It should always be treated as permanent and irreversable, but with technology and the right access levels (mods and admins), action can always be taken.

Some elective medical procedures are reversable, but doctors will always tell you that it is irriversable to avoid complications in the future.

Personally I dont see the harm in someone deactivating and coming back a week later with admin approval and with a damn good reason, it doesn't affect your gameplay in anyway whatsoever.

You would probably find (and I'm only guessing) that 99.9% of requests to get accounts back are denied.

It has been done

then it must have been a super special scenario. I have people PM'ing me at least once a month (if not, two) asking if they can have their deactivated account back. The main excuse is them being drunk or they didnt know what deactivation ment...even though its clearly explained.

But as it has been said, it is purely a case-by-case review, and while I am not admin I think I can confidently say that most requests are denied.

Users should treat de-activations as irreversable - and change their password as soon as they suspect that someone else may have stolen it, to prevent their account being deactivated by someone else.

I hope that all the feedback has helped answered your question Jan

Well flumpy, to some extent at least. Spinner has stated why deletion/deactivation is necessary at all, and that is at least something.

Why we can't have a simple, consistant policy on this remains a mystery to me though, but oh well.

When it comes to the league, which is an affected stakeholder in this, it merely means we'll need to stick with the rule of excluding fresh accounts from league play... That has other benefits too though, so not such a bad deal in the end of the day anyway.

I've just seen too many examples of people deactivating in the heat of the moment only to regret it later to like that feature at all.

And please lay off lecturing me about contact us and staff policies flumpy, I know them as well as you do.


Final question to Dave:

Any particular reason why players couldn't be given the ability to reactive themselves, in much the same way they currently can deactivate?

Yes, players would be able to deactivate and reactivate until they go blue in the face, but what's the problem with that? Let them It sure beats new accounts any day.

i think that players should have to message admin to deactivate with a valid reason

That would probably help - possibly also add some sort of delay, having to confirm the request after a few days before it actually gets processed

Or far easier: Making it undoable

It might help but who's job would it be to confirm them? I'm not entirely sure on this (due to never being a moderator myself) but it seems like both mods and admin have a fair bit on their plate and as katie said earlier neither are robots.
I may be overstating the effect of such an addition but it's just a thought

Because the users details have been removed from the system, there is no automated method of ensuring the person reactivating an account is the same person who initially held it, thus effectively returning to the same situation we had when accounts were deleted as far as "hijacking" is concerned.

As already stated, the current policy is accurate. To the best of my knowledge there have been 4 cases of a deactivation being reversed in the years since it was introduced, which should more than illustrate how exceptional the circumstances have to be in order for the work to be done.

I think the best option would be to give them say a week in which they can somehow re-activate themselves and after they have to make a new account

If they want to deactivate they aren't that likely to come back online a few days later to confirm it ( i think you meant self-confirming?)

The user themselves.

One initial action, called "prepare for deactivation" and a second step made available a few days later where you can either choose to actually deactivate or cancel (the latter being the default if no action taken)

You don't have to remove the user name and password from the database upon deactivation. That's not personal data in anyway. In fact, the only personal data involved or in anyway protected by law here would be the email.

For reactivation, let the user having to log in using his existing user name and password, enter email addy, and you're back in business.




No it is not, and it doesn't become a fact no matter how many times you repeat it. Besides, whether or not a statement is correctly describing the facts or not rests with the audience (me), not the speaker (you).

The policy clearly states you permanently lose access to the account and it being irreversible. As long as ANY exceptions are made, the policy is inaccurate until the exceptions are included.

Enough on this already, I've had my questions answered - to the extent I'm going to anyway (clearly)

Edited at 18:27 Mon 22/03/10 (GMT)

Ah got the wrong end of the stick there

Well then surely there is no need for change of policy in regards of deactivation. If four (or lets say that spinner has missed a couple and we can say 10 maximum), then thats ten people out of the thousands who have deactivated over that time who have recieved their account back.

No one who comes onto this game, has a try of it and doesn't like it is not going to be waiting three days to get rid of their profile of here - those people want it gone there and then. They simply wouldn't bother deactivating days later, which is in some ways is against the legislation that spinner is talking about.

Just make them create new accounts. Then its up to them to advertise the fact that they accidently deactivated. If anyone is falsely stating that they are a deactivated user, then admin can take a further look into this, and appropriate action is taken.

Thats whats done now, thats whats been done since deactivation has started and its working fine.

As far as im concerned, if you are silly enough to deactivate, whether blind drunk, in 'the heat of the moment' or seeing what it's like and then regret it the next morning....well in my opinion thats just too bad.

I see no need for a policy change when its consistent 99.9999% of the time. the other 0.0001% is common on any sort of game site.

I'd just like the fact that exceptions are made to be admitted and recognized in the terms - why on earth is that so hard to admit and do?

Why is the mismatch so darn hard to admit? And why is a tiny change of wording apparent so hard to get done?

It's frankly the same thing each and every time anyone raises questions of this nature: Jump in the trenches and go all defensive in the blink of an eye.

Lets put it bluntly.

If you were to deactivate, can you reverse the process?

The answer is, of course, no. Therefore it is irreversable.

If an account ends up in deactivated status for some exceptional reason (bug or admin mistake), yes, in time, that can be put right. I fail to see what is so difficult to understand about this basic fact.

Nobody is "jumping in a trench", it is simple common sense, and some tend to find it frustrating when others find that hard to understand.

In furtherance of this, and I really don't know so I might be wrong, making a mention of "except in exceptional circumstances" might lead some people to think "Oh, so there is a chance that I can deactivate and have it reversed". They would be wrong. Like spinner said, it can be put right in the examples he gave. Deliberately deactivating one's own account is not one of those cases, and therefore there is no need to add anything about exceptional circumstances anywhere, notwithstanding that such exceptional circumstances exist most, most seldom.

With all due respect, the only one having issues with insight here seems to be you Dave.

As long as more than 0 exceptions are ever made, the terms do not cover this - and they should.

Anyway, we're only running in circles here now so I'm done.

I think thats the best way anyone has put it cloone. If you deliberatley delete your account, then thats that. Whether intoxication or playing around and not knowing the concequences are excuses, they simply don't cut it on any day that ends with Y.

This example of the account you saw re-activated; how do you know the reasons behind the re-activation? Their account may have been hacked; meaning they, the owner of the account did not consent to such an action.

If someone stole your car and then sold it on to someone else, you would still want your car back after you did not consent to selling it, and you would be legally entitled to receive your car back.

But if you got drunk one night and sold the car on eBay, that is still a legally binding contract and your car is therefore sold (yes, I did Legal Studies in High School...Australian law but it I would imagine its very similar in other countries).

Or lets say that there was a bug on the server and the players account was accidently deactivated due to the bug/virus...

If you use my car analogy, then if you were going to put your car on eBay for sale, and you chose to back out of selling you car, yet you clicked "cancel" on the last step, a server malfunction on eBay may then place your car for sale. As you ordered the site to cancel the auction and not start it, you can claim your car back. But if you click on "start auction", then thats it, no turning back, your car is up for sale whether you like it or not.

Back to deactivated accounts...(but think about my comparrisons for a minute)

So unless you know all the elements around the re-activation, then no one other then mods and admin are actually in a correct position to make a judgement on if one should have their account back or not.

Jan, you stated that you know when to use contact us, so I would think about using that feature if you would like to ask specific members of admin questions regarding the site. As you know, the forums are for open, general discussion for everyone to be involved with and not asking one specific person to answer your question

Edited at 08:59 Tue 23/03/10 (GMT)

Edited at 09:01 Tue 23/03/10 (GMT)

The only personnel who, I am aware of with any say in an accounts reactivation are Admin. Therefore mods have no judgement whther or not an account should be reactivated or not!

Lol who decides which reason is valid?
I just want to deactivate.. valid ot not?
I lost a game and im fed up.. valid or not?

Were all (most) grown ups and can make an easy decision like deactivating an account ourselfs.. tvm

Mike