[openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website] User account self-deletion allows bad actors to delete and recreate the same account name to "lose" changeset discussion and block history (Issue #4018)

[Frederik Ramm]

>     * Deleted accounts are hard to report, because they are not linked from changesets, ways etc.

Not only are deleted accounts hard to report - the problem starts before that, when a user who is not a power user and only has the web site at their disposal wants to find out *if* a certain edit was vandalism. So even the "what has happened here and by whom, and was it an accident or deliberate, did the person make 1000 similar edits..." fact-finding is made harder for a website user when dealing with deleted accounts. But we depend on "average users" to do some sleuthing themselves because we do not have enough support staff to investigate everything that looks a little fishy. Therefore, supporting the average user in understanding who-did-what is very important for us in terms of workload reduction for moderators and support staff. (Mateusz said as much, and more concise, while I was typing this...)

Website users will also be unable to verify whether a deleted account has already been blocked and hence a report might be superfluous.

>     * Vandals can just abandon their account, and vandalise using a fresh account. They will need a fresh email address (which they currently don't have any problems with).

>From a "following up what happened" perspective, one vandal making 100 accounts that are all not deleted and all openly visible on the web site is much preferable to all vandal edits being thrown in together as coming from "deleted" (no matter if they come from the same account or 100 different accounts).

>     * Perfectly normal people could get frustrated with a cooldown period, and this may lead to additional support requests.

True but we could afford so reply to these with a boilerplate text informing them to please come back after the cooldown period.


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