Hi Again.
Still playing catch-up on everything that has been going on in the last 2 years and a lot of threads that I’ve re-read are fractured and have bits missing. Lots of these are threads that I participated in or even created myself, though by no means all.
Have the posts of members who left the forum (as opposed to me who just didn’t do anything here for 2 years) automatically (or at the member’s request) completely deleted?
I’m seeing posts like “excellent, well thought out answer” when there’s no answer there!
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Hi @Saltrams … as is always the case with forums people come and go, for all sorts of reasons, especially where memberships are involved as the main product. If someone no longer needs to use sitters for instance, it is likely they will also want to leave this forum space which might no longer be relevant for them.
When people leave the forum each case is individual, and there are different options available. Some simply deactivate their account or ask for it to be anonymised, both of which all comments and contributions intact, others ask for their comments and posts to be completely removed (hence the gaps and disjointed threads).
It’s unfortunate when content is deleted and this also leads to our own learnings as forum admins about the management of forum threads, and also your other question about closing threads. We need to think about whether we close some other long but popular topics, e.g. “who’s on a house sit” for instance, and perhaps run these over date periods, by year for example.
As a young forum we are still learning as we monitor the effect of a growing membership on topics and categories, and providing the best experience here for our forum members.
Hope that helps explain a little
All the best
Vanessa
Thank you so much @Vanessa_A; that was way more detailed than my question deserved!
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Maybe it’s just another thing I missed. When people join the forum now, is there an option to auto-generate their user ID? I’ve seen so many members with strings of numbers instead of catchy names. It makes people really anonymous (but not in a good private sort of way). I don’t really want to converse with 3847502 or 5784938*, it’s like being in the military, or that 1960s “The Prisoner” (he was number 6, BTW).
*Those are random typed strings. Apologies if you are actually either of those numbers!
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@Saltrams I believe forum members’ names turn in to random numbers when they leave the forum. They can no longer post on the forum.
Thanks @Crookie but I’m not sure of that because yesterday I saw a post from a newly joined member in the “Introduce Yourself” category & they had the number string ID. Doesn’t mean they might not have left immediately but I’d still like to know the truth of it (as though it matters 
)
I don’t want to tag any admins etc as it’s so trivial.
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Morning @Saltrams This sort of overlaps the other question you posed around this so I’m popping this in same thread for context. But no, user names are not auto-generated, but yes they can be user generated numbers. Many users here have names that do not identify themselves, and do not add links to their profile and comment anonymously. Some have chosen to use a number and that’s their choice.
As @Crookie rightly says, (and please see my other answer on this) if a member leaves but wants their content to remain anonymous, the system autogenerates this number. If you’ve got any other questions about how Discourse operates their forum platforms, don’t hesitate to direct message me. Have a lovely day, Vanessa
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