[Htrac]

(Original post by Quiet _One86)
In the FAQ:

How do I delete my account?



The Student Room policy is not to delete the accounts of members that no longer wish to be a part of the TSR community. There are numerous reasons for this. Firstly, deleting an account would potentially remove a lot of useful information that a member has contributed to the site. Secondly, there is no way of deleting all of a member’s posts in one go, and manually removing them would be extremely time consuming. Further more, doing so would put unnecessary strain on the server, especially where that user has a high number of posts.

If you no longer wish to be involved with the site, TSR recommends that you change your password to something you will not remember and then log out. Alternatively, you can request to be permanently banned from the forum, by going to the Ask a Moderator forum and explaining why you wish to be banned. When you are banned from the site, your posts will not be searchable, and nor will your account appear on the members list. However, both will still appear in threads you have posted in, and your profile can still be viewed by clicking through to it form your posts, so be sure to remove profile information before you request a ban.

Hope this helps.

This is nonsense and sounds like the administrators don't know what they're talking about. I've been on vBulletin forums in which user accounts have been deleted but their posts remain. They appear with their username, but it's not a hyperlink and says "Guest" under it. That should give you some clues as to how it's done.

Any contributions such as our posts you have the right to keep, as per your terms and conditions:

2.2 Users shall retain ownership rights in the text, messages, chat, files, images, photos, video, sounds, musical works, works of authorship or any other materials that they from time to time post or transmit to the Website (the “User-Generated Content”). Except as provided under clause 5.6, any User-Generated Content you post or transmit to the Website shall be considered non-confidential.

By submitting the User-Generated Content you hereby grant:

2.2.1 Acumen PI a permanent, non-exclusive, assignable, royalty free licence to display, reproduce, distribute and modify your User-Generated Content.

2.2.2 to all other Users a non-exclusive licence to display, reproduce or perform (if applicable) your User-Generated Content solely as necessary for such User to participate in the relevant Website activity or functionality.

However, you do not have the right to keep our personal details in your database for extended periods of time against our will. In fact I'm fairly sure it is against the Data Protection Act 1998. But I suppose you already violated that by not having adequate security measures in place.

[CJ]

(Original post by Htrac)
This is nonsense and sounds like the administrators don't know what they're talking about. I've been on vBulletin forums in which user accounts have been deleted but their posts remain. They appear with their username, but it's not a hyperlink and says "Guest" under it. That should give you some clues as to how it's done.

Yep, we're aware this is an option and in the past this was often used. Problem was, people that were banned/wanted their accounts removed would all appear as Guest user and you could no longer make sense of a number of threads. TSR relies heavily on the ability for members to search threads and find help from answers given days/weeks/months/years ago, but by promoting the option to turn yourself into a Guest, a lot of value is lost from older, useful content.
It's by all means possible, but from experience not really an avenue we want to go down again and as such we decided to take a different approach.

However, you do not have the right to keep our personal details in your database for extended periods of time against our will. In fact I'm fairly sure it is against the Data Protection Act 1998. But I suppose you already violated that by not having adequate security measures in place.

I've/we've got no problems with removing any personal information in our database. Much of the information held within a users profile is optional, and therefore easily edited out within the Settings menu by the member themselves. For everything else, i'm more than happy to take a look into the account and remove any identifiable data, or that which the member no longer wants to appear on the site. This can mean anonymising usernames, email addresses etc, whatever the individual need is.

I do this on a daily basis via our support emails and with direct contact with each of our members individually, as to what they do/don't want to happen to their accounts.

We're not rigid in our methods, i'm always happy to listen to people and help out where possible.

[cl_steele]

(Original post by Illusionary)
It's not possible to delete your account, but we can offer a permanent ban which may help. See here for more details: http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/show....php?t=1329581

Hi Illusionary, may i ask why people cant permanently delete their accounts instead of just getting them banned?

[Illusionary]

(Original post by cl_steele)
Hi Illusionary, may i ask why people cant permanently delete their accounts instead of just getting them banned?

This is a long-standing admin policy and covered by many threads here, including this one and also here, for example: http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/show....php?t=2043280

[ak137]

(Original post by Illusionary)
This is a long-standing admin policy and covered by many threads here, including this one and also here, for example: http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/show....php?t=2043280

You must really be getting tired of saying the same things over and over again (even though you may not wish to admit it )

and it must be tiring for you being nice all the time on this forum

EDIT: Oh no, someone negged me. My life is over as I know it!