@pixelfed 1. Have a really big in your face message with "ALL YOUR DATA WILL HE DELETED. THIS CAN NOT HE UNDONE"
2. Have them type that phrase before you can confirm deletion.
3. Have an option to delay deletion my 30 days or whatever in case you change your mind.
4. Have an option right there to download everything first.
@pixelfed offer to download their data before and block the account deletion for a while if they wanted their data first (while disabling the account in the meantime)
Never delete accounts permanently AND instantly. When a user requests an account deletion, first hide the account from public but have a period of at least several days when they can log into it and cancel the deletion and reinstate their account. Only actually irreversibly delete stuff from the database when that period has expired.
@pixelfed seems pretty straight forward. Maybe enlarge the radio button text to emphasize it more.
And then add a confirmation page after this. Very short text. “This CANNOT be undone. This will permanently delete your data “ and have a few random picked images show from their stream.
@pixelfed Everything in the photo seems outlined clearly and I wouldn’t change anything. Maybe a consideration for people who are dyslexic or otherwise text-impaired, like a graphic showing permanent deletion. Perhaps a link on the word “instance” that defines it for people not familiar with the Fediverse. Otherwise, people need to take responsibility for their own actions…as always.
@pixelfed this is an interesting social rather than technological problem.
People got so used to services that retain their information, even when asked to delete it, that they get confused when they use a service that actually does what they asked. "Wait, what? I asked you to delete my data and you ACTUALLY deleted it? I'm confused now"
@pixelfed Have a data retention-then-deletion policy of 30 days. This can be reflected in the database with a flag ‘pendingDeletionSince’ with either a null or a datetime in it. Then a daily cron can delete accounts marked for deletion more than 30 days ago. A very different story is how to make those accounts contents not visible while they are awaiting deletion… need to do some magic on the feed mixer and search service that check for this parameter presence
@pixelfed You shouldn’t change what you’ve got. It’s clear. Giving users the ability to permanently delete their account at will is a good feature, it means the data belongs to the users and you respect that.
@pixelfed your best bet is to not delete it. Apple say that customers Apple ID will be deleted when they request it, but actually gives customers 30 days to cancel it. It’s a brilliant idea.
@pixelfed I'm not really sure how or why the un-recoverable usernames work (since permanent deletion should also free that username?), but maybe reverting that could be an option, since I'm guessing it's more about the username than the account itself...
@pixelfed make them type something, like GitHub does for deleting repos. Maybe also just mark as deleted and really delete it after 7days if it is not requested to be restored in that time
@pixelfed Requires a bit of work, but giving two clear, clean an unambiguous options might drive the point that deletion is final home. Something like:
[delete my account and make my user name available]
[delete my account and prevent users from creating an account with my user name]
(perhaps dumb example, but forcing a user to choose between options makes them consider the impact that each one has)
@pixelfed Another thought - if this turns out to be one of these "force of nature" situations where there's nothing to be gained from fighting it - how long do they go before doing this process and coming back to restore it? Maybe you could do a time bomb thing.
And maybe from there, see about making a "actually, delete this now!" button. So most people would just click "okay" instead. They'd have to go out of their way to "do it now". Maybe that won't work, but maybe worth a try?
@pixelfed I think people are just used to the idea that telling a company "Delete My Data" is more a gentle suggestion than a request.
Everyone kinda knows that "Delete" just means, "I know you're going to keep my data and use it for whatever, but you're going to hide it from me and prevent me from logging into this account."
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