So, I just decided to log on with my nuked TvT account...

MillerCross

and the account works.

The advantage is, though, that the people who actually want to go a nuke their posts now, can go and do it...so yay?

Forzare

Central Avenue

Alright, history lesson time: Back in the ancient year of AD 2010, you could have as many TVTropes accounts as you wanted. Only not really. Because there was a system that would automatically ban anyone with more than 40 accounts, but no one knew of this limit until one user accidentally tripped it.

In the discussions that followed said user's ban and unban, Eddie decided to lower the limit to 10 accounts. The problem is that there were a lot of users (myself included) who already had more than 10 accounts, and there was no way to get rid of them.

So Eddie made up the account deletion tool. Because it was intended mainly for killing sockpuppets, there was not a lot of concern over the fact that it released the name. Who cares if "Sweet Bro" is now being puppeted by someone else, right?

Then some people decided that instead of just not posting anymore they had to delete their accounts when they left. Even though this is a bad idea, because deleting your account makes your name available again, and that's about all it does, aside from blanking your avatar.

THE END

RocketDude

Well, shit. Better see if Shlap is on Steam right now.

Stormtroper

Can you post with the account and stuff? Because I remember something like this happening, you could log in with the account and it'll look like you're logged in and everything until you try to do something account-specific, such as posting or changing your avatar.

Central Avenue

I saw Juan posting as Juan Carlos 11, so...

Anonus

I notice you didn't name Tnophelia, CA.

Vivi

We all knew who it was, anyway.

Counterclock

Link pls?

Central Avenue

^^^ I figured (a) everyone already knew, and (b) it didn't add anything to the story.

^ To what?

ColorPrinter

So basically, if I made an account with one of the deleted people, all old posts and everything, save for probably...no, I won't mention or give any ideas here...would be hitched up to the "new" account, and then for all intents and purposes by the system, I'd still be the old person?

EDIT: Oh god. You're right. I just tested something with a sockpuppet I had, Meat Boy, the only sockpuppet I ever had. Remove account does not do a damn thing.

vacasama

Sooo, the only way to get rid of the account is to nuke the servers in Texas?

RocketDude

I thought the servers were in California.

Also, yeah, but that would take out the whole site.

^^Wow. Is anyone gonna tell FE that his creation half-works?

Anonus

Sorry, CA.

I tried re-creating an old account of mine (A Name With Spaces), but this didn't work.

ClockworkUniverse

The feature wasn't ever actually supposed to do anything except delete it from the puppetcounter, that being why it exists at all. It originally didn't even zap your avatar, until someone requested for it to.

Central Avenue

^^ What are you apologizing for?

^ That's what I was getting at. I don't understand why people think otherwise.

ColorPrinter

Yes, but read this.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=12938209340A95028800&page=0

This has VERY poor wording, including this, which may lead people to believe that this system actually does what you want it to do:

"If you kill an account it is not recoverable."

Not exactly.

ClockworkUniverse

That's what happens when you rely on someone other than the one who decided to make the feature and programmed it to say what it does.

Anonus

Nitpicking.

Bob

RocketDude: Does anyone really think that he cares?

Also, yeah, I know from experience that it doesn't do shit. Even worse, the sockpuppet IP account checker thing still lists deleted accounts, meaning (at least to me) that at the moment, there's absolutely no point in using the account deleter.

Nyktos

But the mods use a different sockpuppet finder, which I assume doesn't count deleted accounts.

Central Avenue

The publicly-usable sockpuppet checker is the same sockpuppet checker the mods have on the forum (which was also publicly available at one time, albeit unintentionally), which lists any accounts that have posted from the same IP addresses as the account you're checking. The auto-banning thingy, though, supposedly uses 12 different criteria for checking sockpuppets, of which a shared IP address is only one, and does not count any accounts that have been "deleted".

Of course, who knows how much of that is still true, or was ever true to begin with.

Vorpy

-wonders if I should log into Tnophelia-

Malkavian

All my sockpuppets were one-off wonder threads. I could probably cause shit with them and NO ONE WOULD EVER KNOW.

Bob

^^DO IT

Vorpy

-Fucking google ban-

-presses back button and logs back out and back into Vorpy-

Counterclock

How do you long onto Old broken accounts anyway? O_o

Forzare

I guess you could basically delete an account by going into the password changer, closing your eyes, mashing the keyboard, and accepting. Then you'd never be able to log in again.

vacasama

I thought the servers were in California.

Naw, when FE mentioned Alexa, I went out to find simlar sites.  According to one of them, TvT is hosted in servers in Texas.

MillerCross

How do you long onto Old broken accounts anyway? O_o

1) Click on the Getting Known page

2) Write the old user name

3) write the old account's password

4) Instead of clicking in the "Already known" button, click on the "Create knowage" button.

5) You got your account back.

Saigyouji

Actually, you don't need to use the old password. I used a wholly new password to test it on one of my puppets.