delete or keep old social software accounts?

April 1, 2005 9:41 AM

Just curious: if you stop using one of the social software sites, do you go in and delete your profile or just leave it there to rot?
posted by whatnot to computers & internet (9 comments total)

I delete. If you go, you go, no?
posted by keijo at 9:53 AM on April 1, 2005

logically, I'm in the delete camp, but I have a hard time actually doing it. either I forget about it, or I get sentimental and can't go through with it. weird.
posted by whatnot at 9:57 AM on April 1, 2005

I delete too, but sometimes they make it difficult to find those "close account" links.
posted by dublinemma at 10:04 AM on April 1, 2005

I deleted mine from Friendster and tribe.net did it for me when I left there. I haven't had the patience to delete my Orkut account because the site is so slow, but I went there and did it today. You know your site is in trouble if one of the top five questions of the day is "how can I delete my account?"
posted by jessamyn at 10:22 AM on April 1, 2005

I was just thinking the other day that I should delete my Friendster profile that I have totally ignored for over a year now.
posted by matildaben at 10:23 AM on April 1, 2005

I'll delete the account if I want to send the site a message, but typically I populate a profile with basic information and make it easy to find me "for real" - ie, at my own site. "Social-networking sites" as hubs of activity strike me as worse than useless; I'll only come back regularly if the site is interesting in itself. But I'll leave an old profile up as a sort of directory listing.
posted by caitlinb at 10:45 AM on April 1, 2005

Sometimes I disable accounts, instead of deleting them. This allows me to navigate the site without registering once again.
posted by AlexReynolds at 10:54 AM on April 1, 2005

Delete.

When your girlfriend is looking over your shoulder when you get a message from a hot brazilian who you don't even know you will wish you did.

I speak from experience.
posted by wezelboy at 1:38 PM on April 1, 2005

I'm very active on Tribe, and honestly, I just prefer people leave all of their tribes but leave their name. If I knew them once, then I'd like to recall (when looking at old posts) who said what.

But the truth is, it really doesn't matter. Usually, things move so fast on these sites that people are rarely reading old posts. And for myself, I don't like leaving loose ends "out there," so I'd probably delete my profile if I left. But honestly, I can't see leaving. I've made WAY too many friends to leave now!
posted by abbyladybug at 5:56 PM on April 2, 2005