When do you deem it necessary to delete an account?

[Madame_Lawliet]

We've all had that moment, you have an account on an online community or social network of some description (Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, etc.), and something about it just starts to wear thin on you for whatever reason, and you start thinking about just getting rid of it, zapping the account forever and with it any obligations or connections you may have to that community.
But we can't just get rid of accounts if we might regret it later can we? So I ask you Escapists, what exactly constitutes a valid reason to permanently delete an account to you?

I personally just deleted my Tumblr account today, which I've had for two years. I did this because I haven't actually had any desire to go or post there for four months now, my interest in the service and idea Tumblr provides just isn't there anymore, and I just feel like I've outgrown that community. That's not to say I never enjoyed myself on Tumblr, I most certainly did, but it just lost it's appeal and it started providing me more stress then it was alleviating. It was a good run, good times were had, but it's just not for me anymore.

But that's just me, I look forward to hearing some other perspectives on the subject.

 

[davidmc1158_v1legacy]

I suspect that it is completely subjective for each individual.

For me, it simply comes down to the idea that I have nothing further to contribute or derive from that site. No point in wasting memory space for an account that isn't going to be used.

For a friend of mine, I think that "just because it was Tuesday" would be a sufficient enough reason.

 

[VanQ]

I've never felt the need to outright delete an acocunt anywhere. I've abandoned accounts here or there and started fresh like when I watched a single Ray William Johnson video on YouTube by accident once and my recommendation feed became inundated with his annoying face.

As far as I see it, there's no particular need to outright delete an account unless someone was using it to cause me massive amounts of grief or were using it to target me specifically, to the detriment of anything I say or do. I had to change my username here on the Escapist from "VanQQisH" to "VanQ" because one guy started following me around threads and posting "why would you listen to a guy with QQ in his name anyway? He's clearly just trying to get a reaction out of you." and the mods ignored all my pleas to do something about it.

I guess if someone was using my account to target me in real life would also be a valid reason. But even if I grow bored of a site it doesn't mean I won't want to come back later. I abandoned the Escapist for an entire year after the mass bannings of people mentioning the evil "A" word yet came back for some reason and was glad that my account was still there.

Post counts be one form of e-peen.

 

[Elfgore]

I usually will if I keep getting a crap ton of emails from them on a regular basis. It's why I deleted my Myspace, stumbleupon, twitter, and very soon tumblr.

And has anyone deleted a Myspace recently? It is the funniest thing ever. There are about five blocks pretty much saying "Don't leave us" to delete your account. It's quite grand.

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

I don't really ever delete accounts. I just cease using it and often it has little or no adverse affect on me. If I continue to get spam from them or w/e I just tend to block it, rather than bothering to go through the process of remembering my actual login details and deleting the account.

When leaving WoW, I couldn't even delete that account, even though I have no plans to ever use it again. Instead, I just gave it to my brother and he got some use out of it, before quitting.

 

[Keoul]

When you feel like it.
I got tired of my facebook wall being filled with song lyrics and vague statements so I deleted it a few years ago, wasn't really using it much anyway save for some facebook games. Recently I've deleted my old hotmail account as well since it's been picked up by spambots and I don't use it anymore.

So yeah, just delete em if you're bothered, if not then just just write down the details and save em for a day you might want to use em again.

 

[Remus]

Only if the website is so littered with ads, the community is so toxic, or moderation so biased that it's an affront to my senses just looking at the site. Then I would likely leave a 3 page essay extolling the negatives of that website - lots of references to orafices and waste material might be found therein - in an attempt to achieve a permaban rather than simply just cancelling the account. I have yet to visit a site worthy of such an exit - you generally hear about what places to avoid long before becoming a member - but I have been in a couple of MMOs that deserved the final insult.

Outside of that, yea, just leave the site, remove any bookmarks pointing to it, forget the name/pass, delete any emails from the site. It's easy to make it like you were never there in the first place.

 

[teqrevisited]

I just leave the account to rot. I don't get an excessive amount of spam and what I do get never ends up in my inbox so I don't care.

 

[purf]

When
annoyance > usefulness/entertainmentValue
easy.

 

[lacktheknack]

If you send me six emails in one day, I will delete the account.

...Dropbox.

 

[Eggsnham]

Unless there's something on (or associated with) the account that could have serious repercussions for your future in real life, then I don't deem it necessary to ever delete an account. In fact, I hate websites that have an automatic account deletion policy for inactive accounts. I know there are solid, justifiable reasons behind the practice, but it just bugs the shit out of me.

I mean, if you want to delete an account, then by all means, delete your account. That said, I don't see a reason for it unless what I said above applies to your situation. It's also incredibly obnoxious when somebody goes out of their way to make a whole thread/blog/video/whatever letting everybody know that they're leaving and going into great detail for why they're leaving... mostly since the person writing/recording/whatever-ing the notification is all bitter and melodramatic about the whole situation.

But I digress, if you want to delete an account for a website, then go ahead.

 

[Foolery]

When you think that it no longer serves any purpose. I recently deleted my facebook account. To me, it was just a glorified messaging tool. That's it. I didn't post, comment, or upload photos. It was just a way to contact people. But I'd rather use email.

 

[Eamar]

I try to keep the number of internet accounts I have to a minimum, so if I'm not using something I'll delete it. I just don't like the idea of a load of my information floating around out there after I've forgotten about it, you know?

In terms of "big" accounts, I deleted my Twitter after a couple of years because I honestly never "got" it. I still don't see the point for people who aren't actively trying to promote themselves/their business.

I deleted my Facebook account two years ago because it was taking up so much of my time and I just became completely disenchanted with the whole site. It just annoyed me no end. I felt great after that, I honestly think it improved my quality of life. Of course, living in the world we do I ended up having to make a new account about a year later because it turned out that without one I was always out of the loop in terms of events and social plans (my close friends and I have a private group where we make pretty much all our plans). I would love to get rid of it for good, but for now at least it's something of a necessity.

 

[Sethzard]

I don't delete accounts, I do change my settings so I never get emails from them again.

 

[Tom_green_day]

I'd never delete an account, I may need it for something later on so why burn your bridges?

 

[Random Encounter]

I decided to delete a bunch of accounts I hadn't logged on to in ages because I didn't like my personal information just floating out there. I deleted my bebo profile which I used a lot in the ninth grade, myspace which I never touched and myyearbook which I don't even remember signing up for.

I also deactivated my facebook profile, I didn't completely delete it because I had some connections on there I didn't want to lose.

 

[Random Encounter]

And has anyone deleted a Myspace recently? It is the funniest thing ever. There are about five blocks pretty much saying "Don't leave us" to delete your account. It's quite grand.

When I deactivated my facebook profile it tried to guilt trip me with "Randomly selected profile will miss you" even though I didn't even recognize some of people they had selected.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Wait...you can delete accounts?

I- I have some things to do.

 

[JoJo]

Never, I don't think I've ever deleted an account. If I lose interest in a site, I just don't go back there... funnily enough, recently I logged into a Runescape account which happily told me it was 2325 days since I last logged in. I always keep an account in-case I change my mind later, annoying e-mails can be easily disabled.