Man, actually seeing this in a wild log would make my day.
I can tell by the error msg this wasn’t an error before and was the cause of much grief
When you’re the reason error log messages are created…
Is that python? If it’s, thank you, finally learned how to format text in a way that can be read on the script and in the execution.
As the other comments have already said it’s not Python. Not sure what you mean with text formatting, do you mean that it’s multiple strings that are concatenated using +? You don’t need the + in Python, you can do
some_function(
"part one of really long string"
" part two of really long string"
)
Which is identical to
some_function("part one of really long string part two of really long string")
What the user was doing is that they don’t trust that the system truly deleted the account, and they worry it was just deactivated (while claiming it was “deleted”). So they tried to do a password recovery which often reactivates a falsely “deleted” account.
I’ve done this before and had to message the company and have them confirm the account is entirely deleted.
Many services have a grace period. Mostly it’s 30-90 days where they keep your data, just in case somebody else decided to delete your account or you were drunk or something. But it could also be for legal reasons, like websites where you can post stuff for everybody to see, in case you post something highly illegal and the authorities need to find you. Another example is where a webshop is required to keep a copy of your data for their bookkeeping.
But it could also be for legal reasons, like websites where you can post stuff for everybody to see, in case you post something highly illegal and the authorities need to find you. Another example is where a webshop is required to keep a copy of your data for their bookkeeping.
None of these require your account to “exist”. There could simply be an acknowledgement stating those reasons with “after X days the data will be deleted, and xyz will be archived for legal reasons”.
Mostly it’s 30-90 days where they keep your data, just in case somebody else decided to delete your account or you were drunk or something
This is the only valid reason. But even then this could be stated so that the user is fully aware. Then an email one week and another one day before deletion as a reminder, and a final confirmation after the fact. I’ve used services before that do this. It’s done well and appreciated.
This pseudo-deletion shadow account stuff is annoying.
None of these require your account to “exist”.
It’s actually much more technical than theoretical. When you delete an account on a website, that is being kept for a little while longer, it merely has field in the database that gets updated. (often with a removal date as well for the automatic removal after x amount of days). This field needs to be checked everywhere the account is used. And account recovery is mostly a part where this is forgotten, or possibly not even wanted.
And to claim this as fact, I just realized that the website I work on allows recovering of banned accounts. (Removed accounts are completely removed though because we don’t need to retain any data).
This is the only valid reason. But even then this could be stated so that the user is fully aware.
Keeping the records for a little while longer is actually implied to be known. It’s in their privacy policy, and is legal.
Whether or not services should make this easier to know exactly what is happening I definitely agree. Personally I think post history without user identifiable data should also be removed, but this is even less common practice (and is why tools exist to delete all your reddit posts for example).
