# Is it possible to delete an account?



## Langouste

Hi, i want to delete my account and every thread im subscribed to,
is that possible

thanks


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## Jana337

No, it is not possible to delete an account. People who are no longer interested in the forum simply stop visiting, and that's it.

However, if you do not wish to receive e-mails notifying you of new posts in the threads you subscribe to, you can change the options in the User Control Panel.

Jana


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## Langouste

Thanks for your help!
I just think that we should be able to delete our account. 
I dont see why not
thanks again


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## Jana337

Langouste said:
			
		

> Thanks for your help!
> I just think that we should be able to delete our account.
> I dont see why not
> thanks again


Certainly not because the staff is so mean.  We cannot do it either because our software does not support the feature (I guess).

Jana


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## cuchuflete

Jana is correct.  The forum software does not allow members or moderators to delete a registered user.  Further, all material posted in these forums, other than items whose copyright belongs to someone else, is copyright WordReference.  That is clearly stated in the forum rules, and in the registration agreement.  Thus, a user cannot delete their posts, other than in normal edit mode.


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## jester.

There was a link to this thread in a recent thread, which is now closed, so I'll post into this one.

The moderators of this forum must either be badly informed or they deliberately deceive the members of this forum, because *it is technically possible to delete an account*. It is just not permitted by the forum rules because all content of the forum is owned by the Word Reference company.


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## JamesM

Whether it is technically possible or not is not something I can definitively answer. I can say, however, that no such option exists on any of the moderator administrative menus on this site.

As for "the Word Reference company", does such a thing exist?  As far as I know this is a completely volunteer effort and there is no "company" involved.


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## cuchuflete

jester. said:


> The moderators of this forum must either be badly informed or they deliberately deceive the members of this forum, because *it is technically possible to delete an account*. It is just not permitted by the forum rules because all content of the forum is owned by the Word Reference company.



For those who have not yet read what was written in this thread more than two years ago:



> The forum software does not allow members or moderators to delete a registered user.


​That was a true statement then, and it is a true statement today.  You cannot delete yourself from the database of registered users.  Moderators cannot delete you or themselves or anyone else.


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## jester.

JamesM said:


> As for "the Word Reference company", does such a thing exist?  As far as I know this is a completely volunteer effort and there is no "company" involved.





			
				WordReference.com FAQ said:
			
		

> *Can I use a script to download       each definition in the whole dictionary?*
> Uh... no.  The copyright for the data is held by _WordReference or         other companies_ and [...]







			
				Cuchuflete said:
			
		

> That was a true statement then, and it is a true statement today. You cannot delete yourself from the database of registered users. Moderators cannot delete you or themselves or anyone else.



That's right. In this specific forum's software settings, users and moderators cannot delete accounts. Administrators, however, can do so. In addition VBulletin software also provides settings which would allow members to delete their own accounts.

I'm not demanding a change of the rules regarding accounts, I'm not even in favour of it. It just struck me as odd that whenever someone asked if his/her account could be deleted the answer was usually just "That's not possible.".


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## Flaminius

If a question is, "Is it possible to do so and so?" then the logical answer is either, "Yes, it is possible" or "No, it is not."  If “the answer was usually just "That's not possible"” and you feel odd about it, is it justifiable to assume that the moderators “deliberately deceive the members of this forum”?


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## jester.

Flaminius said:


> If a question is, "Is it possible to do so and so?" then the logical answer is either, "Yes, it is possible" or "No, it is not."  If “the answer was usually just "That's not possible"” and you feel odd about it, is it justifiable to assume that the moderators “deliberately deceive the members of this forum”?



Read what I wrote, please. I wrote: 



			
				jester. said:
			
		

> must *either* be badly informed *or* they deliberately deceive



I assume that, with at least one member per month who adamantly wants his account to be deleted, the moderators want to save themselves some time and just write that deleting an account is not possible. Then again, the moderators might just not be fully aware of what is technically possible.

I understand that "deceive" might sound a bit harsh, but the statement that accounts cannot be deleted is wrong. Definitely.

In addition, because I know how touchy a subject moderation is, I would like to state that I am not accusing any particular moderator of behaving incorrectly.

This is all I have to say on this matter and I will not participate in this thread any further because I do not wish to get myself banned from the forums. If anyone wishes to continue discussing with me, although I don't think there is anything else to discuss, he can do so via PM.


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## Paulfromitaly

Question: Can I delete my account from the WordReference forums?
Answer: No you cannot do it.

Question: Can users of any other forum which runs the Vbulletin software delete their accounts?
Answer: Yes they can, if the forum settings allow it.

This is the WordReference Comments and suggestions forum, therefore the answers we give to all our users (with no deceiving intentions whatsoever) refer to our forum only.

In the light of that you cannot delete your account.


jester. said:


> This is all I have to say on this matter and I will not participate in this thread any further because I do not wish to get myself banned from the forums. .


No one would ever ban you for the sole reason you asked for further clarification about a specific issue.


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## Fuerza

Ahh, the beauty of being connected in the world...

I have a college buddy that used to work for the vBulletin company. I asked him about the issue of account holders not being able to delete their own accounts and subsequent posts, and I even asked him to read this thread in particular. He finally got back to me and just laughed and laughed. He told me that the vBulletin software is extremely flexible and allows for countless options - one of which is allowing account holders to self-delete (along with posts that they may have started or replied to).

With that being said, and me doing my own legwork, not only for my own self-interest but for those that find this to be a divisive issue, now you know. What he did share was that the senior administrator has the power to grant delete options to anybody, and that it simply comes down to having control over those that visit your site.

Thus, my suggestion and recommendation, since this IS a thread for such, is that the senior administrator now needs to start listening to those who have flattered him by gracing his site and allow people to self-delete if they wish to do so. Is it a hassle to set this up? No, not according to my friend - just a matter of a few mouse clicks via the vBulletin interface to implement the changes.

For those that feel extremely vocal about having this right, you can always contact Michael Kellogg directly.

As for myself, I am a big advocate of 'intellectual property' and support the option to self-delete. I am a senior moderator at two technology websites and both allow the option to delete - one, as a self-delete, and the other one through an administrative request - which is never denied. I have been a moderator of varying levels for the past ten years at numerous websites and in the past whenever a new administrative team would come in and take away account holders' rights to self-delete, I promptly voiced my opinion and then took away my services as moderator.

I have to agree with the assessment of my college friend - it simply comes down to wanting to control people - and my ego isn't that 'out of control' yet that I want or need to do that.

I hope my input is helpful to any and all.

Fuerza


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## TrentinaNE

The rules of this site, which every subscriber avers to have read upon subscribing, clearly say:


> 54. When a message is placed in WordReference or its forums, you are granting an irrevocable license to the site to use it in perpetuity.


In my opinion, giving forer@s the option to self-delete would (a) wreak havoc on the continuity of discussions, and (b) create opportunities for mischief-makers to play hit-and-run (i.e., post something inappropriate, then "innocently" say "oops, I didn't really mean that" by deleting).  It's a matter of "controlling" content, not people.

Ciao,
Elisabetta


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## Jana337

rule 54 said:
			
		

> When a message is placed in WordReference or its forums, you are granting an irrevocable license to the site to use it in perpetuity.


One of the rules every member is supposed to agree with at the beginning of their membership here.

Two years ago, when this thread was started, I genuinely thought accounts couldn't be deleted. I was wrong, as I found out long ago. Nevertheless, my intention was not to deceive anyone - see the "I guess" qualifier in my second post in this thread.

So, although the administrator can delete accounts and give the right to moderators or even to members themselves, he won't do that. This forum is not just a place to kill time. It is a valuable resource. Dictionaries contain links to threads so that learners have access to in-depth explanations, which conventional dictionaries don't offer. This extremely useful function would lose much of its appeal if members were allowed to wreak havoc on the forum by deleting their accounts. Many threads would suddenly lose their logic; it wouldn't be clear who responded to whom and so on. Hence the limitation.

I now know the vB software quite well. Indeed, it gives administrators an unusual scale of options to customize their forums. The administrator of this forum selected his mix of features. You can laugh about it but please respect it.


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## jester.

I wrote I wouldn't participate in this thread any more, but I just can't contain myself.

Well, obviously the problem is two-sided, and it's a problem of understanding.

Jana, what (I think) you don't know is that, when an account is deleted, no thread will lose its logic. What the members who want their account deleted do not know is that it is really just the account that is deleted. It is not their user name nor their messages. Deleting an account doesn't make a whole lot of sense any more then, obviously...

So this deleting of accounts doesn't hurt the forum or its structure. It's just not quite pretty. Take a look:







And just for the record: I'm still not trying to persuade the forum administration to implement the feature, I merely want to inform "both sides" of this little debate.


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## Jana337

> Jana, what (I think) you don't know is that, when an account is deleted, no thread will lose its logic. What the members who want their account deleted do not know is that it is really just the account that is deleted. It is not their user name nor their messages.



Well, yes and no.

This is what an administrator sees when they try to delete an account:


> Are you *sure* you want to delete the user called 'xxx'?
> (userid: xx)
> 
> All posts made by this user will be set to 'Guest'
> 
> This action can not be undone.


So if several people, who contributed to the same threads, delete themselves or have themselves deleted, you get what I said: chaos.

I am too lazy to research it in detail but the discussions in vB support forums that I scanned seem to imply that there are hacks that make it possible to retain the username. So the only effect of the deletion would be that you couldn't display user profiles and send PMs. Some intellectual property aficionados would probably quit such a forum in horror.


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## mkellogg

Sorry for not seeing the rebirth of this thread earlier. (Thanks PaulfromItaly.)

After reading though this thread, I had to look at what is possible through vBulletin, and I see there is an option for 'delete user'.  It seems to delete the profile and leave the messages as being from "guest".  OK, it seems to be possible to delete the profile. I could also go and delete hundreds of posts by hand as well.  It would take hours, but I _could _do it.  It would also make many threads incomprehensible.  (I haven't found anywhere where I could let people delete their own accounts.  It may exist though.)

OK, so it seems that it is technically possible.  I still won't do it. 
1. Deleting posts destroys threads.
2. Deleting a profile removes important information from the posts such as native language.
3. One of the most important reasons that these forums exist is to document the languages and translations for the benefit of others (usually through the WR dictionaries or Google).  Deleting posts and destroying threads goes against that.
4. The rules clearly state that your posts are here forever.
5. Most people asking that their posts be deleted are asking it because they have cheated on their homework and don't want to get caught.  I have no sympathy for them.
6. The accounts and posts don't contain any personally identifiable information, so I don't usually see the point.  Who is the account's existence harming?

Well, those are my reasons.  When somebody asks to delete an account, I will continue to say what I have in the past - that it is not possible. Why isn't it possible?  Because of the six reasons that I listed above.


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## JamesM

There are other online forums that I haven't had anything to do with for years, yet my posts are still on those boards and still accessed by people now. This is not unusual for an online forum. There are technical questions I asked six years ago on one board that are still there today. I assume they will be there as long as the board continues to operate.


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