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Question: Deactivating accounts?

Yoshikkko

Yoshikkko

the princess has awoken while the prince sleeps on
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    • Seen Apr 22, 2025
    Okay so, yesterday and today, I was VM'ing with someone here, when today I found out that their account had been deactivated/deleted when I wanted to view the conversation, and I couldn't. The username became unclickable and their posts had been deleted too, I went to check where I knew they were. In his last VM, he said something about deactivating his account, and I just wanted to tell him that that wasn't possible - but now I don't know anymore?

    The user was MartianOddity, if you go to my page you can still see his VM which is on the first VM page, and if not, on the second at least, but his account doesn't exist anymore >> https://www.pokecommunity.com/member.php?username=martianoddity

    I don't really understand, since I've always thought that deactivating/deleting accounts wasn't possible (or not done)?

    edit - I'll include a screenshot of the VM he sent me here:
    Spoiler:
     
    Someone with administrator privileges deleted their account and physically removed their posted (I know who removed their post because it's in the thread history of the threads that they were involved in, so I assume the same person who did that was the same who deleted their account). If it was simply deactivated (which happens automatically for members when they change their email address until they reactivate it), it would still be in the User Manager, but I searched that for the user, and they aren't there.
     
    Beats me. That's an administrative matter. Personally, I think if someone wants to delete their account, they should be able to without being told to just log off and not come back on again. If they regret it and want to come back but lost everything because of the deletion, that's their problem. Not that it's a big deal, though.
     
    I'm not sure who it was that deleted the member; that's weird. It is our policy to not delete accounts for anything so I guess the situation did merit special consideration or else the person who did it... well... shouldn't have. :(

    The reason we don't delete accounts is because it messes with the posts they have on PC. It will still assign the posts with a plaintext username showing the old name but they'll be unsearchable and they're just generally a pain.
     
    I've actually seen quite a lot of "deleted" members from posts a few years ago. I'm guessing back then admins deleted accounts that were banned or something?
     
    Accounts only get deleted because of database problems while editing them (Parallelzero is a witness to that, and he only wanted to merge his two accounts, not delete any) or because an admin does it. In the past, there were some special instances, but since we got our current "never delete accounts" policy we haven't endorsed any account deletions (which doesn't mean that someone could still do it behind the scenes, as we can infere from Erica's post).

    We'd never delete a banned account in the event they appealed, or simply to not mess the database up :(
     
    chrunch said:
    I've actually seen quite a lot of "deleted" members from posts a few years ago. I'm guessing back then admins deleted accounts that were banned or something?
    Click to expand...
    Honestly, I can only think of three or four accounts that were ever deleted. :/ Most of them had a lot of posts and/or were somewhat prominent members (all were staff, as I remember it) so maybe that's why you notice the posts more often.
     
    What do you do with inactive accounts? I mean - someone registered, never posted and was online on the day (s)he registered and never after. I wouldn't mind that but it 0 instead of o in my nickname bugs me :/

    I guess there are more users who found their desired nicknames occupied by ghosts...
     
    Gonz0 said:
    What do you do with inactive accounts? I mean - someone registered, never posted and was online on the day (s)he registered and never after. I wouldn't mind that but it 0 instead of o in my nickname bugs me :/

    I guess there are more users who found their desired nicknames occupied by ghosts...
    Click to expand...

    I agree haha. I find it really pointless how Pokecommunity does keep inactive accounts for over 5 years honestly.

    For example when I want a name change, and I cannot have a name change since a inactive user has it.

    https://www.pokecommunity.com/members/2758

    He has only made one post and hasn't been on since 2004. It has been 8 years..
     
    We used to prune accounts years ago but Steve doesn't really want us to anymore... and for that matter, we only ever pruned inactive accounts with zero posts anyway. :x
     
    Lightning said:
    We used to prune accounts years ago but Steve doesn't really want us to anymore... and for that matter, we only ever pruned inactive accounts with zero posts anyway. :x
    Click to expand...

    Lolz d: I understand how deleting accounts with posts can cause a problem to the forum, but they should fix the policy, for people who have "X" amount of posts accounts should not be deleted.

    Maybe like.. If people who have accounts that have 10 posts that are inactive for more than a year they should prune those accounts?

    Lightning<3 you should give me a name change lololol
     
    Gonz0 said:
    Well, he never posted... :C
    https://www.pokecommunity.com/members/90694

    Change the policy, PC is big enough to get rid of inactive accounts. Statistics won't be harmed, lol.
    Click to expand...

    I'm not sure a random command will make them change it, lol. I kind of think, to avoid all the time it would take to delete so many accounts, that if someone wants the account name from an inactive account they should be able to request it and get the account deleted. Doubt it would happen but it would be nice.
     
    I would give commands only if I could, I'm nothing on PC, so I'm just suggesting ^^

    and yeah, it would be very nice.
     
    I really wish you guys did prune inactive accounts. It would free a lot of usernames that some people have sitting there taking up space that someone could put good use to.
     
    we will attempt it next on PC' next maint cycle - and see what happens.
     
    Too bad we don't do name changes, but I would register "Mac" anyway and probably use it.
     
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