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(closed account) ghosts and username magic

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(closed account)

I recognize that when a user closes an account that he/she will no longer post, but I'm not sure I like the fact that all past references to said user is erased with nothing more than (closed account).

It's kind of like going and scrubbing names off of tombstones.

Can we instead have something like

    dennisDOTcpp (closed account)


I do not intend to close my account anytime soon, BTW, I'm just saying. (I still have to finish the FAQ -- and I'm working hard on finding the time to give it some serious update.)



(usernames with extended characters)

On a related subject, why can't usernames have extended characters in them? I tried to change my username to Dúthomhas, but the forum forbade it. As I'm the only one who ever has to actually type it in, it shouldn't be a problem, right?



(post edits)

[edit -- this section added as per catfish666]
Also, what's with user's being able to edit and delete their posts? I like being able to edit a post -- I do it myself regularly.

But I am careful to never represent what I had originally written -- a point that often frustrates me about some other users. For example, how many have taken the time to answer a newbie -- only to discover said newbie removes all content from his posts? Feels like a kick in the teeth, no?

I think it would be possible to mitigate this problem by checking the revised content against the new content. Added content is fine, but changes to or removal of the original content should be kept under a relatively conservative percentage, like 30? 40?

That would leave enough room for users to scrub cussing, ad hominem, etc, fix typos, rename a variable or function, clarify a statement, etc, but not actually delete much stuff.

Just thinking...
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I recognize that when a user closes an account that he/she will no longer post, but I'm not sure I like the fact that all past references to said user is erased with nothing more than (closed account).

I differ, as I like the feature. If they want to be forgotten then they should be allowed to, and masking their username is elegant enough for this purpose.

This, even though there will always be backups of everything. Look at the Wayback Machine for instance. It will get worse with time, probably in a few years every backup of a backup will be backuped... and publicly browsable.
No, it's a stupid feature.

No, really. You want to erase everyone else's memory of you? This is a internet forum. Outside of your username and the (now unreadable user profile) people don't know anything about you. All it does is put a bunch of "i wazn't here"s on threads.

I agree that people should have some control over their information online, but I think that should be limited to accuracy, not the power to erase or rewrite the past. Particularly where it doesn't matter.
No, really. You want to erase everyone else's memory of you? This is a internet forum. Outside of your username and the (now unreadable user profile) people don't know anything about you. All it does is put a bunch of "i wazn't here"s on threads.

Yeah so? We all care more about the content of the posts (content which remains untouched by the account deletion itself) and not the person's internet identity, right?

I agree that people should have some control over their information online, but I think that should be limited to accuracy, not the power to erase or rewrite the past. Particularly where it doesn't matter.

I don't think it's up to you to decide if it matters or not. In fact I don't understand what you're talking about with the "limited to accuracy" and why removing your username is not just that.
I think it should be something like BHXSpecter(closed account) so that you can at least see who said it and not have to deduce who they are talking to in an old thread that may pop up for something you are researching.
I just changed my name to have a zero in it. All of the posts I have made reflect that change. ( I also can't change my name again for 90 days, you've been warned :) ).

This means that a post doesn't know the name of who made it, just the account id. So, what do you do if someone wants to delete his/her account? You either don't let them, pretend that it is deleted, allow posts to belong to nobody, or delete every post made by that account. Right now, posts can belong to nobody.

I like the idea of user names always being visible, but I also appreciate that this site really deletes an account.
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I'm in agreement with Duoas.

Threads become disjointed and difficult to read if there is reference in the body of the posts to people participating in the thread when there is nothing to tie (closed account) to those references without analyzing the thread in a way that shouldn't need to be done.

Of course, that's true of changing names as well, but it seems like less of a problem to me as there is still an identity there.
@Catfish666
You're missing the point. Since when is your made up username your identity? BHXSpecter understood instantly.

As for the limited version of identity, a person's words (posts) are linked to that. And the reason I am complaining is that sometimes it is confusing when you have nothing but a bunch of (account closed)s in a thread to follow along.

Not to mention that it becomes impossible to google that person for code he wrote in an old post for no other reason than you can't remember his username.

Catfish666 wrote:
I don't think it's up to you to decide if it matters or not.
Since when is it up to me? You are twisting an argument that...

In fact I don't understand what you're talking about with the "limited to accuracy" and why removing your username is not just that.
Oh, that's right, you don't understand what I'm talking about. Like the ad-homenim? Stop trolling and contribute with a real argument.

Whom does it hurt, and how does it hurt him/her, to have a made-up name attached to an old post?

I personally don't belive in rewriting history. That's the reason Americans are so dumb about their place in the world -- their history textbooks have been rewritten to make them the good guys.

And why yuppie kids think they are so smart on the internet.

@Catfish666
Funny how you are all anti-censorship 'don't mess with the flow of information' elsewhere but now you want to censor knowledge of who said what in the past. Care to explain this apparent incongruity? Why does my suggestion offend you so?

...and to finish your argument against me -- I never suggested people be refused the power to erase themselves if they want:

/me wants to prevent others from remembering all the time I spend interacting with them on the forum
/me changes my username to something incomprehensible
/me terminates account
/me pats self on back for being so smart
If someone wants their account to be hidden they could always just change their username to something random themselves.
closed account (Dy7SLyTq)
you know that you can still find out who it is right? if you plug it (ie the code next to closed account) in to google it finds the cplusplus user page where you can see the name
DTSCode wrote:
you know that you can still find out who it is right? if you plug it (ie the code next to closed account) in to google it finds the cplusplus user page where you can see the name
cire wrote:
...without analyzing the thread in a way that shouldn't need to be done.
Duoas wrote:
Not to mention that it becomes impossible to google that person for code he wrote in an old post for no other reason than you can't remember his username.

Well you shouldn't be searching for his username in the first place, because that's not what you want is it? You want their post -- so in my opinion the search function needs to be refined, and not discarding a great feature of the forum.

Duoas wrote:
Whom does it hurt, and how does it hurt him/her, to have a made-up name attached to an old post?

I don't know. I just like the idea of being able to delete your account, and your suggestion would make the process useless.

Duoas wrote:
Funny how you are all anti-censorship 'don't mess with the flow of information' elsewhere but now you want to censor knowledge of who said what in the past. Care to explain this apparent incongruity? Why does my suggestion offend you so?

It's all shades of gray. I have no problem with "messing with the flow" of certain information. And I'm not offended by your suggestion -- why, are you offended by me disagreeing?

Also, "censor knowledge of who said what". That's not up to me, it's the personal decision of the person deleting their account.

In the end I just like the feature and would like it to stay as it is, while your suggestion, if followed, would just ruin it.
Catfish666 wrote:
I don't know. I just like the idea of being able to delete your account, and your suggestion would make the process useless.

I'm a little confused. How does that make the process useless? Deleting the account is permanent and from my understanding the account stays in the database so you can't re-create it later. So if they delete the account they would have to make a new one that has a number or completely different name so it would make more sense to put text at the top of the post that simply was the closed account (BHXSpecter) rather than say closed account (3hMz8vqX) or closed account (jwkNwA7f). I believe this even more if you find a post where you have four or five accounts that are closed because then you can't figure who is giving advice or who is talking to who seeing as not everyone bothers addressing posts directly by name.
Erasing the user name contradicts the point of a message board with named users, which is being able to know who said what and when. If anyone is able to erase their name from every post they ever made, it turns the forum into an optionally anonymous forum with forced registration. I'm not against that, but it's kind of a dick move to regular users who can't or don't want to be anonymous.

For policies to be consistent, either user names should be available permanently (possibly with a history), or registration-free anonymous posts should be allowed.
Well you shouldn't be searching for his username in the first place, because that's not what you want is it? You want their post

It is one and the same. I do it to myself all the time.

User asks about headers and source files or some related thing, I Google:
"site:cplusplus.com duoas include guards header source"
Which helps me find this:
http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/general/13162/#msg63354

Or if I want Grey Wolf's article about books:
"site:cplusplus.com grey wolf books"
which gets me:
http://www.cplusplus.com/articles/GLzyhbRD/

See, I'm the guy who wears a wristwatch with the date on it just because I can't remember what day it is five minutes from now. I can't remember changing trivia.

so in my opinion the search function needs to be refined, and not discarding a great feature of the forum. ... I just like the idea of being able to delete your account, and your suggestion would make the process useless.

In my opinion we need world peace -- but that is as vague a need as refining the search. And again you assert with glowing terms (we'd be "discarding a great feature") just your opinion without providing reasons.

I've already given strong and valid reasons.

[stuff about my being offended]

Saying a thing doesn't make it true. Learn to argue a point, and skip the personal logical fallacies.

Censorship is the one (or few) controlling public information. You want the power to delete public information. Whether it is information related to you or not is irrelevant. You provided the information already -- it's too late to change your mind. The only rights you have to public information about yourself is accuracy and disclosure. Neither of which are denied you by preserving information on the site.
I'm with Duoas on this one. User names are memorable. Sometimes you want to find a contribution from a specific person that you remember from a while back.

Although I don't think this compromise is too out of the question: give the user who's deleting his/her account the option to mask their username or to leave it be. That way if (for whatever reason) someone really wants themselves gone, they have the right to that choice. Same goes for the contrary.

I don't really see the point in this argument one way or another for one very big reason: Those who have deleted their accounts probably haven't contributed anything worth remembering. Those of us that have been around for a while and have reasonably contributed don't even think about deleting our accounts, because why would we want to?
So is it really a problem of worthwhile content being lost? Or is it just a minor inconvenience to follow the thought process of some old threads?

I guess I'm mostly impartial, slightly leaning towards Duoas's opinion.
I'm with Duoas 100%. My reasoning is, if they remove the username and you want to find their point of view or the contribute code that gives you an idea, how are you going to find it again if all you remember is the topic and username that posted it. If that user removes their account and is replaced by some odd alphanumeric thing, how will you find that post again since it won't link to the username anymore. You would have to have the alphanumeric to find it at that point. It would be so much simpler if they just left the username and closed the account. Hell, Facebook lets you close and reactivate your account all you want, and in recent months I think this method may be for the best seeing as a couple have deleted their accounts just to make a new one (which wouldn't have been necessary if they had the option like FB does.
Duoas wrote:
In my opinion we need world peace -- but that is as vague a need as refining the search.

Thread subject tags could prevent people from having to search for usernames. Which is the wrong thing to do, because usernames have nothing to do with the content of the post you're looking for. In addition, they may be changed at any time.

Duoas wrote:
I've already given strong and valid reasons.

I want the account deletion feature to stay as it currently is, because I think that if people are allowed to add their username to a forum, they should be allowed to remove it as well. Similarly to how they are allowed to edit their posts to gibberish, to cover up having asked for help online.

Thumper wrote:
Although I don't think this compromise is too out of the question: give the user who's deleting his/her account the option to mask their username or to leave it be.

I think that's a very good idea in principle, but I have to wonder how many of the people deleting their accounts would leave their usernames stick.

If they didn't want to remove their username in the first place, I think they would have simply abandoned the account instead of deleting it.

Catfish666 wrote:
Which is the wrong thing to do, because usernames have nothing to do with the content of the post you're looking for.

Sometimes, I'm not looking for specific content. I'm looking for posts made by a particular user name.


Catfish666 wrote:
In addition, they may be changed at any time.

No, they may not. They may be changed, yes. But not "at any time."


Catfish666 wrote:
I want the account deletion feature to stay as it currently is, because I think that if people are allowed to add their username to a forum, they should be allowed to remove it as well. Similarly to how they are allowed to edit their posts to gibberish, to cover up having asked for help online.

Symmetry is great, but it doesn't seem a particularly compelling argument to me, especially when applied to a practice I would imagine most of the active community members would rather see stop.


Thumper wrote:

Although I don't think this compromise is too out of the question: give the user who's deleting his/her account the option to mask their username or to leave it be. That way if (for whatever reason) someone really wants themselves gone, they have the right to that choice. Same goes for the contrary.

People already have this choice. They can either just stop using the account or close it. I think it's safe to say the vast majority of people who make or have made posts do not choose to close their accounts.

cire wrote:
Sometimes, I'm not looking for specific content. I'm looking for posts made by a particular user name.

I think this too can be addressed by enhancing the search function of the site, to support an option "search member's posts".

It could be implemented to work even for deleted accounts, as long as the posts are still available (i.e. not edited and cleared before they left the forum).

cire wrote:
Symmetry is great, but it doesn't seem a particularly compelling argument to me, especially when applied to a practice I would imagine most of the active community members would rather see stop.

... rather see stop in order to prevent disruption. But I believe the disruption caused by "masked" usernames can be minimized to the point that we can have the cake and eat it too.
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