[Talisman]

Hi Jethro,

I suppose the basis for your question lies in a person's right to be left alone and in his or her interest of privacy. When people join a forum or online community, they decide they want nothing more to do with that group, and they notify the manager(s) that they wish to be removed..... yes, absolutely.... that's their right and we should respect their decision. For the most part, I really don't think the others here disagree with you on this.

But what I think is getting in the way boils down to a question of semantics. That being our (differing) view of what the word "delete" means.

When a member tells us they want to be removed or "deleted".... they are saying they don't want to continue their membership with our club. They don't want an active account, they don't plan to come back for any more visits (therefore, no further access), they don't want their name or their profile information associated with us anymore, and they don't want to receive future bulletins or messages from us.

Yet, when computer folks (programmers, webmasters, admins, and such) talk about "deleting" something (or someone).... that really translates into a more technical or literal meaning than is usually necessary to satisfy the departing member's request.

Given the options admins have with vBulletin, we can essentially "delete" a member from our active accounts and quite easily discontinue any further association they have with us .... which is really what they're asking for ..... by simply reclassifying their member account from an active status to some sort of archive or banned or discontinued status that doesn't show up on the member list.

If somebody quits our club, must we literally eradicate any trace in our records, databases, etc.... that this person ever existed? No, I don't think so. At least, not as long as nothing visible remains anywhere that implies this person is still a member. And as long as we don't pester them in the future with unwanted mailings or other contact from the group.

Let's say somebody quits a job. Their former employer "deletes" them from the ranks of their active workforce and closes everything down that has anything to do with this individual. But their old personnel records will end up being stored in the company's archives, the memos they wrote will still exist in old correspondence files, and the funny cartoon they tacked up on the lunch room's bulletin board might still be there a few years later.

While the person may no longer be an employee, the firm still retains very detailed records that they worked there in the past.

At our forums..... by not literally deleting member accounts, we're able to retain some history of our former members. And if someone comes back six months later using the same email address .... the same IP address .... well, then we would still have data on all our "deleted" members we can use for comparison.... just in case.