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Add "delete user account" feature

It's just not reasonable to expect conversational content freely posted to a community bulletin board to be mass deleted on request. Even if there isn't an explicit user agreement, there is certainly an implied common sense one based on how a bulletin board works!

You have an interesting history of interacting symbiotically with a community for years and then wanting to disappear and take your toys with you in a flash. While I do realize N8VEM is your amateur radio handle, you never had a problem with it being used in a community context until you 'had enough' with the scene and disappeared. You never cared about what happened to the inertia you created after it didn't suit you. It sounds like it is happening again. Not sure what's going on in your life now, but good luck working through it and I wish you the best.

But after your initial post, the tone of your replies imply if VCF doesn't honor it they are somehow wronging you. That is not a great way to build empathy among a user base that largely appreciates what the people who provide this forum give to this community daily in terms of time and dollars.
 
Do anything in public, and then try undoing it. The internet isn't much different.

Even if everything is deleted here, how do you want it deleted from archive sites?
 
I feel like I'm missing some crucial context here, because I can't think of a single post I've read by you that was all that controversial, honestly.
 
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Yes, "public record" is part of life really. In my academic career (my real job) I've changed research paths a few times. Of course in a research career you publish so it's out there. I still get emails now and again from people wanting advice/supervision from an area I left some time ago.

Tez
 
I see multiple replies to this thread but since the request is being rejected there is no point in responding to all the trolling.
 
mbbrutman said:
We have had people try to mis-use the edit feature to retroactively delete content. If the edit feature gets mis-used this way we'll delete it.
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I had this happen to me on a low-traffic board that I run -- I didn't think the user would be obsessed and psychotic enough to systematically erase the content of 500+ posts they had made. I guess I underestimated the obsessed and psychotic. I don't think the edit facility should be removed; rather, the existing policy of "after 2 weeks, posts can no longer be edited" should stay in place. That alone allows initial flexibility while preventing site-wide abuse. In other words, VCF is good for now. (That user is on this board too, btw, so who knows if we'll see this tested or not.)

lynchaj said:
I see multiple replies to this thread but since the request is being rejected there is no point in responding to all the trolling.
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Trolling is intentionally posting replies to incite anger in the target; I don't see that here. Not liking the replies you get is not the same thing as people intentionally trolling you.
 
I do believe that when a person is have some sort of personal issue, not being specific, that user should be able to have specific post or even threads that others have entered to, removed. I'm not talking about wiping the entire board of all a person's messages but those that obviously have nothing to do with vintage computers and are later regretted by the poster. Those that may have also posted to such threads should have the right to keep their part of the thread, though I can't imagine why they'd want to keep such a partial thread, missing some elements of context. They should be notified of the desire to remove the thread or block of posts. If they fail to respond in a reasonable period of time, it is up to the moderator.
We have moderators, I believe they are human as well. Being people with some humanity, some exceptions can be made.
I do believe that to remove 100% of ones posts is unrealistic. Post that are clearly out of the VCF context are what I'm talking about. I've made such post over time but really don't much care what others think of me so haven't made such request. Others are not me. We are all different.
Dwight
 
Dwight Elvey said:
I do believe that when a person is have some sort of personal issue, not being specific, that user should be able to have specific post or even threads that others have entered to, removed. I'm not talking about wiping the entire board of all a person's messages but those that obviously have nothing to do with vintage computers and are later regretted by the poster. Those that may have also posted to such threads should have the right to keep their part of the thread, though I can't imagine why they'd want to keep such a partial thread, missing some elements of context. They should be notified of the desire to remove the thread or block of posts. If they fail to respond in a reasonable period of time, it is up to the moderator.
We have moderators, I believe they are human as well. Being people with some humanity, some exceptions can be made.
I do believe that to remove 100% of ones posts is unrealistic. Post that are clearly out of the VCF context are what I'm talking about. I've made such post over time but really don't much care what others think of me so haven't made such request. Others are not me. We are all different.
Dwight
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All valid points, but if you do it for one then you must do it for all. I think it would add an extra layer of unwanted responsibility for those that volunteer their spare time to operate and maintain the board. Personally, I wouldn't want to be charged with the task. Also, the average person ought to be aware of the rewards and pitfalls of participating in an open forum such as this.
 
eeguru said:
While I do realize Nxxxx is your amateur radio handle, you never had a problem with it being used in a community context until you 'had enough' with the scene and disappeared.
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Please stop using my amateur radio call sign. It took me several years to discover this but my mistake of publicly posting my amateur radio call sign is essentially self-doxxing. It has lead to multiple strangers and belligerent weirdos showing up at my house at all hours, calling my home all hours of day and night, unsolicited phone calls, and a whole bunch of other problems. Yes, I "had enough" when the emails and PMs and phone calls and unexplained/unannounced visits kept happening and keep happening. To this day even though I have been inactive for years, I still get unsolicited junk dumped. I still regularly get emails even though I ignore almost all of them and dump them straight into the trash. Of the multiple people I've asked where they got their information and EVERY ONE of them said vintage-computer.com forums. I have posted on many forums but never had problems that traced back from CCTALK, comp.os.cpm, etc. I really wish I could just take my toys and disappear. I have spent years cleaning up the mess and the only major problem spot is this forum. I am not asking for perfect complete deletion of everything just get rid of the obvious stuff.
 
I think of forums as the natural evolution (or "de-evolution", depending on how grumpy I am at the time) of the Usenet. Would I expect to delete a Usenet post I made? Probably not. I said it in public, and it can't be easily unsaid.

It's further complicated by as soon as you say something, it gets carried into the context of what others are saying, either by direct quotation or by inference. So even if you could delete it, then you also have to figure out how to delete every relevant reference to that post. At some point the need arises to blow away the posts of others, and that's not fair, and shouldn't happen by default.
 
NobodyIsHere said:
I am not asking for perfect complete deletion of everything just get rid of the obvious stuff.
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You have always asked for the complete deletion of every thread or post that you have ever made.

Once again, what exactly do you want? If we could change lynchaj to something else would that help? If we searched for your email address in the posts and scrubbed that would that help?

I'm not willing to just wholesale delete everything associated with this userid. But clearly we can and do edit threads that contain personal or sensitive information. Send me the list of posts that have something sensitive in them and we'll take care of them, as we do for everybody else who asks. But that's not what you've been asking for.

At this point if you want something then email me directly at michael@vcfed.org. But don't ask for unreasonable things. We're willing to obscure the parts that identify you, but not wipe out all of the technical contributions to the threads.
 
BTW, I've edited your userID ... It's up to you now to edit your user profile to remove your avatar, email address, personally identifying information, etc.

As for doing a global search and replace of "lynchaj" on the forums, that's not something we can do easily. You can send an email to Evan and see what can be done for you.
 
NobodyIsHere said:
Please stop using my amateur radio call sign.
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You do not own that callsign. The FCC does. You cannot control who uses it for any purpose. Only the FCC can. You can request a callsign change and have it pretty quick. I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if someone else was granted N8VEM in two years.

Obtain a PO Box, change your callsign, and request that QRZ conceal your information. Then move. This is the best way you have to dissociate yourself from your current callsign and address record.

It took me several years to discover this but my mistake of publicly posting my amateur radio call sign is essentially self-doxxing.
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Why? I knew that on day one. I'm not smarter than you, it was just obvious. And it's not essentially doxing, it's blatantly doxing.

Frankly putting your callsign on products was a bad idea. Again the FCC owns that callsign, you technically can't trademark it, copyright it, or anything else. But lots of people do it. I have.

I don't know the whole story, but a quick Google search tells me that whatever pertains to you on this forum is the least of your concerns. Your callsign, full name, address, and lots of what you've done over the years is plastered all over the place. And I'd put money on the fact that I'm not the only one who didn't have any idea of any of this until you posted this thread.
 
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I just hope this isn't the first of a long run of extra work for the mods. Already the threads a looking out of wack...
 
Caluser2000 said:
I just hope this isn't the first of a long run of extra work for the mods. Already the threads a looking out of wack...
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This is why it is generally a bad idea to just up and announce that one is leaving a forum. I've seen lots of people "rage quit" forums over the years and it often stirs up a lot of drama. It is usually much better just to quietly step away.

Sometimes an integral community member may need to notify others, but it is best to spin it as decreased involvement and keep things minimal. In this case perhaps adding something like "Sorry, I no longer offer such and such services" to the sig with a post explaining the problem might have helped.

Yet, some people do silly things like changing their avatar to the goatse guy, airing all of their personal grievances, trying to get themselves banned, and so forth. Not the way to do it.
 
KC9UDX said:
I don't know the whole story, but a quick Google search tells me that whatever pertains to you on this forum is the least of your concerns. Your callsign, full name, address, and lots of what you've done over the years is plastered all over the place. And I'd put money on the fact that I'm not the only one who didn't have any idea of any of this until you posted this thread.
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You've got that right. As SomeGuy pointed out leaving quietly without too much fuss and pointing out his services are no longer available should've been sufficient.
 
I don't think VCF is the biggest of your worries.
If I do a quick google search on your callsign, I get tons of websites discussing the stuff you have made, and indeed, there is a site that lists your full name and address (but not VCF as far as I can tell).
Directing all your anger and frustration at VCF is not the answer, I'm afraid. You have to get rid of that callsign, or at least, get your name and address removed from the site. The FCC is where you need to go.
 
Unfortunately at this time the only way to get the FCC to not have your residential address (without an act of Congress) is to never have given it to them. So if they have it now, the only recourse is to move, and not give them the new address.

By law a licenced amateur must have an address on file where he can receive postal mail from the FCC. The most common way to do this is to get a PO Box and use that. Or you can use a work address or a friend's address if they are willing, and you can actually receive mail there.

But you cannot purge the publicly available FCC database of addresses you have ever given the FCC. Even if you could, there are published copies of past FCC data and it would be all but impossible to purge them all.
 
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