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Deleting an account from Quora, including deleting all your contributions, is not easy. It requires sending an email and waiting for them to run some script whi

by leokun 13y ago

Deleting an account from Quora, including deleting all your contributions, is not easy. It requires sending an email and waiting for them to run some script which can take a long time. So unless Quora changed this, which I doubt, that page needs to be updated.

systemtrigger 13y ago
I requested removal from Quora last week. 27 hours later someone from user operations emailed me confirming it was done. Perhaps they did improve the process recently.
- yitchelle 13y ago
  Did they sent you a report showing all the items that were deleted as proof, or am I just being too paranoid?
  - systemtrigger 13y ago
    No report, the email they sent said: ... We’ve deleted your account information from our end. However, if you are already in a search engine like Google’s search index, they won’t know to drop you from it until they try to re-crawl your page, and unfortunately we don’t have any control over when that will happen. The best thing to do in the meantime is to directly request removal from Google itself here: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals. Once you have submitted your request(s), you will need to wait for Google to reindex the pages — this often takes a few days. ...
    - jfoster 13y ago
      Is that even possible? How could just anyone request that Google take actions on quora's domain?
    - chmars 13y ago
      Why doesn't Quora request the removal of such content? It's former content from its own site after all …
      - codezero 13y ago
        Because Google will remove it from their index when they revisit the page organically. If Google provides a way to programmatically send removal requests, I'd be happy to hear about it and I will pass it along to the team that deals with account deletions so we can make it part of our flow. Right now, I am only aware of the Google webmaster tools where you have to input each individual link you want removed, and even that request is queued and takes time, with no guarantee that they will reindex the content.
  - rytis 13y ago
    I'm not sure how they (or anyone really) prove that they actually removed all information, other than running something like 'select name from users' and sending you the results so that you can see that your name isn't there. If they send you all info that they have about you, that doesn't prove that account has been removed, it only proves that they have all your data.
- blowski 13y ago
  It irked me that when I deactivated my account, it wasn't immediately obvious that it hadn't been deleted. I only found that out when I saw the page was still live on Google. I then contacted their customer service to find out why it hadn't been deleted. Their customer service team was responsive and helpful, and it was deleted within 24 hours.
codezero 13y ago
I work at Quora. A few things: 1) I agree the statement on this page is not accurate, emailing is certainly not as easy as other products. 2) We are committed to people who use, or have used, Quora. Our turnaround time for deleting accounts has improved greatly in the past year and should be within about 48 hours (excluding weekends, I mean, seriously.) 3) We've considered a one-click solution and may one day provide that. For now, we use the email solution because it avoids accidental deletion (I understand the skepticism here, but believe it or not, many people who have sent explicit delete requests in by email have later asked to have their account restored – we can't restore a deleted account, because, you know, deleted.) Offering a one click deletion from a settings page opens up a lot of confusion for people who assume that delete is some sort of soft "goodbye" with the chance to return later. Our soft delete is called "deactivation" which should de-index your content from Google, hide your name and halt all email and notifications from Quora to you. This is effective for a lot of people, but if you want your content straight up deleted, please email privacy@quora.com, and we will take care of it.
- leokun 13y ago
  Thank you, but just FYI, Quora sucks and you should find a new place to work. It's a shitty crowd sourced product that gives nothing back to the crowd. The deletion policy sucks. The inability to delete your own content (without deleting your account) sucks. The way Quora forces people to login to see content sucks. Forcing people to use real names sucks. The user interface, which at this point looks pretty dated, sucks. The product sucks. You can't get answers to questions which sucks. People with lots of followers get all the upvotes, which sucks. Emphasising the social login buttons at every turn and hiding the email login sucks. The community (never as impressive as people made it out to be because one time many years ago the former CEO of AOL answered something) sucks. The admonishment to be ready to dedicate your life (haha!) to Quora on the jobs page sucks big fucking time. By the way how's that working out for you? Worth it? Probably not. Getting a ton of VC money because Quora's founder had some friends at Facebook and then building a piece of shit? Also pretty sucky. Can you tell I don't like Quora? My only interaction with Quora has been through its product. I haven't had a Quora account in over a year and I still foam at the mouth at the thought of this site. There's a reason I wanted to delete my account. It's a sinister and manipulative product that connives value (user contributions) out of people and returns walls for the favor. I had quite a bit of content on Quora. I think I got overcharged like $40 by some scammy website in the last year and I am already over that, but I never got scammed for money from Quora but I still cringe at the site in a way that's entirely unique and singular. Quora sucks.

by leokun 13y ago

systemtrigger 13y ago

I requested removal from Quora last week. 27 hours later someone from user operations emailed me confirming it was done. Perhaps they did improve the process recently.

yitchelle 13y ago
Did they sent you a report showing all the items that were deleted as proof, or am I just being too paranoid?
- systemtrigger 13y ago
  No report, the email they sent said: ... We’ve deleted your account information from our end. However, if you are already in a search engine like Google’s search index, they won’t know to drop you from it until they try to re-crawl your page, and unfortunately we don’t have any control over when that will happen. The best thing to do in the meantime is to directly request removal from Google itself here: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals. Once you have submitted your request(s), you will need to wait for Google to reindex the pages — this often takes a few days. ...
  - jfoster 13y ago
    Is that even possible? How could just anyone request that Google take actions on quora's domain?
  - chmars 13y ago
    Why doesn't Quora request the removal of such content? It's former content from its own site after all …
    - codezero 13y ago
      Because Google will remove it from their index when they revisit the page organically. If Google provides a way to programmatically send removal requests, I'd be happy to hear about it and I will pass it along to the team that deals with account deletions so we can make it part of our flow. Right now, I am only aware of the Google webmaster tools where you have to input each individual link you want removed, and even that request is queued and takes time, with no guarantee that they will reindex the content.
- rytis 13y ago
  I'm not sure how they (or anyone really) prove that they actually removed all information, other than running something like 'select name from users' and sending you the results so that you can see that your name isn't there. If they send you all info that they have about you, that doesn't prove that account has been removed, it only proves that they have all your data.
blowski 13y ago
It irked me that when I deactivated my account, it wasn't immediately obvious that it hadn't been deleted. I only found that out when I saw the page was still live on Google. I then contacted their customer service to find out why it hadn't been deleted. Their customer service team was responsive and helpful, and it was deleted within 24 hours.

codezero 13y ago

I work at Quora. A few things: 1) I agree the statement on this page is not accurate, emailing is certainly not as easy as other products. 2) We are committed to people who use, or have used, Quora. Our turnaround time for deleting accounts has improved greatly in the past year and should be within about 48 hours (excluding weekends, I mean, seriously.) 3) We've considered a one-click solution and may one day provide that. For now, we use the email solution because it avoids accidental deletion (I understand the skepticism here, but believe it or not, many people who have sent explicit delete requests in by email have later asked to have their account restored – we can't restore a deleted account, because, you know, deleted.) Offering a one click deletion from a settings page opens up a lot of confusion for people who assume that delete is some sort of soft "goodbye" with the chance to return later. Our soft delete is called "deactivation" which should de-index your content from Google, hide your name and halt all email and notifications from Quora to you. This is effective for a lot of people, but if you want your content straight up deleted, please email privacy@quora.com, and we will take care of it.

leokun 13y ago
Thank you, but just FYI, Quora sucks and you should find a new place to work. It's a shitty crowd sourced product that gives nothing back to the crowd. The deletion policy sucks. The inability to delete your own content (without deleting your account) sucks. The way Quora forces people to login to see content sucks. Forcing people to use real names sucks. The user interface, which at this point looks pretty dated, sucks. The product sucks. You can't get answers to questions which sucks. People with lots of followers get all the upvotes, which sucks. Emphasising the social login buttons at every turn and hiding the email login sucks. The community (never as impressive as people made it out to be because one time many years ago the former CEO of AOL answered something) sucks. The admonishment to be ready to dedicate your life (haha!) to Quora on the jobs page sucks big fucking time. By the way how's that working out for you? Worth it? Probably not. Getting a ton of VC money because Quora's founder had some friends at Facebook and then building a piece of shit? Also pretty sucky. Can you tell I don't like Quora? My only interaction with Quora has been through its product. I haven't had a Quora account in over a year and I still foam at the mouth at the thought of this site. There's a reason I wanted to delete my account. It's a sinister and manipulative product that connives value (user contributions) out of people and returns walls for the favor. I had quite a bit of content on Quora. I think I got overcharged like $40 by some scammy website in the last year and I am already over that, but I never got scammed for money from Quora but I still cringe at the site in a way that's entirely unique and singular. Quora sucks.