Bitcointalk deleted accounts

[Rozita]

As far as I know, it's impossible to delete accounts. But there are many accounts that have been deleted.
Start from user ID 1, change it to bigger ones and see how many accounts have been deleted.
I am curious to know who had been the owner of the account with user ID "2".  This account is even older than Satoshi's account and it is already removed.
Now there are many missed user IDs. Why have they been deleted?

[DTalk]

It's not true that "Deleting ID" is impossible. An admin (creator, other admin may be given limited permission) can do whatever he wants to, he has the permission to do that. For some reason, theymos doesn't want to delete any accounts anymore, perhaps.
Not certain about the previous deleted accounts.

[Chivas Regal]

Go over to the SMF website (address at the bottom of each and every page) and read through the docs - deleting a user is a very easy task as is deleting whole IP ranges - why neither is done here to wipe out the spammers and scammers is beyond understanding.

[rhomelmabini]

I am curious to know who had been the owner of the account with user ID "2".  This account is even older than Satoshi's account and it is already removed.

I guess that's satoshi himself as it is named "admin" for the first account that's been deleted. You can get some good but limited info here A Study about history of Bitcointalk Forum. In regards to the second account my perception is maybe it is one of his alts as well.

[Vod]

deleting a user is a very easy task as is deleting whole IP ranges - why neither is done here to wipe out the spammers and scammers is beyond understanding.

That would be like cutting power to Harlem, NY.   Winners also come out of there - give all a chance.

[tranthidung]

I don't know since when forum did not allow account delete, but I guess when it became bigger enough to let admins think that account deletes might result in complicated situations related to those accounts. Let imagine someone create an account to manage a project, and create OP; then months later delete that account and there is no proof left if forum does not have regularly archival procedure.
One more thing to consider, by the way, is threads can not  be deleted.

I don't know that at beginning threads allowed to delete or not, or that restriction was implemented nearly same day or same period in which account delete disabled.

There was an unofficial account delete service, but suspended years ago - since May 2015: [SAD] I delete your account

Accounts do not actually get deleted from the database, admins could restore an account.

For now, people only can ask for username change, but it is not for all, and only very special cases (VIP, donators, or very very special case of normal user) will get acceptance and support from admins to do username change.

Done. Now only moderators, Donators, and VIP members can change their names automatically. Other members should contact me. I'll probably ignore your request if you have less than 50 posts (unless your posts are very good).

Just a few months ago, there was a user - at Senior Member rank, that was reactively after years, and asked for username change, because he did not have attention to keep using that account, and did not want his personal name abused (that is what I remember). Then, admin or global moderator gave him a hand, and changed username after few hours (from his personal name to ABCDEXYZ, something like that)

[DdmrDdmr]

As far as I know, it's impossible to delete accounts. <…> Now there are many missed user IDs. Why have they been deleted?

You can’t delete your account, but apparently you can ask for it to be "anonymized" by request (see quotes below), or at least you could some time ago.

<...>Some of those profiles have posts associated to them, and apparently, the way they are managed was by tying (don't know it it is physical or logical) them to a "Guest" profile under the generic username "Anonymous" (see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=15911.msg208900#msg208900 for example), although some still preserved a sort of username (see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=67541.msg785785#msg785785).

There’s this to go by:

Deleting accounts doesn't mess up any threads, like this thread. It just changes to anonymous, with no profile information. Post stays intact.

As you can see here, I only change the username to "Anonymous" on request.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Go over to the SMF website (address at the bottom of each and every page) and read through the docs - deleting a user is a very easy task as is deleting whole IP ranges - why neither is done here to wipe out the spammers and scammers is beyond understanding.

Huh, I didn't know that--then again, I know nothing about maintaining a website like this.  As far as why Theymos doesn't delete accounts, who knows.  Maybe he wants to keep a complete record of all of them.  Bitcointalk has got to be one of the most populated forums in existence, at least in terms of total registered users.  I know a lot of accounts are alts and a lot are inactive, but there's still millions of them.

That would be like cutting power to Harlem, NY.   Winners also come out of there - give all a chance.

Lol.  I don't think Harlem is nearly as bad as it used to be back in the 70s and before.  NYC got cleaned up pretty good since then, but I get your point.