So, account deletion on Side 7 is handled pretty thoroughly. All uploaded content, journals, characters, profile information, and files are wiped from the system. To maintain continuity, journal and content comments and forum posts are maintained, however.

In designing the upcoming new feature of user created tutorials, I wanted to get a feeling for what the community thinks with regards to what happens to a tutorial someone posted when they have their account deleted from the site? On one hand, the tutorial is content that user created. On the other, it's helpful instruction on how to accomplish something.

So, what do you think should happen to them? Should tutorials be deleted with the account that created them? Or, should they stick around for posterity? Or, is there a middle-ground that can be established, such as marking individual tutorials as "delete with account"?

Let me know your ideas and thoughts. 

Thanks!

-- BK

I think account deletion should remove all uploaded content by default. It is what most people would expect and doing anything different leaves you open to nuisances and troubles.

So, the best solution, IMHO, would be to give the user the option to intentionally choose leave the tutorial on the site when deletign their account.

If someone is going to delete their account, chances are they want to wipe it all clean and leave nothing behind.

I think the best option would be to have something simillar to a pop up say "You have posted x tutorial(s) here. Others may find them very useful in the future, do you want to remove these aswell? ¨ Heck yeah  ¨ Nope"

Or something like likat. Giving you the option to think about it.

Yeah, my thoughts were going to something along that line, but I wanted to get a feel for how the community stands on this topic before making a decision.

-- BK

I agree with the above. If a user wishes to leave, they should have the choice of taking their tutorials with them or leaving them for others.

How complicated would it be to setup and operate the Tutorials section like a wiki? Users could submit info and refs to a general topic which could also be edited by others, and the system could keep backups of previous edits just in case someone goes troll and tries to sabotage it. Maybe only trusted accounts, people who apply to become editors (a sub-moderator role, maybe?), could create tutorials, and approve or disapprove of suggested edits? That could reduce redundant, spammy, or poorly worded tutorials from cluttering up the library.

Alternatively, maybe "Guides and Tutorials" could be a submission category? If both of these things — limiting authorization to a trusted few to post official, Side7 related tutorials, and creating the ability for all users to post their own guides — are implemented, that might work out. Every artist has a process, a way to draw eyes, a coloring technique.. there could be hundreds of "how to paint clouds" style guides that become redundant very quickly. Should they be published alongside important tuts like "What to do if you suspect your art has been stolen" or should they be listed under a tuts tab on a user's page? I feel that making a distinction between how relevant a topic is or isn't to using this site ought to be made; if it is relevant, publish it as a community-edited wiki type of tutorial. If it's a personal, stylistic process, publish it to a user's account, and wipe it completely should that user leave willingly or be banned.

This would be very complicated to write. I'd essentially be writing a whole new software suite just for handling tutorials. It would be easier to let each tutorial author mark their tutorial as a community-related tutorial or a personal tutorial, and have deletion rules based on that.

I'm considering the option of having a Tutorials category for uploads, and building some logic to take those and automatically create/include them in the tutorials section. But, I'm still working on that idea.

-- BK