Do you how to always allow users to delete their own accounts? this helps with GDPR compliance. Can we use -1 or 0 for delete user max post age and delete user self max post count so that users can do this anytime?

Hi @RBoy, this is discussed in this topic [image] Option for user to delete themselves? Support The short version is that established accounts with a post history have to request deletion, because it can otherwise severely impact a community. If you were the OP to a long standing topic, and your deletion annihilated the entire topic that would be problematic. Community managers need to assess the impact and take any necessary precautions prior to deletion. Communities aren’t like email accounts or file sharing services, you have the right to request your account and any PII be removed, b…

Users can always request to delete their accounts. Also, there is a #theme-component that makes this more obvious. [image] Account Deletion Request Theme component information_source Summary Add Account Deletion Request dropdown to account page. hammer_and_wrench Repository GitHub - VaperinaDEV/discourse-account-deletion-request: Add Account Deletion Request dropdown to account page. · GitHub question Install Guide How to install a theme or theme component open_book New to Discourse Themes? Beginner’s guide to using Discourse Themes Hello wave This is a theme component to add an account deletion request dropdown to the accoun…

So from reading the linked topics am I right that users cannot delete their own accounts after XXX days have passed or XXX posts has been posted by them? The only way is for them to manually send a request to the admin? @codinghorror I read your comments about this, it would be great to allow an option to allow users to delete their accounts, there could be 2 options be provided which would let the site admins decide on what’s appropriate for them (to comply with legal requirements or their own policies, e.g. to keep overhead low). Allow users to delete their accounts and all posts (yes it may impact the community, but that decision should be left to the site owners, if they are okay losing that information as a trade off to reducing overhead and legal liability, then should be allowed to enable this option) Allow users to delete their account but retain all posts as an anonymized account

Isn’t that exactly what’s achieved by the methods discussed above?

[image] RBoy: Can we use -1 or 0 for delete user max post age and delete user self max post count so that users can do this anytime? Using -1 in delete user self max post count will disable the ability for users to self-delete, though you can set it really high to achieve a similar thing: [delete user self max post count] And delete user max post age can also be jacked up quite high as well (0 would effectively disallow user deletion): [delete user max post age]

Having actually done what @JammyDodger has said on one of my communities I strongly recommend against it unless you fully trust your users not to abuse it. We had to return the settings to the defaults after we kept having people get upset because they did not like the responses they were getting so they would delete their accounts when they found out they could not delete their own topics. That said, if you can fully trust your users not to abuse it, it can be helpful in some cases. :slight_smile: Just one small suggestion: if you’re going to modify those settings, make sure your modify the related site settings that control when staff can delete accounts as well to be consistent. In particular, make sure you set these settings the same: delete all posts max delete user self max post count If you set the former lower than the latter you get the curious situation where the user can self-delete but staff can’t delete the account.

[image] Claudia: the curious situation where the user can self-delete but staff can’t delete the account My first thought was “we should fix that” but then I realised that for someone it might actually be a desirable scenario :thinking: [image] Workflow

Ah, one of my favorite xkcd strips :slight_smile: And yeah, I can think of some situations where you would actually want users able to self-delete but limit staff to only have the option to anonymize the account.

[image] Claudia: Having actually done what @JammyDodger has said on one of my communities I strongly recommend against it unless you fully trust your users not to abuse it. Yeah, I can certainly imagine situations where this approach could get messy. Though if a forum admin felt strongly enough about it, and accepted the risks, the options are there. Personally, I think the defaults are a pretty good flow (and the Account Deletion Request button is a nice addition too). [image] Claudia: And yeah, I can think of some situations where you would actually want users able to self-delete but limit staff to only have the option to anonymize the account. This makes sense to me too. I think if a site has taken this decision it has generally come from a place where they want the user to have the ability even if it’s painful for the forum as a whole. If the user decides to push the button then it’s something they have to accept/tolerate, whereas it may not be something they want to encourage as a staff policy.

These options will only allow the user to delete their own posts. However for GDPR/CA compliance if a user wants to delete their own account, it’s forcing the admin to intervene. I would like to setup a process where in I would like the give the user the option to delete their own account and have discourse automatically anonymize it so we don’t lose the history but at the same time comply with the user’s wish to delete their account - without admin intervention. Is this possible?

How to always allow users to delete their own accounts?

Product Support

Lilly (Lillian ) September 8, 2023, 3:49pm 2

Hi @RBoy, this is discussed in this topic

Topic		Replies	Views
Users self-deleting/anonymizing? Feature	5	1265	February 20, 2025
Got request to delete a user account Product Support	6	1326	November 18, 2024
Shouldn't users be able to delete their accounts whenever they want? Feature	19	8691	January 29, 2022
Option for user to delete themselves? Product Support	16	1519	March 30, 2020
Why is ‘delete account’ not offered automatically to all users at all times? UX	39	1670	December 1, 2024

How to always allow users to delete their own accounts?

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