User self-anonymization

[jacotec (Marco Jakobs)]

Sometimes users are requesting via PM or eMail to have their accounts deleted. With the GDPR they of course also have the right to.

Although this is just some clicks for me, they sometimes have a different email, so I need to send them an email/PN back to the original one in the forum to prove it’s not someone else requesting the erase.

I think it would be extremely handy to modify the ability of the users to delete their own account over the existing 1-posts/3days-limit. In case the account can’t be deleted, the system should anonymize it.

I’d suggest that an email is sent to the user which has requested the erase/anonymization. The link in the email then finally performs the action.

What do you think?

[sam (Sam Saffron)]

Strongly against self service here, this would be a knee jerk response to a non problem with extreme risk

Yes stuff may be a bit tumultuous now, but give stuff a month or 2 to settle down

[codinghorror (Jeff Atwood)]

You want a mild amount of friction around self destructive activities. The current “allow instant self delete for new accounts with only a few posts” is the correct balance.