
• When the request is cancelled

[Ramsesx]

It would be nice to have an option to force the user leaving a reason for the account deletion.

[Adriano Faria]

I’ll add a setting in next version to admin decides if the reason will be required. 

[Adriano Faria]

What's New in Version 2.2.2:

New features:

• Added a new setting to make REASON a required field
• Added a new setting to admin decide where to show the 'Delete My Account' link:
  • Left-side list in the settings area
  • Under "Other Settings" in the account settings overview

Use it on IPS 4.3 only.

[Brian Klein]

Suggestion For Future Update:

Move the actual program from 'Community' (Eg. 1)

to a choice under 'Members' (eg. 2, exampled by 'red line'), since it is a member related program and directly impacts the member accounts.

It's really a cosmetic change, but one I feel should be implemented. @Adriano Faria

[Adriano Faria]

1 minute ago, Humanastorian said:

It's really a cosmetic change, but one I feel should be implemented.

Ok. I'll give some thought when releasing a new version.

[Brian Klein]

2 minutes ago, Adriano Faria said:

Ok. I'll give some thought when releasing a new version.

You sir are amazing with your work! Thanks for taking the time to hear my thoughts out.

[SJ77]

I am going to request that this plugin work a little differently.

I have noticed that how it removes the account leaves massive holes in the database turning it to swiss cheese of sorts.

What if we can BAN users and change their username to something RANDOM instead.

Consider the following:

Mass Deleting Posts (GLAD THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN)

One of the things that makes online forums special is the fact that they are shared spaces. This means that when someone contributes, their contribution directly impacts the contributions of others. There are no walls or profiles, no individual areas where you have to opt-in to a specific person (at least, not usually and not in a way that outweighs the shared spaces). There is simply a space that everyone shares.

How relevant is a post? How valuable is it? How enjoyable is it for the person who made the post and for those reading it? This is all affected by the posts that surround it. If you remove 10,000 posts from a forum, 100,000 posts and 10,000 members might be affected in a negative way.

If posts made by a member are simply mass deleted, with no discretion, it is very harmful. It harms the community, as a whole, because it lowers the value of other contributions, some of which are the reason that the deleted posts exist in the first place. It harms the community’s history, erasing data and making the community appear smaller than it actually is. It harms the owner of the community, who facilitated something that the member had derived value from, potentially for years, prior to requesting deletion.

Worst of all, it harms the people who interacted with the member, who wrote posts that will now either be removed or be less relevant and appear to make no sense in the context of the threads they are posted on.

Deleting Accounts (THIS DOES HAPPEN - NOT GOOD)

Account deletion is problematic because of how it messes with documentation and your database. When you delete the account, even if you leave the posts, the posts may lose association with a member account, meaning that they are marked as guest posts – no member made them, they simply exist. This makes it impossible to, in the future, look back on those posts and know what account made them.

This can really hurt your ability to look back on documentation related to that member, should you ever need to do so. I am a big fan of preserving documentation to ensure that no matter what happens, a year from now, 10 years from now, I can look back and know exactly what that member did, how we handled it, why we banned them, etc. It creates consistent moderation, allows you to know you did the right thing regarding them member and aides you in deciding if and when to unban people. It removes the failings of memory and the passage of time.

What’s the Middle Ground?

For these reasons, I don’t simply mass delete posts or delete accounts upon request. I can’t allow my community to be harmed in that manner. But, I also want to work with people to, ideally, find a solution that makes everyone happy.

With accounts, I don’t delete them, but what I do offer is account closure. This means that the username is changed to something non-descriptive, like username12345. The profile fields (email address, instant messenger names, website URLs, avatars, etc.) are cleared. The account is blocked from further usage (banned) and the member can no longer use it, as it is no longer tied to them or identifiable to them. They cannot sign up for a new account in the future and, once completed, the action is irreversible. This is to separate people who want to actually leave from those who just want attention and to waste my time (and harm the community repeatedly) by joining and then making me delete their existence, over and over again.

I explain all of this to the member and ask them to confirm that they want me to move forward with it. Once confirmed, the request is processed with all of the details documented.

Regarding posts, while I won’t simply blindly remove a mass amount of posts, I am happy to work with people on any sensitive or identifying information. I simply ask them what their concerns are and how I can help, while minimizing the damage to the people who replied to their posts. Maybe they said something that, in hindsight, they wish they hadn’t in one post and it is harming them in some way in their personal life. Maybe they posted a picture of their son or daughter that they don’t want on the forums. In those cases, I’m happy to help and simply to remove the sensitive posts in question.

 

[opentype]

Keep in mind that this app is only a better interface for IPS’(!) delete function. 

[SJ77]

18 minutes ago, opentype said:

Keep in mind that this app is only a better interface for IPS’(!) delete function. 

Gosh, you're right and that's a great point.

I might be requesting a totally different plugin. But it would be a great one!!

It could be called "Close my Account" instead of Delete my account.

[dog whisperer]

• The Staff will review each request to approve it or deny it on ModeratorCP -> Delete Account Requests

Is there no auto - accept option for this?

[Adriano Faria]

1 minute ago, dog whisperer said:

Is there no auto - accept option for this? 

No.

I can add this in a new version. No ETA right now.

[dog whisperer]

I guess I could get this one ~snip

Thanks for quick reply though 🙂

Edit: removed competitors link upon your request @Adriano Faria 

Edited November 13, 2018 by dog whisperer
asked to remove competitors link

[dog whisperer]

On 6/6/2018 at 8:41 AM, Adriano Faria said:

Nope. This one deletes the account. There is one in marketplace that deactivate the account so you activate them back: 

 

This one isn't available anymore just btw ..

[Phil7789]

Hey Adriano,

I have a question with this application. We can enter different deletion agreements for each language, but they're all written down at the same time when a user wants to delete his/her account.

So we have:

Quote

Language 1
,
Language 2
,
Language 3

The "," is indeed also there. I think this might be a bug? I entered the agreements for each language and saved them. After saving they get combined for each language as the example above.

A small feature request: Instead of choosing all of the groups could you add a checkbox which selects all groups automatically? Like we have in some other parts of IPS?

Best regards,
Phil

Edited December 3, 2018 by Phil7789

[Adriano Faria]

1 minute ago, Phil7789 said:

I think this might be a bug?

In the plugin, yes.

2 minutes ago, Phil7789 said:

A small feature request: Instead of choosing all of the groups could you add a checkbox which selects all groups automatically? Like we have in some other parts of IPS?

I'll take a look.

[Adriano Faria]

What's New in Version 2.2.3:

• Fixed the multi-language feature in Deletion Terms (setting).
• Changed the way Groups are selected on ACP (checkboxes with options to select ALL or NONE).

 

 

 

[ptprog]

Aren't admins supposed to receive notifications when there is an account deletion request?

[Adriano Faria]

10 hours ago, ptprog said:

Aren't admins supposed to receive notifications when there is an account deletion request?

Notification is sent to admins (primary group) with the notification enabled:

[ptprog]

That option is enabled.  The problem is the primary group 🙂 Thanks!

[Cyboman]

It would be nice, if the timestamp / date would be shown in the ModCP member account deletion listing, when a member has requested his account to be deleted.

Our staff only looks into this mask from time to time, and sometimes, we keep member accounts alive for further checks, before we delete them.

So, if we could see, when the deletion request was initially entered in the system, that would be very helpful.

Thanks.