Platform(s), such as mobile, website, API, other: website, mobile URLs (aka web addresses) of any pages, if relevant: Description of need: Currently, any user can choose to delete their entire iNaturalist account at any time. After initially clicking delete, users are shown a screen with text exp…

Great idea. I knew a guy who had helped out a lot on the ID of recluse spiders (Loxosceles) of Mexico, but apparently he accidentally deleted his account, thus deleting all of those useful IDs he had added.

I agree that account deletion is a problem, and I like the idea of having more options for users who want to delete their accounts. However, I have strong objections to allowing any anonymized content - either observations or IDs. Certainly, current practice at natural history collections (if compa…

[image] cthawley: Without an ID to attach to an observation or an ID, one of iNat’s primary strengths (in my eyes) is lost: transparency. It is important to know which user made an observation or ID for a host of reasons which have been reviewed in other threads. One way to think of this is: wo…

I have some more to say about this, but I need some time to formulate my thoughts and I want to point out a distinction that i think is relevant to the discussion. There is a difference between pseudonymization and anonymization. I am far from an expert on this, but in the context of iNat, I would…

[image] spiphany: All content would have to either be attributed to a single account for all deleted users or each item would have to be independently assigned to a random anonymous user ID. This proposal is suggesting the first of these scenarios, correct? That’s a good distinction that I n…

While [image] thebeachcomber: the person’s username is something like ‘buglover’ or ‘canadabirds’ these may be pseudonyms, they are not anonymous per se as @spiphany pointed out. It is possible to determine what other observations the user has IDed, observations they’ve made, flags, etc. - T…

[image] huttonia: he accidentally deleted his account If you are quick enough, tiwane can retrieve and reinstate the info - which he did for a friend who lost her iNat profile around the Update Your Email process. Oops! Gone :cry: But back to IDs - for me - ‘half’ the value lies with WHO IDe…

[image] DianaStuder: If you are quick enough, tiwane can retrieve and reinstate the info It was a couple years ago, and I don’t remember his username or real name :(

No the window is more like a week - where they still have backup. But tiwane persevered!

Change account deletion functionality to allow account anonymisation and prevent deletion of IDs

Feature Requests

sedgequeen June 19, 2024, 3:25pm 7

Please, please do this, iNaturalist. Or else simply prohibit deletion of ID’s & comments.

Topic		Replies	Views
Dealing with Account Deletion General otherprivacy	81	17895	June 1, 2019
The vanishing of a fellow iNatter General	372	15203	February 8, 2023
How did about 50 species disappear from our project without notice? General	57	2689	November 21, 2022
Spam accounts - enhance users "Identifications" page to manage deleted content Feature Requests	37	2578	February 22, 2021
Can observations get kicked back to Needs ID if an IDer leaves iNat? General	13	1317	November 3, 2022

Change account deletion functionality to allow account anonymisation and prevent deletion of IDs

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