Closed Accounts

Fr_Dougal

Seems to be quite a few closed accounts lately, accounts are being treated as disposable with no value being attached to them.

Appreciate that for Data doohickey you have to have the closed account function, but how about limiting the number of accounts a user can have in a 12 month period?

I understand that people have different reasons for closing accounts, but i think say 2 accounts would be a reasonable number of accounts for anyone to have in a year.

If a poster needs more than 2 accounts in a year, the problem is not with the site or other users of the site; it's with the poster. These frequent closures of accounts are to detriment of the site and the annoyance of other users.

What are your thoughts?

Zaph

It's a nice idea but unfortunately I don't think there's any way of enforcing it. You have your account, Fr_Dougal, and let's say that the e-mail address attached to it is [noparse]Fr_Dougal@whatever.com[/noparse]. You decide to close it and open a new account, Bishop_Brennan, with the e-mail address [noparse]Bishop_Brennan@whatever.com[/noparse]. Now in this instance there's a strong likelihood that the same person owns both accounts. But then you close the Bishop_Brennan account and open a new one, Radioheadfan, with the e-mail address [noparse]Radioheadfan@something.com[/noparse]. There's nothing to suggest that all three accounts have the same owner, and unless you start acting the dick on the Radioheadfan account it's unlikely we'll ever look at it and try to link it to previous accounts.

That said, I'm in total agreement with you that what are now essentially disposable accounts are detrimental to the site, both in terms of their use by trolls and other people acting the dick, and for the way we have lost long-term, recognisable posters which impacts on the community feel of the site.

Fr_Dougal

What about bringing in authentication by mobile phone for new users similar to Adverts, Facebook, Whatsapp etc.?

In this day and age 2FA is acceptable and expected when joining new social media.

Zaph

That's definitely a way around the problem, but there are a couple of things that would probably require clarification from the office as I don't know the answers:

1 - obviously it would require development, and I don't know how what the developers current and future commitments are, or if the money exists for such a change.

2 - using peoples' phone numbers for account verification adds another item that would be subject to data retention and protection laws, so that would have to be carefully examined to see if there are any potential pitfalls.