I believe users should always be in control of their data (and since it's been produced by them, it their data).
Also, if their software breaks after deleting an account the problem is entirely on their part.
Total control?
Does the person who made this submission have the right to delete it even though by doing so they delete your data?
Do other users have the right to delete your data?
Total control for you means denying someone else the right to delete this conversation.
Do other users have the right to redefine your data by changing the context surrounding it?
If you posted "I vote for this too" to some very sound proposal to allow changing of usernames, and then the original author changed the proposal to "Bestiality should be legal", thus suggesting to the world you support such a thing... did the other user have right through the control of their data to substantial modify the context of your data? To the point that the other person could create a personal liability for you?
Where do the lines start and end, if your content can stand alone then the issues are not there. Almost everything in a forum is a discussion, conversation, argument, debate, an interaction depending on the context of other people's content. The minutes of those things are a record of fact, that someone said something and someone else replied and said something else. Content on a forum is never detached from the content of others.
I agree you have the right to your data, but disagree someone has the right to modify those minutes, those records of fact, to impact the data of other people in any way.
A forum is a collective work, and the rules for a collective work are different to the rules of a personal work.
Deleting an account on Reddit doesn't delete every comment and submission, but it does replace the username on every comment and submission with [deleted]. This isn't perfect from the user's perspective, but it's a lot better than most forums. It anonymizes any post or submission that doesn't directly leak personally identifying information by itself, which for most users will a large majority or even 100% of submissions.
I think allowing users to delete accounts and have their usernames replaced with [deleted] on every comment and submission is a decent compromise between respecting privacy for the user and maintaining the integrity of discussion for the community. I would feel much more comfortable using HN if it had such a system, although my revealed preference is that I care more about posting to HN than I do about the ability to retroactive delete my data.
Has reddit not had users who flounced and programmatically nuked every submission they've ever made?
Whilst this wouldn't affect Reddit as a whole, it could lay waste to a subreddit if the person was one of the top posters within a very small area.
This is largely why most forums operate a "edit within a reasonable time" policy. Though obviously there are benefits to being able to cache long-term too.
Can you imagine the impact on HN if patio11 went through a bout of depression and decided to nuke every comment he'd ever made? The impact to the collective work would be substantial.
Deleting a user will nuke the account itself, and assign all content owned by that account to an anonymous/deleted account.
The context is preserved and no-one else's data is affected, but we've removed all Googleable trace of the original account (the username and profile).
The only remaining issue is whether a person made posts containing personal information (defined as being the same as personal data according to EU Data Protection laws... name, phone number, email, etc). But for that we'll always honour take-down requests even when the information is orphaned from an ownership record.
PS: To the downvoters, I'd love to understand what part is objectionable.
I didn't downvote you before, but just did it now.I automatically downvote all comments complaining about downvotes unless the discussion topic is about downvoting and upvoting. I just think that it dilutes discussion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_data_leak#Notable_us...
Both marked deleted means that specific post has been deleted (but not the user account).
b) A forum is not a collective work; it is a privately owned publishing vehicle which may be selectively edited or change hands at any point.
Let's use email as an example - I can close my Gmail account, and Google can delete all of my data off of their systems. There is nothing that either Google or I can do, however, to ensure that everyone I ever sent an email to will delete those messages as well. The messages are now on their computers, out of my reach.
This becomes more evident when it's not a 1:1 message, but a 1:many message, such as Usenet (or Tavern)
Like Gmail, you can delete your account locally, but there's nothing anyone can do that would force other servers to delete the messages they received. Once it's gone, it's gone.
Another example where you might see this is XMPP->XMPP. My AIM client can keep a log of your messages, and even if you delete your AIM account, my logs will remain.
I can entirely understand where you are coming from, but with some classes of systems, I don't know that it's possible to ensure that your data can be entirely erased.
I've never understood this definition of property, especially since it necessitates so much giving-away of property in order to make society function.