How to delete my account?!

I really, really, really want to delete this account. At the very least I would like to change my username, because I realized I use this username for everything (dumb move on my part) and a friend of mine found my EXTREMELY personal posts on here while looking for me on another website.

Can my username be changed? Or can my account be deleted?

HELP

Your username can be changed! I'll just PM you with how

I too would like to change my username and delete my posts. I thought this forum would be private and not show up on the first page of a google search. I was very supprised to find my very personal posts there, and wish to opt out of these forums after getting rid of all my posts.

This isn't a private forum and we try to be clear about that in the forum rules and privacy policy. So we can't delete posts and we usually only edit if there are personal details [for example, real names or locations] that need to be anonymised.

However, we can change your username. That won't immediately affect what's in search engines. [I'm unsure of how they update over time.] Have a look here memberlist.php?mode=searchuser to check the name you'd like [which needs to be between 3 and 20 characters] and then contact a red or green admin. Or PM me and I'll pass it on.

We can also disable your account, so that it's locked and you won't receive any further emails from the site. Let us know with the name change if you'd like that to be done too.

understood, and I should have looked into this disturbing information in your guidelines before I started sharing information on myself here.

I have been a part of many forums in my internet lifetime, and not one of them had such stringent regulations about post editing, or deleting. I have ALWAYS been able to edit, or delete posts I made in other forums after ANY period of time.

I understand this is your site, and you make the rules, but this is not a forum about a movie review, or a video game. The things people post on here CAN get them fired, hospitalized, banished, and in serious trouble! They are at their most vulnerable when they are looking for help. Thats what I thought this site was all about people helping each other through very difficult times. And it does a great job of doing that. However, some of the problems I have encountered are that:

a) Users can not edit / delete themselves (after 24 hours, which is usually when they have thought about what they said, and realize they can not take it back). Self editing / deleting would save the mods lots of time and energy especially with people who want to do this frequently. Let them do it themselves, and you have much more time to deal with REAL problems, like spam bots, and people who are harassing other people. I mean, why is this even an issue at all? Who cares if someone wants to edit or delete their posts / accounts?

b) the mods seem to be under the impression anything you post on these forums stays on the internet FOREVER! Funny thing is, it only stays there FOREVER because it is not allowed to be edited / deleted. You even said in your last post the servers update at some point if I wanted to change my username, in the case of google its pretty quick. When the servers update, the new information overrides the old. And the edited post becomes the one the search engine finds.

c) another problem solver is something EVERY other forum I have been on does. They make the forum private to guests and search engines. This is the easiest thing you could do. No need to moderate each and every post since only people who register can find the posts anyway. Registration is still free, or charged a small membership fee if need be, hell it would still be a lot cheaper than going to a psych doc. What this does is prevents ALL posts from being searchable via google, etc. Why is this forum not private? So that everyone including guests who may be friends, family, doctors, co-workers, kids, and bosses can search our names, and find our very personal posts in seconds? Do you justify it by saying it is a public forum, and sometimes those guests are looking for answers and find them in those google searches? Fine. But they can not respond to those posts / threads without registering as it is now anyway, so what good does it do anyone? Therefore you have no idea if ANY of those guests are getting helped by being able to read this forum publicly. What you DO know is how many REGISTERED users want to opt out of the public eye. They have told you time and time again on here. Do a quick search on these forums for the words "delete account" and "edit post".

d) the last and final problem here is most people who frequent forums and other sites, use the same username all over the internet. I know they should be adults, and understand the consequences of this action, and how it slowly removes anonymous identity. but people forget. people trust the sites they are posting personal information to to be secure. for some reason this is a common occurrence. In the responses by the ADMINS and Mods in this forum on this subject matter I have read in just the past few mins, I have seen admins and mods telling users who were scared about their very personal posts, and usernames being out on search engines to basically "suck it up, you should have read the forum guidelines closer, and been more careful about what you posted, its now on the internet FOREVER! and we will only give you the option to change your username, if that makes any difference, and edit your phone number or address out of your posts, if you posted personal monologues on here thats your problem." Wow, how childish. thanks for making the people looking to opt out feel even more terrible. One user even threatened to attack your site until you kicked her off. not that this would solve any of her problems, but if you took some of the steps I mentioned above this sort of lashing out would not happen over this subject.

My question then is WHY? Why does this site, and its mods apparently take pride in the fact that the world has free and open access to very emotional and personal posts by vulnerable people some of whom are surely underage, or not mentally stable enough to realize the consequences of their actions? Why is the right to edit / delete posts once you find out they are public in a simple google search not accessible to these people after 24 short hours? and why is this not slapped across the forum as a banner everytime someone goes to post something to remind them to be careful of what they write, because no one is going to help them edit or delete it (unless they give out a phone number or home address) after they hit send, and 24 hours go by?

<removes mod hat>

johndoe1974 wrote:My question then is WHY?

Perhaps it comes from the site's history? As I understand it, years ago, this was a site where registration wasn't needed in order to post. We welcomed guest posters and people only made accounts for continuity. When they wanted to create an ongoing identity here.

Over time, trolls and other species of haters made guest posting impossible to moderate. So everyone now has to sign up to post. But the intentions, to make this forum as open and accessible as possible, are still there. For everyone who creates an account, there are a dozen who for various very good reasons cannot. But they can still be helped by the threads and posts of others who have experienced the same things. Who've faced similar issues. That has amazing power.

As you say, there's no way to quantify that kind of help and support. But readers matter too. Very often, people post once or twice here and then leave once they have some sort of answer. I don't EVER mind answering people who I don't think will stick around. Their contribution is their original post, and any conversation it sparks. If they were able to delete their own posts, some of them would, even though there is no identifying information there. Leaving a gap in the context. That would make it a selfish place and not a resource for peer support.

We ask people to read the forum rules before joining, but not everyone does. Discussing it in threads like this is a good way to catch further attention and help people think about how they are managing their own privacy. People do have concerns about this from time to time. But we have almost 70,000 members and an unknown number of anonymous readers so on balance I think it works OK.

Apologies for waxing philosophical. Everything above is my opinion and not "official mod doctrine." [Which I think is basically the Forum Rules.]

<sticks hat back on>

Thank you Ada for the wonderful and thoughtful response, and for posting a serious answer to my serious inquiry.

You made some valid points, and I understand why you want this to be a public viewing, my point is, not all the guests coming here are looking for answers to their mental problems. some are stumbling around the internet looking to find flaws in potential new employees, family members, and friends. Therefore making the forum a "register to read" type forum (especially due to the sensitive nature of the community with which makes this forum exist) in which posts are not made public on google searches, poses less of a chance the wrong people using personal posts from honest people looking for help, to harm or hinder those very same people who are reaching out.

P.S. Thanks for helping me change my username. Got it now, and will be watching google to report when it changes.

There are significant reasons why some readers can't make accounts. Top of the list is being on a computer that isn't secure [public or family owned.] They're at risk of being caught just in browsing the site. Let alone logging in with a valid email address [which may also be shared.] And people in that kind of situation may be the ones who need peer input the most. There'd also be nothing to stop an HR person keeping an account here and doing a check each time they hire someone new. Since we're one of the larger and more general Mental Health sites online. Making the forum private could bring a false sense of security and there'd be more risk from people over-sharing.

I'd rather support people in changing their user names whenever it comes up that it's a real name or previously-used nickname. And checking on people's avatars.

:.

Editing with an unlimited amount of time gives people with a false sense of security that they can retract what they say from the internet, when in reality, other places have stored and saved the information after quite a short amount of time. It's interesting to read some information about caching to understand how stuff being removed doesn't mean it's gone from the internet. Google info about caching
It's pretty scary actually to know that stuff is still searchable and readable, even after a whole internet page has been removed. (That was a shock to me because I only just went to find that information specifically for you, I hadn't actually ever thought about it in that depth before). It would be great if you removed something and it actually removed it from the scores of places that store the information for good and don't re-write it if it is edited. Seeing as that doesn't happen though, I think it seems better that people be aware that what they write doesn't disappear and the best way to do that is to have the editing policy reflect that so that they don't get a false sense of security. I think generally, most people might want to correct spelling or something, so might find out sooner rather than later they can't edit here and then wonder why and look up and find this reason. It's good that you've asked because this draws people's attention to the issue.

I also agree with what Ada said, that if everyone just decided to edit their posts and leave, that would make this place a bit self-serving. It's nice if people can come here and benefit from reading people's past posts and responses. It makes it a place of help for all. I know I have always found benefit in reading older posts. I'm sure others have been the same.

I don't know the actual reason for not making the forum private, but I would think that it would probably increase the number of users considerably to have it an open forum. The fact that it's easy to find this place is probably one of the reasons why there is always people to talk to here. I also think that by being an open forum and hence having more people sign up as members, that probably also makes people here less identifiable, seeing as there is sooooo much written here that it would be too hard to search for the exact details of someone you knew as it may be similar to what someone else has said from elsewhere around the world.

I wouldn't also think Ada's reasons are pretty valid too, it's good that people who can't make accounts for one reason or another still able to access the site. Those are probably some of the people who need it the most.

Anyway, hopefully this doesn't come off to blunt or harsh or anything. I was appreciative that you took the time to spell out all of the reasons behind your thinking about these aspects of the forum.