is there a way to delete an iNatForum account? i see the option in iNaturalist but not in iNatForum. (if there is a way to delete the account, does it cause content deletion in iNatForum similar to in iNaturalist, or does the content become anonymized or something like that?)
i assume it would be okay to delete an iNatForum account but retain the associated iNaturalist account?
conversely, would it be okay to delete an iNaturalist account but retain the iNatForum account? (i’m assuming there’s nothing that automatically propagates the iNaturalist deletion over to iNatForum.)
if you are talking about deleting your iNat account, it might delete the iNat forum account too, since they are linked, but presumably if you have gone so far to delete your iNat account you won’t be on the forums anyway. deleting your forum account shouldn’t affect your iNat account, but i’m not quite clear on why someone might do that. Do you want your posts deleted? If you are having issues with the forum you can also try messaging one of the admins or iNat devs.
i think you have the option to log in to iNatForum with your iNaturalist account, but that’s not mandatory. i’m just thinking about different possibilities.
i guess if someone goes through the trouble of deleting their account in iNaturalist and then figures out later that they would have to also separately delete their iNatForum account, then that could be problematic in a different way, especially if they can’t get into iNatForum because they logged in using their no-longer-active iNaturalist account.
deletion would be cleaner than just keeping around an account that you would no longer use. if i were to go from the forum, that’s probably the way i’d prefer to do it, depending on how content would be affected. (i can’t say that that hasn’t crossed my mind – not related to any specific interactions here, but more related to do-you-really-want-to-see-the-sausage-being-made life prioritization.)
As a moderator, it looks like we theoretically have the ability to delete someone’s account on request, but there are several limitations. First is this:
Users can’t be deleted if they have posts. Delete all posts before trying to delete a user. (Posts older than 1000 days old can’t be deleted.)
Besides that age limit, “Delete all posts” is not an option if the user has more than 1000 posts. In that case, I think a user would have to delete their own posts first (and might not be able to if more than 1000 days old).
We do have an option to “Anonymize User” but I’ve never seen it used or what the results look like.
Yeah, I don’t know for sure on that one. Since all posts have to be deleted first, the OP would have to be deleted, but somehow I doubt that would delete the whole thread containing everyone else’s responses. It would just leave them without their original context, I guess.
I want to quit the forum also, because I can’t stand the snobbery anymore. Would appreciate learning how to do it.
Behavior on iNaturalist is far less obnoxious, not closing that account.
hey – as the person who originated this thread, i am hoping that we can keep the thread focused on the mechanics of account deletion and refrain from having long discussions about why particular people have chosen to participate in the forum or not, or whether that’s good or bad. (there are other threads for those kinds of discussions.)
if folks have already decided to delete their accounts, let’s just let the process happen. we don’t need to debate or comment on each step of the process as it happens.
for those who’ve decided to retain their accounts, that’s fine, too, and i hope that we all continue to have good, meaningful conversations.
Regarding the technical aspects of account deletion:
new accounts (like 2-3 days old) with 5 or fewer posts can be deleted by the account owner.
accounts with more than 5 posts cannot be deleted by their owner. Posts have to be removed by the user or admin. Admins have a button that can remove all posts less than 1000 days old. Currently, posts older than 1000 days cannot be deleted, although that number is changeable by admins.
admins can also anonymize accounts, the details of which can be found here.
If you want to anonymize or delete your account (but can’t delete it yourself), please message me and/or forum_moderators. Note that either method is not reversible.
@pisum@tiwane
I apologize. It was honestly not my intent to stir up drama; in retrospect, I badly miscalculated.
It was also not meant as an attack or criticism of anyone who chooses to delete a forum account. I respect the choice and I’m sorry to see people being driven away. I was partly motivated by my frustration at the sense that nobody was being given a chance to see if this could be rectified.
Those threads explicitly said “temporary” and mentioned they will be deleted, so it was up to readers to decide if they wante to engage or not. Nothing rude in that.