Remove Old, Inactive Users.

[thebomb.com]

I, for one, am a fan of cool, unique, simple usernames, so i’m always on the lookout for usernames that havent been thought of yet.

I have found that a lot of simple usernames are taken by accounts that have been inactive for over 10 years. This really bothers me- it’s always a bummer whenever you think up a username and its taken.

Whats worse is some of these accounts have extremely old very valuable pets that i’m sure some people would be ecstatic to own! Instead, they rot in these inactive accounts for all of time.

I think that CS should have a limited period of inactivity. If your account remains inactive for x period of time, your account gets deleted.

Problems & Solutions:

What if people are taking a break and they want to return?
Before accounts are deleted, CS should send them an email stating that if they don't log in within a set period of time, their account will be deleted. Maybe prompt them with the option to delete their account immediately. This way, if someone has any desire to return, they can, but if they’re done with CS their username can be freed up.

What if they don’t have access to their email?
Well, accounts that haven’t logged in for years and also don’t have access to their emails most likely have no way to log in anyways. If they don’t have access to their email, but can still log in, then their accounts won’t be deleted due to inactivity… because they’re not inactive.

What about their pets?
pets from deleted accounts, in my opinion, should be sent to the Pound so they can be enjoyed by others. this supplies the Pound with more valuable pets that people would be less likely to give up otherwise, and it can give newer/smaller users an opportunity to have rarer pets.

How long should the period of inactivity be? Weeks, Months?
Years. A lot of them, too. I also am notorious for taking years-long breaks, so I think the period of activity should maybe be in the 5-10 years range. I don’t think someone who joined when they were 10 will care about returning if they’re 20 and haven’t played since.

[Ebony Stardust]

Wasn't this suggestion previously declined?

• Remove inactive users to make their usernames or pets available: this will not be done because inactive users may decide to return or may be using their pets elsewhere. (However, if the user has no pets or posts, you may send a help ticket to request that the username be made available.)

(No support, anyways)

[Khajiitcat]

As someone who just came back from a seven year hiatus recently Id rather peoples accounts not get deleted. If your issue is username access, I would say it would be better to suggest that if a user is offline more than five years that their username simply be wiped and replaced with a code number so that their username is freed up. Most people who start their accounts as children and return as adults tend to want to change their name as adults anyways because they regret their childhood judgment for naming skills anyways. Even I changed my username when I got back on because PikachuKilljoy:3 came off as my emo teenager faze. And I changed my name to a meme instead. I know a lot of other people who have come back from hiatus recently also that would not have been happy if their accounts were deleted or if they lost their pets. As far as not having access via email I still had my login and changed my email information when I got back from my seven year hiatus. But also not having simple names gives room for glorious names that are very creative and funny to arise also. That and other games like on many other consoles your username is unique to you and people often cross reference gamer tags to their own unique trademark. So their username may actually be a correlation to their business/streaming gamertag, which it would be wrong for a person to copy if it is a trademarked username regardless if you think its a cool username and have no idea what it referenced. But also wiping and reusing old usernames means you may end up getting correlated or assumed to be the old user. Which could cause issues if the old user left for something along the lines of being bullied if you get my gist? If people see a particular name they may not associate it with something good or a pleasant experience regardless of if they are not the same person. People who harbor ill will generally dont check to see if you are a different person. They just hit block. And you could end up being blocked for the past users mistakes. There are a few reasons having the same name as someone else could be bad for the site.

[thebomb.com]

As someone who just came back from a seven year hiatus recently Id rather peoples accounts not get deleted. If your issue is username access, I would say it would be better to suggest that if a user is offline more than five years that their username simply be wiped and replaced with a code number so that their username is freed up. Most people who start their accounts as children and return as adults tend to want to change their name as adults anyways because they regret their childhood judgment for naming skills anyways. Even I changed my username when I got back on because PikachuKilljoy:3 came off as my emo teenager faze. And I changed my name to a meme instead. I know a lot of other people who have come back from hiatus recently also that would not have been happy if their accounts were deleted or if they lost their pets. As far as not having access via email I still had my login and changed my email information when I got back from my seven year hiatus. But also not having simple names gives room for glorious names that are very creative and funny to arise also. That and other games like on many other consoles your username is unique to you and people often cross reference gamer tags to their own unique trademark. So their username may actually be a correlation to their business/streaming gamertag, which it would be wrong for a person to copy if it is a trademarked username regardless if you think its a cool username and have no idea what it referenced. But also wiping and reusing old usernames means you may end up getting correlated or assumed to be the old user. Which could cause issues if the old user left for something along the lines of being bullied if you get my gist? If people see a particular name they may not associate it with something good or a pleasant experience regardless of if they are not the same person. People who harbor ill will generally dont check to see if you are a different person. They just hit block. And you could end up being blocked for the past users mistakes. There are a few reasons having the same name as someone else could be bad for the site.

good idea

[Wired]

People only voting yes cuz they want rares :skull emoji:

[tiredddd]

I really dislike this idea as websites like discord delete accounts after 2 years. There can be so many reasons why people would want an account still up thats not limited to a hiatus or quitting. A good example of this is if someone passes away, keeping the account up can help keep their memory alive with family/ friends. This is a huge complaint people have with discord. You can always add a number or punctuation to a username if it's unavailable, it's not worth getting rid of possibly hundreds of accounts.

[Khajiitcat]

I really dislike this idea as websites like discord delete accounts after 2 years. There can be so many reasons why people would want an account still up thats not limited to a hiatus or quitting. A good example of this is if someone passes away, keeping the account up can help keep their memory alive with family/ friends. This is a huge complaint people have with discord. You can always add a number or punctuation to a username if it's unavailable, it's not worth getting rid of possibly hundreds of accounts.

I like that also because many people on here also have family and relatives who play the game with them on here. You see it referenced a lot in peoples trade rules where people actively point out who is their family to the mods.

Discord also is getting a lot of pushback right now also because they removed image hosting. Which means eventually all old photos and memories of people regardless of how old the account is would end up being removed after a day or so. Which means they are getting pushback for that also.
I assume cs does not want that same pushback. When people have family and spouses especially now that you can set up full dressup scenes with friends. Those are memories between the users. That could be a sensitive memory between family and friends where they had fun together. You often see people with shared dressups in their signature now. And I imagine if the user they did that with was gone they would keep it up for the memory of it. To have the other users pets or items ripped from a scene you keep posted on your account for memory randomly one day could be traumatic.

[Nick]

No, we are not deleting old inactive accounts. We want people to be able to come back to a game they played as a kid.