Closing your Boards.ie Account

Mickeroo

Dades wrote: »

I can't see it in my Control Panel.

Oh - I think I found i

And we never saw Dades again *sniff*

Conor

Nody wrote: »

Another question not relating directly to the data protection but what about regging again? Lets say I've concluded this account has shared to much personal information/I rage quit/what ever and I want a clean start on the forum 6 months later (not due to being banned as that's covered under the usual rereg banning).

I go through the process and "delete" my account; would I now be free to set up a new account (as this would throw of flags for duplicate account most likely)?

It depends.

It depends on your internet connection. Some identify you more clearly than others. After six months though it's relatively hard to be sure that two accounts are the same for most net connections though it's still possible with some.

It also depends on your posting style. This is the most reliable way of spotting most re-reg accounts because it's the hardest for you to change. If you take a poster's favourite topics, common misspellings/grammar faults, punctuation styles, etc. you can often spot a re-reg. It's labour-intensive though, so you'd have to come to the notice of someone who's willing to trawl through a bunch of posts in order to link the two accounts.

Nody

Well Conor let me rephrase it like this for clarity (and no I don't have any such plans but I can see the issue coming up quick enough):

If I "delete" my account and my account is in good standing (i.e. not site banned, banned from a forum I wish to post in etc.) and I for the first time (and not as a regular "get a clean slate" every half a year for trolling kind of thing) decide I wish to register again would this be allowed as my account is "deleted"?

For the sake of clarity assume I'm spotted via IP as I cooled down the following day after my rage quitting, drunk, high on weed deletion spree of my accounts on the web.

If yes I can see it being used to get around posting history (i.e. get a clean slate every so often to troll more as there is no link per say) and throw false positives for "normal" posters; if no I can see people being upset they can "never" return

4zn76tysfajdxp

If this ever happens to dr.bollocko at four in the morning, you can just blame me.

Conor

Nody wrote: »

If I "delete" my account and my account is in good standing (i.e. not site banned, banned from a forum I wish to post in etc.) and I for the first time (and not as a regular "get a clean slate" every half a year for trolling kind of thing) decide I wish to register again would this be allowed as my account is "deleted"?

Yes, and this has always been the case. You could always just stop using one account and start using another. Provided you didn't use both concurrently or use one to evade a ban given to another no action is taken.

As a practical matter, if you're banned and then you come back as a "well behaved" user you won't come to the notice of a mod and hence they'll never check up to see if you're a re-reg.

Wibbs

Conor wrote: »

As a practical matter, if you're banned and then you come back as a "well behaved" user you won't come to the notice of a mod and hence they'll never check up to see if you're a re-reg.

From what I recall there have been a couple of very good posters here today who that happened with.

pwd

Conor wrote: »

Yes, and this has always been the case. You could always just stop using one account and start using another. Provided you didn't use both concurrently or use one to evade a ban given to another no action is taken.

As a practical matter, if you're banned and then you come back as a "well behaved" user you won't come to the notice of a mod and hence they'll never check up to see if you're a re-reg.

Yes people do it for privacy reasons often enough I expect

Insect Overlord

pwd wrote: »

Yes people do it for privacy reasons often enough I expect

What a way to go! :eek:

Conor

pwd wrote: »

Yes people do it for privacy reasons often enough I expect

Not that it's a particularly useful method, but if it makes them happy...

There's only one way of keeping stuff private: don't tell anyone.

As soon as it's on the internet, someone somewhere else has a copy and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. You can try playing whack-a-mole to have the copies you know about removed but long term that's a losing battle.

Act as if you're signing every post and you won't go far wrong.

MitchKoobski

When I saw the "Why do you want to leave?" box I thought "I really hope Atarii Jaguar is in there."

I'm happy now.

Chris P. Bacon

pwd wrote: »

Yes people do it for privacy reasons often enough I expect

If you had made 2 more posts you could of left with 5,000,ah goodbye anyway

Stercus Accidit

Under the upcoming 'right to be forgotten' amendments to the European Data laws, it's likely boards.ie will have to do more than this, you will have to facilitate the removal of past posts too. Like it or lump it, it is user submitted information.

Have the admins looked at the proposals and do they plan to facilitate them?

Strengthening individuals' rights so that the collection and use of personal data is limited to the minimum necessary. Individuals should also be clearly informed in a transparent way on how, why, by whom, and for how long their data is collected and used. People should be able to give their informed consent to the processing of their personal data, for example when surfing online, and should have the "right to be forgotten" when their data is no longer needed or they want their data to be deleted.

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/10/1462&format=HTML&aged=1&language=EN&guiLanguage=fr

A lot of people grow out of online discussions and personas, and want to simply erase that part of their life so that it cant be dragged up again in future for whatever reason.

Thrill

Given that your username and posts will remain intact then.....

Will "registered user" change to something else, as you would no longer be one? It might be misleading to allow anyone to think the account was still active now that they are permanently shut.

Will there be confirmation of the exact date the account was closed that can be easily checked (Join date, date closed).

Will a list be available to see if a poster has left boards? (Probably not necessary if "registered user" is updated to "no longer registered")



.

Chris P. Bacon

Thrill wrote: »

Will "registered user" change to something else, as you would no longer be one? It might be misleading to allow anyone to think the account was still active now that they are permanently shut.

Will there be confirmation of the exact date the account was closed that can be easily checked (Join date, date closed).

This person a few posts above yours just closed their account.

Thrill

Chris P. Bacon wrote: »

This person a few posts above yours just closed their account.

Thanks.




"Closed Account" is there, doesn't appear to be a "Date closed" though.

Overheal

Dav wrote: »

The idea of a cooldown period: It's not without merrit, but at the same time, being very blunt, if you make the decision to click 3 links (User CP -> Close Account link -> Close Account Button), enter your password and tick a box agreeing to this and acknowledging the bold red text saying this cannot be undone, then it's not like you can say you weren't warned or are likely to have made a mistake.

WOOOOAH WOAAAH woah there buddy: No Captcha?

aidan_walsh

Is the "here" in the "you can contact us here or at hello@boards.ie" supposed to lead somewhere?

Conor

Stercus Accidit wrote: »

Under the upcoming 'right to be forgotten' amendments to the European Data laws, it's likely boards.ie will have to do more than this, you will have to facilitate the removal of past posts too. Like it or lump it, it is user submitted information.

Have the admins looked at the proposals and do they plan to facilitate them?


http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/10/1462&format=HTML&aged=1&language=EN&guiLanguage=fr

A lot of people grow out of online discussions and personas, and want to simply erase that part of their life so that it cant be dragged up again in future for whatever reason.

Your posts are not "personal data" in the context of data protection law as far as I'm aware, therefore they're not covered by any of the proposals I've seen.

The close account script takes care of the personal data covered by the current data protection legislation. If they expand the meaning of personal data to include everything you write then we'll revisit it, but the implications of that kind of stupidity on their part would be em... interesting.

For example, I quoted you above. Is that yours, mine, ours or what? If you decide to delete that post, should you have the right to force me to edit/delete mine? What about if I paraphrased you?

Overheal wrote: »

WOOOOAH WOAAAH woah there buddy: No Captcha?

What would a CAPTCHA add past what's already there?

You're required to explicitly re-authenticate with your password and there's a (time-limited) token to frustrate CSRF-style attacks. To successfully exploit this to close someone's account you need the cleartext of someone's password. If you have that there's more interesting stuff to do.

pablomakaveli

The "Atari Jaguar" option in the reasons for leaving is my favourite thing about it.

Overheal

Conor wrote: »

What would a CAPTCHA add past what's already there?

You're required to explicitly re-authenticate with your password and there's a (time-limited) token to frustrate CSRF-style attacks. To successfully exploit this to close someone's account you need the cleartext of someone's password. If you have that there's more interesting stuff to do.

I was joking, of course.

Conor

Overheal wrote: »

I was joking, of course.

Ah, sorry.

darraghdoyle

Conor wrote: »

Your posts are not "personal data" in the context of data protection law as far as I'm aware, therefore they're not covered by any of the proposals I've seen.

The close account script takes care of the personal data covered by the current data protection legislation. If they expand the meaning of personal data to include everything you write then we'll revisit it, but the implications of that kind of stupidity on their part would be em... interesting.

Interestingly enough, Conor, it may be that they will expand that to be everything you've created. As far as I know you'd have to jump through a few hoops to get it done, but it's a debate happening at the moment, especially around what happens when you die.

Event on tomorrow in Dublin about it:

http://www.iiea.com/events/the-right-to-be-forgotten

25 Oct 2011 @ 12:45
About the Speech:

The European Commission intends to include the "right to be forgotten" in the upcoming revised data protection framework. This would allow users to remove/hide the data contained about them on social networks.

About the Speaker:

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger is the Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford. His research focuses on the role of information in a networked economy. He had previously spent ten years on the faculty of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. His most recent book, the awards-winning 'Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age', has resulted in the ideas proposed in the book becoming official policy of the European Union.

I think the important phrase up there is

data contained about them

so while I know what the current close your account does and fulfills that, we may be looking at an event where the site becomes responsible for removing content that I put up containing personal data - without me having to specify certain posts.

Fun times.

Conor

The way I've read it is that it's on "data about you". That would only cover posts which contained explicit information relating to you, not your opinions, arguments, jokes, etc.

That narrows down the scope of what would be deleted considerably. Possibly even to manageable levels.

It's still a half-baked notion though, since there are many situations where such a law is clearly stupid. For example, if I published an autobiography could I demand several years later that all copies be pulped, even the privately-held copies? If I write a letter to a newspaper which includes personal details, can I demand that all surviving copies of the paper have the letter cut out of them? If someone is videoing their family in a public place and I happen to walk through the shot do I then get the right to demand that they edit me out or destroy the film? Really, do these legislators put any bloody thought into what they're doing?

Stercus Accidit

Conor wrote: »

The way I've read it is that it's on "data about you". That would only cover posts which contained explicit information relating to you, not your opinions, arguments, jokes, etc.

That narrows down the scope of what would be deleted considerably. Possibly even to manageable levels.

It's still a half-baked notion though, since there are many situations where such a law is clearly stupid. For example, if I published an autobiography could I demand several years later that all copies be pulped, even the privately-held copies? If I write a letter to a newspaper which includes personal details, can I demand that all surviving copies of the paper have the letter cut out of them? If someone is videoing their family in a public place and I happen to walk through the shot do I then get the right to demand that they edit me out or destroy the film? Really, do these legislators put any bloody thought into what they're doing?

I'm guessing it will cover online material only, data protection, websites and so on. I appreciate that it takes a lot of work to maintain a site, especially a large forum, and that removal of material would be very difficult. I do see it becoming a reality however, with facebook material removal being the priority of the current proposals.

On a daily basis I read posts on facebook, boards, reddit etc. that make me cringe, what if I had said that? What if some dumb drunken post of mine some day goes viral? What if my boss sees it?...

Its easy to realize this in hindsight, plenty of us have enough foresight to stop ourselves in our tracks, but most of us have said or posted or shared something online that we regret now. While it is a rare occurrence, these things can be used against someone. To be honest, I am re-appraising my online presence these days and if there was a kill switch on boards.ie that could remove everything I have ever posted, I'd probably use it.

TeddyTedson

pwd wrote: »

Yes people do it for privacy reasons often enough I expect

Good night sweet prince.

pickarooney

Is "cyber-bullying" one of the reasons listed for closing an account? If not, maybe it should be.

Dav

It's not because we want that sort of nonsense reported so we can act on it and I will personally unleash the fury of a thousand suns upon anyone I find engaging in such practices.

Wibbs

Conor wrote: »

It's still a half-baked notion though, since there are many situations where such a law is clearly stupid. For example, if I published an autobiography could I demand several years later that all copies be pulped, even the privately-held copies? If I write a letter to a newspaper which includes personal details, can I demand that all surviving copies of the paper have the letter cut out of them? If someone is videoing their family in a public place and I happen to walk through the shot do I then get the right to demand that they edit me out or destroy the film? Really, do these legislators put any bloody thought into what they're doing?

On the videotaping in a public place AFAIR(though maybe only in the US) if the footage is broadcast and you follow up on it, you can demand your face is blurred out. Hence you see footage like that out there. It's a case of how far an individual(handwringer) is willing to pursue it I suppose?

With the online legislation being proposed, I suppose the (wooly)thinking behind it is with online data you can "pulp the copies" compared to other media. Those behind this drive probably think well you can flip a switch and they're gone. Now if you wanted to delete online persona X, you could remove all his/her posts/pics and even quoted posts. It would be a royal effin PITA to do so and most of all would ruin the flow of threads, especially with a high post count user. So it's easier on the surface to do so, though with Google hanging onto data you can't really.

It's a worry. All it needs is one test case where something like this happens on a tiny forum where it doesn't mean jack in the scheme of things and real communities like ours could be affected by it.

Of course even if it does turn out like that, you'll probably find that you'd get 2 or 3 people requesting such a deletion, but the vast majority of people simply won't do it/won't be arsed/will be perfectly happy with a closed account, name change*. You see this with facebook. Those who have their settings at the highest level of privacy are in the minority. Most don't bother.



*that's a good idea and compromise that boards offers that very few others do.

Kadongy

Wibbs wrote: »

On the videotaping in a public place AFAIR(though maybe only in the US) if the footage is broadcast and you follow up on it, you can demand your face is blurred out. Hence you see footage like that out there. It's a case of how far an individual(handwringer) is willing to pursue it I suppose?

With the online legislation being proposed, I suppose the (wooly)thinking behind it is with online data you can "pulp the copies" compared to other media. Those behind this drive probably think well you can flip a switch and they're gone. Now if you wanted to delete online persona X, you could remove all his/her posts/pics and even quoted posts. It would be a royal effin PITA to do so and most of all would ruin the flow of threads, especially with a high post count user. So it's easier on the surface to do so, though with Google hanging onto data you can't really.

It's a worry. All it needs is one test case where something like this happens on a tiny forum where it doesn't mean jack in the scheme of things and real communities like ours could be affected by it.

Of course even if it does turn out like that, you'll probably find that you'd get 2 or 3 people requesting such a deletion, but the vast majority of people simply won't do it/won't be arsed/will be perfectly happy with a closed account, name change*. You see this with facebook. Those who have their settings at the highest level of privacy are in the minority. Most don't bother.



*that's a good idea and compromise that boards offers that very few others do.

Going a bit off-topic here, but how would that effect "news" stories? Like could Lindsay Lohan get all the stuff on the Web about her drunken escapades and jailing and things removed, for a random example?

Conor

Kadongy wrote: »

Going a bit off-topic here, but how would that effect "news" stories? Like could Lindsay Lohan get all the stuff on the Web about her drunken escapades and jailing and things removed, for a random example?

Hard to know until the exact wording can be seen.