4 ms·

You may be surprised that many (at a guess, maybe most?) companies/websites actually consider a delete function to be changing a 'deleted' flag to 1 in a databa

You may be surprised that many (at a guess, maybe most?) companies/websites actually consider a delete function to be changing a 'deleted' flag to 1 in a database. The data persists, but is no longer shown. I would also make a very big assumption that the only companies who wouldn't do this are those run by developers or other people who have had experience implementing that sort of system. There's nothing bosses love more than storing whatever data they can get their hands on, no matter how relevant it is, and how reluctant they are to actually delete it. Or secure it properly. Hell, it's just data, who gives a shit right?

jakejake 15y ago
unless I was dealing with a security based application where data needed to be wiped - I would never delete, but just flag as deleted. I don't see it as evil from a development perspective. Losing data is about the worst thing that can happen - all other errors can be fixed. I have many times ran into a situation where having that deleted data either saved us from losing a customer or was used to show that our app was not mysteriously "deleting" their data.
mattm 15y ago
This is how I usually implement delete. Deleting a record can have many cascading effects and there is no possibility for undoing it if it was an error. I think this is a pretty standard way of doing it.
- FuzzyDunlop 15y ago
  I agree with the fact a hard delete may have unintended effects, even in the best design, but in my ideal world I'd rather make allowances for that than simply offer my users the illusion I'm deleting their data. I think that may be a view shared between developers who care about ethical practices, where our personal ideals and how we think we should respect the user takes precedence over the data collection and profit motive. I think it's important to remember websites are dealing with actual people, who aren't a new commodity to be exploited for capital gain. Who aren't little mines full of precious data ready to extract at any cost. Of course, none of this really matters. Whether you delete something or not, it will be routinely stored, over and over again, on some backup server. It's there forever.
  - narcissus 15y ago
    I think it's a bit of a jump to imply that if I don't actually delete the data that I don't care about ethical practices nor my users. For me, at least, it all depends on what 'delete' means to the user. There are some people out there that want 'delete' to mean "I don't want this stored anywhere anymore". There are other users that want it to mean "I don't want to see this anymore". Unfortunately, people in both groups sometimes regret deleting stuff. Those in the first group accept the responsibility, however some people in the second group feel as though it's a problem with the system that they are using when they cannot restore the data easily. There are a lot of people that appreciate the "Recycle Bin" in Windows and never empty it. Now, I've written a number of systems over time and I've implemented 'delete' in most of them. Sometimes I do an actual delete, sometimes I set a flag. It all depends on what I expect my users to actually want. It's got nothing to do with trying to exploit them for capital gain though, that's for sure!
    - AppSec 15y ago
      I'd certainly like to think I'm an ethical developer, and I always implement the delete as a flag. I, however, do not implement an easy way to retrieve deleted data without going into the database or through an administrative interface with heavy auditing. It isn't just about data mining for customer data -- it's about data mining for site usage and user activity. Using metrics off of visited web pages or tracking that way can be too convoluted when the KISS method is: flag it on the data side and you can interpret flow.
- r00fus 15y ago
  This is one stage of deletes (mark for deletion). The 2nd equally important deletion metric is to purge the deleted records (expunge)... this may be a complicated process, stubbing out or redirecting pointers where need be. You can force local governments to expunge your data (it's not just off the records, it's forcibly erased). I think this weight of eternal data is both unnatural and unsustainable. All living things die. Things that don't have a natural cycle of creation and destruction are abominations and should rightfully be feared (see Corporation).
chc 15y ago
I think you're close, but missing something: The companies who wouldn't do this are run by developers or other people who don't interact much with the actual users. Irreversible actions are horrible UX, and any irreversible action in a commonly used area of the app will make a large number of people steaming mad on a daily basis — guaranteed. People who will blithely click "Delete" — and then click "Yes" even though they don't mean it on the confirmation dialog that comes up — vastly outnumber people who care that an invisible copy of their content might be buried in some Facebook database somewhere. Next to the unintentional deleters, the second group looks like a rounding error. And that's not even counting people who get their accounts hijacked. So I would say people who know users are more likely to go with the delete flag, since that leaves you an avenue to help the user who emails support with "I got really drunk last night at the wake and thought it might be funny to delete everything on my Facebook and now all my photos of my dead Nanna are gone."
- pestaa 15y ago
  I highly doubt Facebook went with the delete flag because of the customer service perspective.
  - sirclueless 15y ago
    I think that it is probably one of the major reasons, though certainly not the only one. In my experience, one of the most common customer service complaints/requests is "Oh no, I did this irreversible thing you warned me not to, fix it." I imagine facebook also gets its fair share of complaints like "Oh no, my ex-boyfriend deleted my account, fix it." This stuff is really common, and I can understand why a company would rather be able to say "Oh yeah, sure" than "Sorry, for privacy reasons your online life for the past two years has been lost irretrievably."
    - pyre 15y ago
      I'd venture that a major reason has less to do with customer UI and law enforcement and more to do with data mining.
zipdog 15y ago
This is almost certainly not true for a lot of medical data (in Canada and Australia at least, don't know about the US). There was a rather interesting example in Queensland ~two years ago when govt. health sector payroll data (from an outgoing system) was deleted due to privacy concerns, and then the replacement system mis-functioned (never really worked) and the entire state's health payroll information was lost. $200 million and counting to fix the lost data.

jakejake 15y ago

unless I was dealing with a security based application where data needed to be wiped - I would never delete, but just flag as deleted. I don't see it as evil from a development perspective. Losing data is about the worst thing that can happen - all other errors can be fixed. I have many times ran into a situation where having that deleted data either saved us from losing a customer or was used to show that our app was not mysteriously "deleting" their data.

mattm 15y ago

This is how I usually implement delete. Deleting a record can have many cascading effects and there is no possibility for undoing it if it was an error. I think this is a pretty standard way of doing it.

FuzzyDunlop 15y ago
I agree with the fact a hard delete may have unintended effects, even in the best design, but in my ideal world I'd rather make allowances for that than simply offer my users the illusion I'm deleting their data. I think that may be a view shared between developers who care about ethical practices, where our personal ideals and how we think we should respect the user takes precedence over the data collection and profit motive. I think it's important to remember websites are dealing with actual people, who aren't a new commodity to be exploited for capital gain. Who aren't little mines full of precious data ready to extract at any cost. Of course, none of this really matters. Whether you delete something or not, it will be routinely stored, over and over again, on some backup server. It's there forever.
- narcissus 15y ago
  I think it's a bit of a jump to imply that if I don't actually delete the data that I don't care about ethical practices nor my users. For me, at least, it all depends on what 'delete' means to the user. There are some people out there that want 'delete' to mean "I don't want this stored anywhere anymore". There are other users that want it to mean "I don't want to see this anymore". Unfortunately, people in both groups sometimes regret deleting stuff. Those in the first group accept the responsibility, however some people in the second group feel as though it's a problem with the system that they are using when they cannot restore the data easily. There are a lot of people that appreciate the "Recycle Bin" in Windows and never empty it. Now, I've written a number of systems over time and I've implemented 'delete' in most of them. Sometimes I do an actual delete, sometimes I set a flag. It all depends on what I expect my users to actually want. It's got nothing to do with trying to exploit them for capital gain though, that's for sure!
  - AppSec 15y ago
    I'd certainly like to think I'm an ethical developer, and I always implement the delete as a flag. I, however, do not implement an easy way to retrieve deleted data without going into the database or through an administrative interface with heavy auditing. It isn't just about data mining for customer data -- it's about data mining for site usage and user activity. Using metrics off of visited web pages or tracking that way can be too convoluted when the KISS method is: flag it on the data side and you can interpret flow.
r00fus 15y ago
This is one stage of deletes (mark for deletion). The 2nd equally important deletion metric is to purge the deleted records (expunge)... this may be a complicated process, stubbing out or redirecting pointers where need be. You can force local governments to expunge your data (it's not just off the records, it's forcibly erased). I think this weight of eternal data is both unnatural and unsustainable. All living things die. Things that don't have a natural cycle of creation and destruction are abominations and should rightfully be feared (see Corporation).

chc 15y ago

I think you're close, but missing something: The companies who wouldn't do this are run by developers or other people who don't interact much with the actual users. Irreversible actions are horrible UX, and any irreversible action in a commonly used area of the app will make a large number of people steaming mad on a daily basis — guaranteed. People who will blithely click "Delete" — and then click "Yes" even though they don't mean it on the confirmation dialog that comes up — vastly outnumber people who care that an invisible copy of their content might be buried in some Facebook database somewhere. Next to the unintentional deleters, the second group looks like a rounding error. And that's not even counting people who get their accounts hijacked. So I would say people who know users are more likely to go with the delete flag, since that leaves you an avenue to help the user who emails support with "I got really drunk last night at the wake and thought it might be funny to delete everything on my Facebook and now all my photos of my dead Nanna are gone."

pestaa 15y ago
I highly doubt Facebook went with the delete flag because of the customer service perspective.
- sirclueless 15y ago
  I think that it is probably one of the major reasons, though certainly not the only one. In my experience, one of the most common customer service complaints/requests is "Oh no, I did this irreversible thing you warned me not to, fix it." I imagine facebook also gets its fair share of complaints like "Oh no, my ex-boyfriend deleted my account, fix it." This stuff is really common, and I can understand why a company would rather be able to say "Oh yeah, sure" than "Sorry, for privacy reasons your online life for the past two years has been lost irretrievably."
  - pyre 15y ago
    I'd venture that a major reason has less to do with customer UI and law enforcement and more to do with data mining.

zipdog 15y ago

This is almost certainly not true for a lot of medical data (in Canada and Australia at least, don't know about the US). There was a rather interesting example in Queensland ~two years ago when govt. health sector payroll data (from an outgoing system) was deleted due to privacy concerns, and then the replacement system mis-functioned (never really worked) and the entire state's health payroll information was lost. $200 million and counting to fix the lost data.