Whats the difference?

In guesting an account and disabling one?
ffireman's Avatar
do you get it now the difference
fun2come's Avatar
I have been wondering about that as well...
Thank you for your promt reply, ffireman. Pm was sent.
  • g1102
  • 03-24-2014, 07:17 PM
do you get it now the difference Originally Posted by ffireman
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fun2come's Avatar
May be I can get an answer now???

Whats the difference?
In guesting an account and disabling one?
May be I can get an answer now???

Whats the difference?
In guesting an account and disabling one? Originally Posted by fun2come
Since the mods aren't answering this one publicly, I'll repeat what I've read here before - with the proviso that I'm not staff and this may not be the complete story.

When an account is disabled, it is simply locked; I think basically the password is reset. All of your old posts still exist. To get access to it again, you'd have to ask the mods to re-enable, i.e. give you a new password. The account and handle still exist, they are just locked.

When an account is disabled, the handle is changed to Guestddmmyy, and I believe it is also disabled as above. So all of your posts show up under the Guest handle. The old handle no longer exists in the system. So, if you were to have your account guested, someone else could come along and register under the handle fun2come. Assuming that didn't happen, and you decided you wanted to come back as fun2come, the mods would have to change the Guest handle back to your original handle, and re-enable your account as above.

People often ask for their accounts to be deleted/guested and for all of their old posts to be deleted. Typically, that last part doesn't happen, in part, I gather, because deleting all the old posts would have to be done manually, and perhaps also due to concerns over effectively ceding copyright and content ownership.
fun2come's Avatar
THX !!! One small correction below and it all makes sense.
Since the mods aren't answering this one publicly, I'll repeat what I've read here before - with the proviso that I'm not staff and this may not be the complete story.

When an account is disabled, it is simply locked; I think basically the password is reset. All of your old posts still exist. To get access to it again, you'd have to ask the mods to re-enable, i.e. give you a new password. The account and handle still exist, they are just locked.

When an account is guested, the handle is changed to Guestddmmyy, and I believe it is also disabled as above. So all of your posts show up under the Guest handle. The old handle no longer exists in the system. So, if you were to have your account guested, someone else could come along and register under the handle fun2come. Assuming that didn't happen, and you decided you wanted to come back as fun2come, the mods would have to change the Guest handle back to your original handle, and re-enable your account as above.

People often ask for their accounts to be deleted/guested and for all of their old posts to be deleted. Typically, that last part doesn't happen, in part, I gather, because deleting all the old posts would have to be done manually, and perhaps also due to concerns over effectively ceding copyright and content ownership. Originally Posted by Fratelli
ztonk's Avatar
  • ztonk
  • 03-26-2014, 01:26 PM
Thanks guys for stepping in and properly answering this one. Just to add some additional detail:

The site admins actually make the final determination as to whether an account can be guested, which is based on the severity of the security/safety/privacy issue reported.

Once content is posted on the site it is never deleted as it becomes the property of ECCIE. In rare circumstances, it may be temporarily or permanently removed from public view, but it is never deleted. That's one of the cardinal rules that us moderators must follow.

Keep in mind that disabling or guesting your account does not automatically remove that content from being seen in the search engines (Google, Bing, etc.) and that it can remain cached and available for many weeks.

ztonk
AustinModStaff