I'm sure many of you have dealt with this...the people who get so angry about something in your forums that they come to you whining "I've had enough, just delete my account - I don't ever want to come back!"

Don't give in to this people! If they don't want to come back, fine, they don't have to come back....but don't delete their account. It's my believe that the majority of these people actually do care about the community, they're just caught up in the moment...I've seen people make this request and then come back full force and posting again within a week. Just be very understanding of them, be very kind....and who knows, after some time off, they might just change their mind and both of you will be glad their account still exists.

Anybody else ever been in this situation? Did you follow through with the delete request or no?

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I've had this asked of me in the past at other forums and I don't recall once where the account was actually deleted. I agree with you that you should never delete the account and definitely don't feel pressured just because they ask for it. It's your site not theirs.

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Mark Blair
NowParenting - "Parenting Discussion Community"
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I just tell them I won't delete their account, but will remove any personal information they have put on the forums, such as their real name. I actually had one ask me today to delete his account and then when I said no, he sent me a PM saying he is going to stay and started posting on the forums.

No i have never had this happen all my members have been nice but if it did happen i doubt (before reading this) i would have deleted it because i never had that many members so deleteing one memeber or more would make my forum look like there is no members

I have never had this problem on my forums and I would not delete the acct. if I was asked

but on the forums I use to work on before I opened mine we had lots of them asking for their accts to be removed - the owner of the site did remove them and banned their ips as well. The members then later went to an other site complaining about being banned and their accts being deleted for nothing.

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www.jaddon.com

As Ryan knows, I had this issue about a month ago or so.

Being new I had no idea what to do or how to handle this. I was panicking, why? He was one of my top posters and has been since day 1. Several users have commented him on great information that he was giving.

Ryan gave the advice of not to delete their account and let them know you would be happy to delete his personal info, but not as a user.

Well 1 day later he sent me an e-mail telling me he had had a bad week and he started posting almost immediately.

DON’T DELETE ACCOUNTS!!!!

I am living proof.

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I had a similar problem recently when I installed my new skin.
One regular user posted a thread demanding I remove the new style and that If I didnt he would leave the community and wanted the account deleted.

I politely asked what could I do to help him and what features could I add and that I cant just remove the style because he alone does not like it.

He got very upset for no reason and posted absolutely rude stuff deliberately to offend and cause problems.

I had no choice but to ban him immediately and dont regret that decision.
I feel this is not acceptable and my community cannot grow with negative people sticking around.

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I had this problem twice and one occasion I deleted the account and the other I didn't. On the first instance I figured well if he's asking then I'll respect his decision and delete the account. I said sorry things didn't work out and hoped he would stay, but he said he made up his mind and I deleted the account.

On the second occasion I did not delete the account and guess what they did? They deleted every post they made (over 100 posts). I told him I'd leave his account opened and if he ever changed his mind he is welcomed back. After editing all of his posts (leaving some blank, others with his URL), I was mad I didn't delete his account. At least if I deleted his account his posts would have been changed to guest, and I wouldn't have lost good quality posts.

Sorry to hear about your post lost. One of the great features vBulletin has for posts is the soft delete feature. I only allow moderators to soft-delete. (Good thing I did or I would have lost over 800 posts!) and users to edit/soft delete their posts for 30 minutes.

Unless a user has person information in their username (Which can be changed) I don't see why they would like to get their account deleted. All they need to do to "delete" it is change their email address and you can never been contacted about the site again.

I wouldn't delete accounts for people. I have never had this situation yet but seen it on forums I moderate, and the admins just tell them they can leave but they can't delete their account.

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