It has been a long time since I deleted a member. In the past versions you were prompted with options. Such as delete member but keep author name on the post or delete member and replace author name with anonymous.
It appears that keeping the original author name is no longer a option. In fact there are no options now, just prompts to continue or cancel.
Blue Man Group There is no such thing as stupid questions. Just stupid answers
This feature and its page has not changed since at least 2007, probably even further back. I compared UBB.threads 7.5.9 to as far back as version 7.2.1.
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/admin/deleteuser.php?uid=999
The options for deleting someone in 7.5.9 who has posts, are:
Warning: Deleting a member can not be undone.
[*] Do not delete this member. [*] Delete member and do not alter posts. Ownership will be set to Anonymous with an Anonymous name of: Gremelin. [*] Delete member and delete all posts. If there are any replies to a post by this member, they will be attached to the post's parent. If the user's post is a topic, the entire topic will be deleted.
I am not getting that prompt with a upgraded board anymore. At least I do if I view details for each individual, I just checked that to make sure.
But I was using the multiple member delete option at the bottom of the page in the action drop down. If I say delete two members or even one with that method the options do not appear.
Last edited by Ruben; 08/16/20152:07 PM. Reason: Added Comment
Blue Man Group There is no such thing as stupid questions. Just stupid answers
I've updated my post to add: This feature and its page has not changed since at least 2007, probably even further back. I compared UBB.threads 7.5.9 to as far back as version 7.2.1.
Okay I added a comment to my post, same time as your reply. So like I said has been a long time since I deleted members and it appears that possibly it has been a issue for quite a while, after your last post. The upgraded board was on 7.5.6p2
Blue Man Group There is no such thing as stupid questions. Just stupid answers
Also doing a comparison between 7.5.9 (2015) to version 7.2.1 (2007), the "All Members or Selected Members" options have remained unchanged.
Deleting an individual user (deleteuser.php) vs deleting a group of selected users (membersearch.php) have always been different.
Deleting a group of users only allows for two options, "(no action)" and "Delete" with the following warning message:
Quote
IMPORTANT! Are you sure you want to delete the selected members? If you click 'Ok' the specified members will be deleted with no way to recover them. Any posts that they have made will remain intact, but will be set to owned by Anonymous.
1) Click on their user name. 2) Click the "Delete Member" bottom tab. 3) Select one of the three options: [*] Do not delete. [*] Delete member and rename all their posts as created by Anonymous. [*] Delete member and delete all their topics/replies.
Done.
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Remember though, if you delete all traces of a user who has created posts in several topics, those topics/discussions will probably now look incomplete from a conversation view point, since the end reader is no only seeing half of what was said.
Your topics may look like a "Knock Knock Joke" where all you see is just the punch line. No one ever says, "Who's there?" or "[XX] who?"
For another example, if someone deleted "id242" and all the posts "id242" created from this site, this very conversation would read out as though you were talking to yourself. That's no fun. Especially since it would take away from all the many useful ideas you've contributed over the years, and how we arrived at those ideas... through back-and-forth conversation.
EDIT: So if I understand you correctly, you would like ability to batch "Delete members and delete all their topics/replies" for all selected results returned in the Member Search page. You can already delete members direct from the search page, and have their posts shows up as created by "Anonymous." But you also want the option to delete the member and the posts they've created. Is that correct? Basically, all history that the user ever existed -- except in the case that if what they wrote happened to have been quoted by another user.
Personally in my case,I was looking to use option 2 to delete multiple users.
Delete member and do not alter posts. where the user name remains in the post.
The site in question has member names that use actual names not nicknames. Even though they have passed away or retired their opinion is still respected. So I was trying to clean up the memberbase and still preserve the information that was posted.
Blue Man Group There is no such thing as stupid questions. Just stupid answers
Have you thought about just "locking the user accounts" in your search by putting them in to a group where they have limited access. It provides basically the same results as you're looking for. And it doesnt destroy any of the seo-food that would be wiped clean by way of deleting valuable/historical content.
Creating a group such as Past, Retired, Former/Previous, Ex, Waaaay-Back ...member