Notification of member deleting account?

[marcusantonus]

Forum URL: moonbaseone.boards.net

Hello 

Recently a much respected member deleted their account from my forum. As we are only new, I was quite taken aback by this. I was also somewhat put out by the fact that I did not get any notification of this event, as the site Admin.

Is there any way to be notified if a member deletes their account? Thanks.

[moonbeam]

No, I don't believe there is, and I'm not sure what purpose it would serve as the member would already be gone at that point anyway. The action will be recorded in the security log, however.

[marcusantonus]

The security log - of course. Thanks so much moonbeam

Should my forum ever grow large, of course, it will be that much harder to track - yes, I am something of a control freak, I admit it - but then if we have a large membership it won't matter as much.

Perhaps I should request a plug-in for this?

Thanks for everyone's advice, this is a really helpful community!

[Former Member]

I think it'd be very useful as a feature request or plugin if an admin could weigh in on its feasibility. For a site like mine, a member deleting their account has a big ripple effect--tons of threads I have to archive, boards I have to close down, records I have to update, etc. Someone deleting their account therefore needs to be noticed and oftentimes wouldn't be once a larger memberbase is built

[Craig]

You will not be able to stop a member from deleting their account. Each member must retain the right to remove their account.

I don't believe a plugin will be able to notify you.  But i can't see why the notification can't be added to the existing notification options.

[moonbeam]

Aug 27, 2014 23:23:09 GMT -8 ₪» ⅀ ƪ Ƒ «₪ said:

I think it'd be very useful as a feature request or plugin if an admin could weigh in on its feasibility. For a site like mine, a member deleting their account has a big ripple effect--tons of threads I have to archive, boards I have to close down, records I have to update, etc. Someone deleting their account therefore needs to be noticed and oftentimes wouldn't be once a larger memberbase is built

Just curious as to why you have to go through all that?

[guestguestguest]

Aug 28, 2014 5:17:21 GMT -8 moonbeam said:

Aug 27, 2014 23:23:09 GMT -8 ₪» ⅀ ƪ Ƒ «₪ said:

I think it'd be very useful as a feature request or plugin if an admin could weigh in on its feasibility. For a site like mine, a member deleting their account has a big ripple effect--tons of threads I have to archive, boards I have to close down, records I have to update, etc. Someone deleting their account therefore needs to be noticed and oftentimes wouldn't be once a larger memberbase is built

Just curious as to why you have to go through all that?

Elf runs a roleplaying site, not a chat forum. Any decent rp site would need to do the same.

[moonbeam]

I wondered, but I didn't have time to look when I asked the question. Still, at least it can be seen via the security log.

[Brian]

I have my doubts as to whether or not we'd add it, but I've labeled this thread as a feature request.

As mentioned before deletions are already logged in the security log.

[Former Member]

That would require admins to dutifully check their security log each day to see if anyone has happened to delete their account that day or not. Some don't have the memory to do that (forget to), some don't have the time/activity. It's not a huge deal, I just wanted to present that at least one other member sees a lot of merit in adding an actual notification regarding it, similar to the notification we receive when a new account is made. Surely the argument that convinced you guys to make that a notification applies here. We can always see there are new accounts in our home info center, why do we need a notification in our profile? Because of convenience. Same logic applies here. Sure, we can tell in the security log, but the chances of that happening regularly for most admins? Low. Likewise, a lot of admins don't know about that and I'm sure you guys know exactly how hard it is to get widespread knowledge among the admins whereas a notification lets them know it's a feature versus learning from Support, which many admins have never and will never be on.

Anyway, that's my argument for it, it's labeled as a feature request and that's all to be done. Thank you for hearing me out, whomever reads this that is considering it!

[Brian]

Not to be a downer on your party, but a lot of the arguments about other admins' behavior in your post are just speculation, not actual facts like you're presenting them to be. Not everything is as black and white as you've laid it out.

You have to remember that adding a new feature takes developer time that could otherwise be directed elsewhere, so there are multiple things for us to consider when looking over feature requests.

- Is there already a method of achieving the same thing the feature would accomplish that isn't too complex?
- Is the feature going to benefit our entire user base or just the individual user that requested it?
- In terms of when to implement it, how much time is the feature going to take out of our current schedule to implement versus dedicating that time to other high priority tasks we currently have on hand that might affect the service as a whole?
- How much more strain is the feature going to place on our servers?

Yes, we do have a notification for newly registered users (which was added during the initial development period prior to launch, giving us a chance to build the system from the ground up to accommodate it in advance), but its existence doesn't prove that notifications in general place very little strain on our servers or that adding new notifications has similarly trivial effects.

I have no objections to the feature being added at all if the developers conclude that it is viable and produces no critical strain on the servers, but I'm just pointing out that there's more to feature requests and developing for them than meets the eye. What easily seems viable on the outside may be much more complex behind the scenes. I've had several of my own feature requests rejected for this same reason.

[marcusantonus]

Thanks Brian, your points are noted and understood.

I appreciate you adding my idea to feature requests.