a couple tech questions

[SemoreBellys]

1) I've seen here before, but I'll ask anyway to see if anything has changed - can a user account be deleted?

2)What data is stored on the TMF servers about members? (ip address, country..etc)

Thanks.

 

[His Divine Shadow]

1. We do not delete accounts, even at member request. If there's a compelling reason for a name change, we can do that.

2. Logs of IP addresses are stored by the TMF, both by the vBulletin software powering the forum and by other software running on the server.

We do not store specific location information. For example, we don't store something akin to "HisDivineShadow definitely lives at 123 Nowhere Lane, Nowhereville, Kansas, 12345, United States of America." We have no way of obtaining that specific information even if we did want to store it. Instead, what we store is indirect and comes from IP addresses. IP addresses can be correlated to location (albeit not always accurately), giving us something like "HisDivineShadow lives somewhere in Kansas, USA" if we choose to look that information up.

Other than that, we do not store anything beyond what members enter in their profile. If that profile information is altered, we do not keep a copy of the old information. Sites such as the Internet Archive and search engine caches may store them, but the TMF has no control over such.

 

[His Divine Shadow]

An addition would be prudent, one highlighting the last big I said. To quote a wise TMF mod,

We store what you give us to store. The only thing you can't remove is your IP address.

If you put personal information in your profile (such as a phone number or images of yourself), that is now public. Once you put it up there, it's not possible to completely remove it. Even if you take it down here, and thus the TMF no longer stores it, search engines may have cached it. The internet archive may have saved it. Any viewers may have personally saved it. Be careful what you post. If you wouldn't want it getting around the internet, do not post it.