Any plugin to allow user "take away" all her data ?

Any plugin compatible with Elgg 3 or any core feature thereof that allows an user to "take away" (download / copy) when that user just wants it or wants to do this before deleting account, along with a "protective" feature that makes users wait in queue if TOO many users are trying to do the same, so that server resources are not crashed. This appears a very important thing with all that current data privacy and data ownership issues. Many thanks.

  • For Elgg 3? I very much doubt it that there's such a plugin (neither any core option). I don't know if anyone has even released any plugin for Elgg 3 yet.

    The only plugin with some functionality to allow users to download their content is the Flie Takeout plugin I was made aware of recently. It's available at https://elgg.org/plugins/1602047. But it hasn't been updated for a very long time and might not even work on Elgg 2. Also, it's limited with regards to what type of content can be downloaded. It seems not even all content that can be created by bundled plugins would be included in the download, not even to speak of content created by 3rd party plugins.

  • Many of the Elgg 2x plugins will be compatible with Elgg 3, I guess. An important, if not the most important and essential feature, feature of social net is data ownership. We should allow users to download their data when they wish or when they leave the site. Are user data stored in multiple tables ? Can the site super admin can give a sql dump of all the text data at least ? Where are image and other data stored - there seems to be no docs or tutorial on these. Exporting or ability to export data has never been a core concern ? So we need to submit a core feature request in github ? Many thanks Iionly for your kind input.

  • I don't know yet how many plugins will work without changes or need to be updated for Elgg 3. As you see at http://learn.elgg.org/en/3.x/appendix/upgrade-notes/2.x-to-3.0.html there's a long list of changes that might need to be done to get an existing plugin fully working on Elgg 3. Not every plugin will require all changes of course. But some basic changes might become necessary quite often while others might occur rarely. And the more complex a plugin is the more changes are likely necessary.

    Of course, it would be nice to offer users the option to download their content. Up until now it seemed not as important or otherwise the feature would surely already exist. Details about Elgg's data model can be found in the docs. Files are stored in the data directory - the location might depend on the plugin they were uploaded with. Of course, the admin can try a dump of a user's data. But I guess it would be quite difficult and time consuming to fetch everything correctly (as each site might have a unknown number of 3rd party plugins installed that would also have to be taken into account).

    Best for now might be to hope for someone coming up with a plugin that offers some download option for user data. I think it should be possible to handle it with a plugin (that might offer some functionality other plugins can extend / hook into) and no need to add it to Elgg core (as it's too late to add it to Elgg 3 anyway now).