Should a member be allowed to delete her/his own account?

[Phillip Dampier]

a long time ago...back in the distant past...we had an option called 'ignore'. If someone just got on your nerves you could hit that button and they would disappear.

That power was taken away by the Powers That Be.

Actually, since the "ignore module" was a software add-on, it was kept running by a third party who didn't update their software to work with upgraded versions of the forum software.  So it wasn't the "powers that be" that took the feature away - it was the fact the author of the add-on didn't update the software to work with new versions of this forum software.

now we have a situation where people feel it is not enough to ignore someone or avoid them. They MUST share their disgust and displeasure with the object of their derision. I have had four people tell me just exactly what they thought of me. Some things you can't take back. I often feel like I am not wanted here. I have had people write me and tell me they read my posts but won't speak to me. It hurts. Used to be I came online to get away. To have fun. It is rarely fun anymore. I come back now because I have a handfull of friends to keep up with.

If anyone personally attacks you on here in a public message, report it at once.  I don't get into much regulation of PM's on here because they are private messages and there is no way to regulate them, but you can ignore the sender.  If someone is sending you repeated personal attacks in PMs, I would like to know about that.  Drop me a PM about it.  If someone is repeatedly telling you they won't speak to you, but are telling you this in a PM, I'd reply letting them know it's awfully ironic they are speaking to you to tell you they won't speak to you.

If you don't like someone. If someone gets on your nerves...can't you just let them be? I had an argument over a misunderstanding with another member. I do not talk to her. I don't go to threads she starts. SHE on the other hand DOES come on the ones I start. She responds to my posts. WHY? If you really loath another person why keep talking to them.

I don't know any of the particulars here, but my general guess is that the person obviously doesn't dislike you as much as you think they do.  As I said in an earlier message, online misunderstandings are common, and people can read things into messages.  That's why I always urge people to be careful about the messages they write, and recipients not to take things written online too seriously.   And don't allow a message on a website to get on your nerves anyway.  You are empowered to scroll right on past their message, as is anyone who would write to you and tell you they are irritated by something you wrote in the first place.

[dot-matrix]

now we have a situation where people feel it is not enough to ignore someone or avoid them. They MUST share their disgust and displeasure with the object of their derision. I have had four people tell me just exactly what they thought of me. Some things you can't take back. I often feel like I am not wanted here. I have had people write me and tell me they read my posts but won't speak to me. It hurts. Used to be I came online to get away. To have fun. It is rarely fun anymore. I come back now because I have a handfull of friends to keep up with.

A similar thing has happened to me, there are two people here who have chosen to make snide remarks about my posts and send me nasty grams via PM....and yet they still read my posts.  I have chose to ignore them so far, chosing the high ground and not responding at all but I am not as generous or as altruistic as Philip, I personally believe that these people continue to read our posts to look for more things to use against us.  That certainly seems to be the case to me.  I not saying anyone here is a bad person, they are only doing what they do and drama takes many forms.  I am saying I don't like it and it has cause me to consider leaving this place several times.

Since when did their opinions become any more valid than mine or yours?  Since when does anyone of us have the right to sit in judgment of each other?  Since when do they have the right to push their negative opinion of someone I love on me when they don't know her any better than they know me?

And as always, we keep those of low morality, character, and intelligence away from our community.    That's why we never allow personal attacks here.

And yet when some drama queen wants to play the games you described of making long winded farewell speeches or casting aspersions, deleting their account and coming back with a new one to watch the chaos they have created you do nothing except prevent them for deleting their account? I'm confused.   Their behavior certainly seems of low morality, questionable character, and questionable intelligence to me.   Not allowing personal attacks doesn't keep them away, it only drives the more creative underground.  They are here hiding in plain sight behind a sweet face, and in some instances using PM's and snide comments to make their points.   I don't believe it is as simple as you paint it, but I wish you well and respect what you have created here.

[serious crayons]

I'll have to say that, for myself, I haven't had those kinds of problems at BetterMost.

Oops! I realized later I did once. More than a year ago, I got a PM from somebody containing some very harsh criticism -- about a particular post I'd written as well as all of my posts in general. The PM called me "arrogant," and what made it particularly hurtful was that this person said that "others" also felt the same way about me. Who were these "others"?? I got this sense of a bunch of people talking behind my back about what a jerk I am. Maybe everybody secretly thought so! It was a terrible feeling.

So I wrote a post about it in the thread this PMer was talking about. I didn't name the PMer, of course, but I said that someone had told me I'd been arrogant and obnoxious, and I apologized to anyone else who had taken my posts the same way.

Well, the response was very reassuring. I got a bunch of posts and a lot of PMs from people saying they didn't agree with those criticisms. And in the end, I felt a lot better. So one person -- oh, and maybe a few "others," whose identities I never determined -- didn't like my posts. Plenty of other people said they did.

And the critical PMer and I wound up coming to some sort of peace and getting along OK after that.

The moral, I guess, is that if one person or a few people don't like you, a lot of other people probably do. And even that one person may have lashed out impulsively and will eventually think otherwise.

[Phillip Dampier]

A similar thing has happened to me, there are two people here who have chosen to make snide remarks about my posts and send me nasty grams via PM....and yet they still read my posts.  I have chose to ignore them so far, chosing the high ground and not responding at all but I am not as generous or as altruistic as Philip, I personally believe that these people continue to read our posts to look for more things to use against us.

Put those people on your PM ignore list if they are irritating you.  And I'm not exactly sure why you are giving these people power by saying they are looking for something to use against you.  With whom?  We don't keep a list of 'offenses' here that adds up to a person getting deleted.  Usually the worst that happens is that a post gets modified, but that usually doesn't put anyone's access in peril here, and nobody is in that situation right now.

Since when did their opinions become any more valid than mine or yours?  Since when does anyone of us have the right to sit in judgment of each other?  Since when do they have the right to push their negative opinion of someone I love on me when they don't know her any better than they know me?

And yet when some drama queen wants to play the games you described of making long winded farewell speeches or casting aspersions, deleting their account and coming back with a new one to watch the chaos they have created you do nothing except prevent them for deleting their account? I'm confused.   Their behavior certainly seems of low morality, questionable character, and questionable intelligence to me.   Not allowing personal attacks doesn't keep them away, it only drives the more creative underground.  They are here hiding in plain sight behind a sweet face, and in some instances using PM's and snide comments to make their points.   I don't believe it is as simple as you paint it, but I wish you well and respect what you have created here.

Jess raised a secondary issue that isn't really pertinent to the earlier discussion about the account delete feature, so it's important to keep the two issues distinct.

Everyone has an opinion on something.  How much weight you give it personally isn't something I can control.  If you disagree with the opinion, you don't have to spend any more time dwelling on it.  And nobody that I know is pushing personal attacks in public forums, which is the moderated portion of our site.  PM's are more self-regulatory as you have the ability to block recipients you do not wish to hear from, excepting administrative folks of course.

On the issue of a delay in account deletion, since implemented, it has allowed me to root out duplicate accounts by people setting up a second account here from which to watch any fireworks should they cause an incident (but the last one is now more than a year old).  But more importantly, since the majority of the cases of people leaving are from rash decision-making, not from any effort to disrupt the forum, the policy of a two week wait has effectively kept virtually every one of those people as members of our community.

[louisev]

I think all of the complaints raised here can easily be handled with the ignorelist feature on private messages.  If anyone does not know how to implement this feature it is quite easy to do, or ask if you are having trouble!

[Phillip Dampier]

Oops! I realized later I did once. More than a year ago, I got a PM from somebody containing some very harsh criticism -- about a particular post I'd written as well as all of my posts in general. The PM called me "arrogant," and what made it particularly hurtful was that this person said that "others" also felt the same way about me. Who were these "others"?? I got this sense of a bunch of people talking behind my back about what a jerk I am. Maybe everybody secretly thought so! It was a terrible feeling.

I have learned that the overwhelming majority of times you hear someone say that "others" felt the same way, that's turned out to be nonsense.  People do this to try and bolster their argument.  If they have a valid argument to begin with, there is no reason to suggest that others felt the same way.

The moral, I guess, is that if one person or a few people don't like you, a lot of other people probably do. And even that one person may have lashed out impulsively and will eventually think otherwise.

As I said before, it's very easy to write negative messages to people, which is why I don't allow them to get to me.  And, as you discovered, once there was a cooling off and some discussion, things worked out.

[moremojo]

And yet when some drama queen wants to play the games you described of making long winded farewell speeches...

Did I hear someone calling my name? 

[Phillip Dampier]

Did I hear someone calling my name? 

I think we're all referring to the trio of trauma we had last year, not you.

[injest]

well I came on to delete my post. I was WAY rash to post it and have regreted it all day. Couldn't get back to the computer though.

Scott, no...no one is talking about you in these last few pages...and I am sorry if you feel I was. I love to see you online and enjoy talking to you. I was responding to Susiebell's post where she said someone pmed her to say they found her irritating and it made her want to leave. I think that is kinda pertinent to the discussion of having a cooling off period for deletion.

but

I was wrong to post it...please forgive me.

[moremojo]

Hi friends, I know no one was referring to me, but I was getting a little laugh at MYSELF, thinking of myself as a drama queen (yes, I can be that sometimes) who was bound and determined to make a grand exit with an eloquent, poetic speech of farewell...well, I suppose I made the speech all right, but I still (gladly) find myself here!

And that thought just makes me giggle...