"Deactivated User"

[Slavik]

We have users who no longer wish their account to be active, however, for the protection of both users and our site, we have a 0 deletion policy of accounts unless under extreme circumstances.

It would be nice to offer users a way to "deactivate their account" rendering anyone except admins able to do anything with it and basically locking it (as if it were deleted, so no emails, nobody can browse the profile, the user can't log in etc etc) , and if they want it back they would have to contact an admin to have it made available again.

Whilst I don't agree a user self delete would be a good idea (due to the potential for abuse) user de-activation would be a nice middle ground.

 

[Sim]

Isn't a deactivated user just a deleted user? Deleted users appear in the discussion as guests, but guests can be changed to "deactivated users". And you can undelete/activate them any time with this add-on.

No, I don't want a deleted user to appear as a "guest", I want their posts to remain as a uniquely identifiable member - so forum readers can follow the discussion and identify other posts made by the same person.

It breaks the continuity if you delete users so that their posts appear as guest posts.

On some boards where old discussions are rarely viewed it might not be such an issue, but we have a very long tail of content which is frequently searched and read - even stuff 10+ years old!

 

[Jeremy]

No, I don't want a deleted user to appear as a "guest", I want their posts to remain as a uniquely identifiable member - so forum readers can follow the discussion and identify other posts made by the same person.

It breaks the continuity if you delete users so that their posts appear as guest posts.

On some boards where old discussions are rarely viewed it might not be such an issue, but we have a very long tail of content which is frequently searched and read - even stuff 10+ years old!

Guests posts (deleted users) are still associated with a name, so it doesn't break that continuity. Its just not associated as a 'member' any more (can't search for posts by X).

 

[Sim]

(can't search for posts by X).

... which is exactly what we want to be able to do. As I said, we have a very long tail of useful content and it is quite likely that people will want to search for posts made by a user, even if that user has deactivated their account - I can already think of several examples where this happens now.

 

[akia]

Guests posts (deleted users) are still associated with a name, so it doesn't break that continuity. Its just not associated as a 'member' any more (can't search for posts by X).

Deleted users don't allow for members having a hissy fit and wanting the account to be closed, deactivating the account deals with that and then when they've got over themselves and want to return they can reactivity the account.

 

[Sim]

Deleted users don't allow for members having a hissy fit and wanting the account to be closed, deactivating the account deals with that and then when they've got over themselves and want to return they can reactivity the account.

Exactly - this has happened more than once on several of my sites.

 

[akia]

Exactly - this has happened more than once on several of my sites.

Its a problem with for me as well, but I normally tell them no and not to use the account, but then that dosn't stop other members sending them conversation messages etc, which results in spam complaints because its unwanted emails,. which once a account has been deactivated, it should stop all that.

 

[Sim]

I also use my "deactivated" usergroup (currently on vB) to deal with "unsubscribe" requests to my automated "we've missed you" emails that get sent out to inactive users.

 

[jerremy]

This is possible through an addon.

http://xenforo.com/community/resources/join-user-group-by-waindigo.225/

Just explaining with a bit detail how it has to be setup with this addon, will help all the people to fix this solution at best for the moment. (However, I can't make it, as I have no Xenforo license yet).

 

[tyteen4a03]

Just explaining with a bit detail how it has to be setup with this addon, will help all the people to fix this solution at best for the moment. (However, I can't make it, as I have no Xenforo license yet).

Basically you check a specific user group as joinable, then the user heads to the Join User Group panel under their account and join that user group. With that addon you can also moderate the user group's join requests.

It currently looks pretty primitive but I'm refactoring a lot of its code with Waindigo and a new release should come very soon.

 

[Joe Link]

Any update on this?

 

[Fred.]

I also like the idea to deactivate a user.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

We get delete requests from users on our site who are no longer in the hobby that the site is related to (reefkeeping). But I don't like the idea of deleting an account because of the way it makes all the posts "guest", etc. These people might get back in to the hobby someday and might want their account reactivated. But they just don't want to get emails anymore.

The way we currently handle this is to set their user state: Email invalid (bounced) and then on top of that, I set their primary user group to Unconfirmed & Guest. This way, all they have to do after they log on is re-validate their e-mail address and they are automatically in the Registered User Group and their User State is restored to Valid. Technically I could leave the user group alone.

The only issue with this is that others can still attempt to communicate with them via conversation or tagging and they would know no different, they would just think that user is being a %#$@%#$@ and ignoring them. So having an additional user state that disables certain things would definitely be useful.

However I don't know that I would want the profile to not be visible, but rather maybe just have some kind of indication that the user account has been deactivated. Some might still like to search their posts or threads, etc.

 

[Paul B]

rather maybe just have some kind of indication that the user account has been deactivated

You could do it with a user group and banner.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

That's true...I was just referring to indications in certain places on the profile page instead of just removing the ability to access their profile completely. That makes it seem like they were banned.

 

[Paul B]

Off topic (but sort of related), I've seen [Deceased] used as a means of identifying accounts of members who have died, so it would be an extension of that.

 

[Freelancer]

I manage a social club, so there are these typical situations to rather "deactivate" accounts: someone dies, gets suspended, retires from everything, membership lapses etc... Banning is too harsh (and not what it is in those cases) and denying access to everything via the permission system does not prevent access from the user's account settings. Which is then a risk that someone changes the account settings (by intrusion, by accident, by frustration). Whereas the "BAN" state is exactly what prevents the use of the account at all. So an "inactive" state would just be technically a "ban" minus the terminology (or better: alternative terminology).

 

[Jake B.]

I manage a social club, so there are these typical situations to rather "deactivate" accounts: someone dies, gets suspended, retires from everything, membership lapses etc... Banning is too harsh (and not what it is in those cases) and denying access to everything via the permission system does not prevent access from the user's account settings. Which is then a risk that someone changes the account settings (by intrusion, by accident, by frustration). Whereas the "BAN" state is exactly what prevents the use of the account at all. So an "inactive" state would just be technically a "ban" minus the terminology (or better: alternative terminology).

Perhaps just change the 'you are banned' phrase?

 

[Freelancer]

Perhaps just change the 'you are banned' phrase?

That is genius! All regularly banned members will appreciate it... Alternatively I could change it to "you are deceased".

 

[Jake B.]

That is genius! All regularly banned members will appreciate it... Alternatively I could change it to "you are deceased".

You could do something pretty clever, perhaps completely removing the 'base' message and only displaying the ban reason, or just "Your account has been disabled. Reason: [...]"

 

[Freelancer]

You could do something pretty clever, perhaps completely removing the 'base' message and only displaying the ban reason, or just "Your account has been disabled. Reason: [...]"

Believe it or not, I thought about this before I posted it here. It simply does not feel right. But due to lack of support it's the only thing to do.