Forums / Maintenance / Suggest Ideas

… but more specifically, their posts. Why are they hidden? Just because a user makes his own account unusable dosn't mean his posts should be hidden… I guess I am just tired of the many blank holes left by the old users killing their accounts…

I remember seeing the full mod bar back when I glitched into James account. And in a user profile (mine…) I saw mods could Ban, Deactivate, or Mark as Spam (which I assume is a combo of the first two + hide account and any trace of existence), so I am certain you won't lose the power to hide Spam Accounts if you change what Deactivate does…

I remember… too far back in the day, even tho an account has been deactivated, their posts still showed, I of course wasn't around for that change. Its not bad to stop showing what they posted, but sometimes it makes holes in older conversations, like "I'm getting old, i cant remember all of it."

I actually had the same doubt. Also: When an user deactivates his/her account, is their content shared with the site kept? If so, why don't you do the same with their forum contributions? Many users deactivate their accounts because they either get bored, they get way too distracted or they are just messing around.

With Sweatie's awesome idea of retiring, he just left more than 8000 forum posts blank. We can't just document everything that happened on the forums at the Wikia (I think everyone forgot about…) in order to fill that gap. These forums have a lot of history, many important things happened: the shipping, the cheetos, the Gamzee invasion, the >Dear thread mess, things that only matter to us, those experiences that forged this family. If the site hides everything a deleted user posted, is like burning everything related to person that mattered to us.

Don't expect any action on this anytime soon.
Well, it would be a good idea to keep these posts active. But somehow I think Sweatie deactivated with that in mind. I could be wrong, though.

I'm not entirely sure why it's like that but things get deleted and disappear all teh time :( it sucks to lose that history but everything is transient.

tldr SCREENSHOT EVERYTHING

oddly, forum mods can still see their original posts by attempting to edit the "This user has been deactivated and their posts are no longer visible." posts.

i agree though, i remember being really sad when i could no longer see kytosai's posts :(

I think a "Leave user content" button is in order during the deactivation process.

Also, just to explain why this feature was implemented: It was for users who posted rule-breaking content and/or spam. Deactivating their account while automatically hiding their content is easier than manually deleting the offending content.

While it was a good idea for spam and troll posts, what about the posts of normal users.

It's so annoying seeing holes in conversations, with the post instead bearing the words: this user is deactivated and their posts are no longer visible.

Hence the first line.

And, back in the day, we almost never banned anyone. People that were banned were those who trolled excessively, broke rules constantly, and spammed everywhere. Now people ask to be banned all the time.
Personally, I think that these requests should be denied. It's their responsibility to control themselves, not the site moderation's. They don't want their account anymore? Fine. Just don't login. The mods shouldn't (and shouldn't have to) break the rules so they can feel absolved of any responsibility for their procrastination.

Just my two cents. (Unpopular opinion, probably. But I'm just throwing this out there anyway.)

Actually, I agree. We shouldn't give users a "Deactivate Account" option, and just tell them to stop posting if they want to leave.

The whole point of deactivated accounts is to hide the posts.

Deactivated (inactive) accounts – posts no longer visible
Banned accounts – posts visible.

An account is deactivated to remove the users' posts. If a user needs to be stopped (posting) he/she can be banned to stop the posting, but retain the posts.

Nobody here actually thinks the users perhaps don't want their posts to remain.

Which is why it has, many times, been used as a trolling tactic. We shouldn't allow people to do that.