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Wow, this is a really big lapse of judgement on Quora's part. I'm contemplating if I should delete my account altogether. In any case, thank you for posting it

Wow, this is a really big lapse of judgement on Quora's part. I'm contemplating if I should delete my account altogether. In any case, thank you for posting it here - at least people can take the precautions. Edit: That yes/no button is not at all obvious! They need some form of green/red color coding.

vijayr 14y ago
You'll have to send an email to privacy@quora.com to delete your account. I did, and they deleted my account. I also told them politely that broadcasting what every user reads to the entire world is very creepy. It is a shame, as the quality of answers at quora is much higher than in other places.
- btipling 14y ago
  I emailed them a long time ago and they still haven't deleted my account.
- samstave 14y ago
  See my earlier posts about this. I deleted my account and asked for confirmation this was done, they stated it was - but all my info, comments, edits etc are all still there just simply no longer under my name!!
  - sdqali 14y ago
    I have had the same experience. I got a mail from them saying they deleted my account, but the questions I posted are still there.
    - vijayr 14y ago
      Just checked, you are right, my questions are still there. Their email said (exact words) you should find yourself completely removed from the site So in effect, our "info" is removed, but not our discussions/answers/questions? Sorry, I should've checked before posting my above comment. It didn't even occur to me, that they might simply "de-link" my name, but keep the data as is.
- nilium 14y ago
  I did this a little bit earlier, very politely asking them to delete my account and why I wasn't happy with the direction they went with the site. I haven't yet heard back from them yet, but it's probably a slow process. I don't like that they'd automatically opt me into displaying what I read. That ruins any sense of privacy I have to browse the site (ignoring the cynical and probably accurate view that I had no privacy there to start). Were I curious about something but didn't want it shared with the world, Quora is a dead end. I can opt out, but if this is their idea of the future, they may remove the option. In the meantime, I tried deleting most of my answers, though Quora doesn't really do so. Instead, changes are kept in a list of edits, which allows you to revert the change. I like that, it's handy, but I can't remove my edit history. My hope is that the changes are lost once the account is deleted, though I doubt they will. I also dislike that deleting my account, including all data associated with it, requires I e-mail them. It seems absurd to do all this work for your users and provide them no way to easily walk out if they're unhappy with site changes (as I am). If I own the content I publish on Quora, as they claim, then I should be able to completely delete it. At best, it's a way to prevent accidental account loss. At worst, it's a slimy method of ensuring the service holds onto user-provided data. Sadly, the only site to allow me to delete my account without sending an email thus far was Facebook[1] -- though I'm sure they've held onto a great deal of my junk nonetheless. At least they provided the option, I guess. [1]: I believe Google also allows this, though I haven't quite gotten to the point of deleting my Google account.
nmcfarl 14y ago
Yeah - I deactivated mine, less hassle than deleting, but still good enough to stop me from using the site.

vijayr 14y ago

You'll have to send an email to privacy@quora.com to delete your account. I did, and they deleted my account. I also told them politely that broadcasting what every user reads to the entire world is very creepy. It is a shame, as the quality of answers at quora is much higher than in other places.

btipling 14y ago
I emailed them a long time ago and they still haven't deleted my account.
samstave 14y ago
See my earlier posts about this. I deleted my account and asked for confirmation this was done, they stated it was - but all my info, comments, edits etc are all still there just simply no longer under my name!!
- sdqali 14y ago
  I have had the same experience. I got a mail from them saying they deleted my account, but the questions I posted are still there.
  - vijayr 14y ago
    Just checked, you are right, my questions are still there. Their email said (exact words) you should find yourself completely removed from the site So in effect, our "info" is removed, but not our discussions/answers/questions? Sorry, I should've checked before posting my above comment. It didn't even occur to me, that they might simply "de-link" my name, but keep the data as is.
nilium 14y ago
I did this a little bit earlier, very politely asking them to delete my account and why I wasn't happy with the direction they went with the site. I haven't yet heard back from them yet, but it's probably a slow process. I don't like that they'd automatically opt me into displaying what I read. That ruins any sense of privacy I have to browse the site (ignoring the cynical and probably accurate view that I had no privacy there to start). Were I curious about something but didn't want it shared with the world, Quora is a dead end. I can opt out, but if this is their idea of the future, they may remove the option. In the meantime, I tried deleting most of my answers, though Quora doesn't really do so. Instead, changes are kept in a list of edits, which allows you to revert the change. I like that, it's handy, but I can't remove my edit history. My hope is that the changes are lost once the account is deleted, though I doubt they will. I also dislike that deleting my account, including all data associated with it, requires I e-mail them. It seems absurd to do all this work for your users and provide them no way to easily walk out if they're unhappy with site changes (as I am). If I own the content I publish on Quora, as they claim, then I should be able to completely delete it. At best, it's a way to prevent accidental account loss. At worst, it's a slimy method of ensuring the service holds onto user-provided data. Sadly, the only site to allow me to delete my account without sending an email thus far was Facebook[1] -- though I'm sure they've held onto a great deal of my junk nonetheless. At least they provided the option, I guess. [1]: I believe Google also allows this, though I haven't quite gotten to the point of deleting my Google account.

nmcfarl 14y ago

Yeah - I deactivated mine, less hassle than deleting, but still good enough to stop me from using the site.