Another forum of which I have long been an inactive member recently - without warning - instituted the policy to no longer delete members accounts.
I want my account deleted because a Google search of my email address reveals only one link - and, yes, it is to that forum. Now I stated kindly in their “Administration” forum that when I joined I could delete my account, and since I could when I joined, and hadn’t been informed since otherwise, I should be permitted to terminate my account with them. They’ve declined.
Lacking any other recourse here the only method I can think of to get my account deleted is to get it “banned”. But will that work? Will my account still be there and just in the new status of “banned”? Or does, when a moderator ban an account, essentially delete it? (Or does it depend?) Can anybody else think of any other recourse?
Banned is different than deleted here on the SDMB so it is certainly a possibility that getting yourself banned over there will not accomplish what you want.
Go back to the old forum and change your email address. Just remember a Google search may still reveal the email address because someplace, somewhere, there will always be an archive.
With any forum software I’ve ever used (pHpBB and a couple of others) there is a clear difference between banning an account and deleting it. Most commonly, banning is simply a matter of assigning a particular privilege, or rather lack of privilege, level. Just like assigning moderator or admin status.
So I would not assume that going in there and cursing up a storm/spamming/trolling or whatever in order to get yourself banned will remove your account record or email address in the way you’d like.
I’d go with Duckster’s suggestion of changing the email address on file at that forum, perhaps to some free mail account that you never use.
It’s up to the board admins. If you put your case nicely, then they can delete tyour account completely. You might suggest that is is the decent thing to do, as that rule came about after you joined.
But it’s up to them. So assuming they say no, then follow the advice of the others, given above. And let it be a lesson that what you post on the internet can, and often does, stay on the internet.
As a forum operator, my policy is to never delete accounts once someone makes even a single post with them.
If someone wants their account deleted, I don’t delete the account, but I clear all personally identifying information in the profile, delete the email address, and delete all private messages and notification subscriptions.
On some message board systems, if an account is deleted, so are all posts that user made. This can play havoc with threads the now-deleted user participated in. Also, about half of the time, the person who wants their account deleted will later ask to rejoin. If the old account was deleted, but the posts remained, it would be extremely difficult and time-consuming to associate old posts, now associated with nobody or “Guest”, with a poster who wants their now non-existent account back. Really, it can be a mess.