Has anyone else experienced a situation where a forum admin refuses to respond to requests about personal account actions, such as username changes or account deletions?
It’s frustrating when a single person holds the keys to what goes public, yet ignores the responsibility that comes with it. Even major platforms like Google respect user rights when it comes to privacy and data control.
So how can a single forum admin act as if they have total authority over someone’s personal information?
If an admin refuses to take action or even respond, what options are there?
Has anyone successfully dealt with similar situations?
There isn’t too much you can do. Are you under GDPR? Because if you are, and that forum is under GDPR too, you can contact your official authorities and hope it helps.
Unfortunately because Discourse can be installed by anyone. It means that not everyone will abide by honorable use & managemrnt.
As @Jagster said though if you’re in places like the EU and the site is in the EU. GDPR laws can be used. You may also have other legal options depending on where you’re located
A lot of the major platforms though be careful as many just take the profile offline from public view vs a delete/anonymization
Discourse the company (CDCK, Inc) builds the open source Discourse software, which anyone is free to use, modify, and host themselves. In cases where someone runs Discourse on their own server there’s literally nothing we can do — we have 0 access or control.
The free software development is funded by providing optional paid hosting services. Individual sites hosted by CDCK are responsible for understanding and following their local laws and regulations.
