Deleting memeber

What would happen exactly when deleting a memeber? I have read in a few places that it caused problems for site owners. Is it still a bad idea to do this? And when deleting a user does the content that that user created also get deleted? Any help please as i has this one user spamming the site.

Also what IP trackers is there - i can only find the one on the site and it's not working in my setup.

Thank you

  • I'm not exactly sure what happens, but it's true bad things happen when you start deleting users. There is a ban user feature that's pretty safe I think.

  • So why is elgg build like this? Why is this even a feature if it causes problems? Very frustrating!

  • http://elgg.org/features.php

    "Deleting" users is not listed in that page my dear friend. 

     

  • So far as I know, the current problems with deleting users seem to have been narrowed down to one issue:

    if the user has created certain kinds of content (eg. files) and then the plugin for that content has been turned off, then deleting the user may not properly delete the content, causing database errors.

    Other than that, I am not aware of any problems with deleting users. I delete test users all the time in Elgg 1.7.1 and have never seen any issues.

    Keep in mind that if you delete a user, *all* the content they have created is also deleted.

  • @Lewis aka my friend, i think you are misunderstanding what i mean....i am saying why is it implemented in elgg if it cant be done right. Causing errors and so on. Why is the option there for this? It doesn't help if you have the abillity to delete users if it will cause datbase errors like Kevin Jardine also pointed out. So why is that ability still a problem in elgg - hope that's clear

    Thanks Kevin for answering my question.

  • I think the problem isn't deleting users itself as Kevin pointed out. More the fact that deleting users who've uploaded/created content via a plugin that is then disabled.

    This factor seems not to have been taken into account as of yet.

  • @Jacque, Elgg is still in its infancy. Its only a two year old child. So you can always expect bugs, while the Elgg team is working hard on fixing it. (they are only five in numbers). And the delete a member is not a buggy thing now as like in the previous versions. It will make problems only when you disable some plugins as Kevin mentioned. 

  • Okay so what if i manaully delete all the content created by that user and delete them. Will it still cause problems when disabling plugins that was used to created that content? Sorry for the questions but would just like to learn and understand better of the inner workings and how to solve the problems.

    Thank you for everybody's input regarding this problem

  • I delete users all the time and have never had a problem with 1.7 on this.

    I think the current state is that the delete might fail if a user creates content that requires a custom class to support and the plugin that provides that custom class has been disabled. The only two plugins that I can think of offhand that use custom classes are Files, Tidypics and Izap Videos. I haven't tested this but I think the sequence would go like this:

    • Active plugin
    • User creates content using
    • Disable plugin
    • Try to delete user

    The vast majority of plugins do not use custom classes and most people that use Files, Tidypics and Izap Videos do not disable them.