I like to periodically scrub my online presence. I don’t mind the content going on to exist, but I would like the username to be replaced by [deleted account] or something similar. The profile page doesn’t allow me to edit things like user handle or delete the entire account. Please make that an option.
Apparently it used to be possible to delete accounts, but that option was removed…? Isn’t it a GDPR requirement that users are allowed to request deletion?
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In order to delete your account you are at the whim of the discourse admins. If you have more posts than the site setting: delete user self max post count which is by default 1 if this is -1 then you are not allowed to delete your account. You also can’t delete your account id you have a post older than: delete user max post age which is by default 60 days
So by default, as long as you have 1 post with a reply, or a post older than 24 hours, deleting your account without admin intervention is impossible. This is unacceptable.
IIUC (and I’m no lawyer), in jurisdictions with the GDPR or equivalent, a company must on request provide and/or delete any personal data that it holds about you.
That would of course include obvious info such as names, addresses, and phone numbers; also IP addresses, and anything in any of your posts that could help to identify you. Whether it includes all your posts, your username, etc. is less clear.
(Of course, a good organisation won’t restrict itself to what’s legally mandated, and you may well think a web site should have a moral duty to delete all your posts and info on request. That could get complicated, though, if e.g. other posts quote parts of yours, or you started threads that would be made incomprehensible without your posts.)
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