[(JD)]

I've noticed in the PM index that members who have left are listed as "deleted member" but when I pull the PM up, the name comes up as "*DONOTDELETE*.... any idea why this tag? Could there be a letter or number to designate a difference of members for the record?

[Zorah]

And if we may add another question to that,

is it fair to have it look like PMs to banned members are going through ? there is mo message to say they are banned & can no longer receive PMs.

this can cause hurt, where no hurt was intended

[Perna]

Sky, what PM index? Friends in one's address book? It sounds like something technical; a place holder perhaps? If you're member 42 and member 41 leaves, you might crash down and act like 41 and confuse the system somehow That or some sense of who 41 was so if they come back part of them can be retrieved and identified for security or duplicate-checking purposes?

Zorah, how do you know someone is banned? I think they are still members (or they'd be deleted), merely suspended, but if they can't log onto the site for awhile, that is separate from the PM box, which you can still send PM's too and which they'll receive when they can log back on. I don't think I'd want people knowing if I've been banned or suspended because of my behavior, that's kind of personal between me and Admin and not something I'd want to share with everyone necessarily?

[DocJohn]

Once a member is deleted, the system resets everything that member has ever written to a generic anonymous user. There is a glitch that makes this show as something else in PMs, as noted.

We make no public record of banned or suspended members because I believe it violates their privacy rights. Nobody is ever banned or suspended without plenty of advanced warnings and attempts to try and bring that members' behavior inline with the guidelines, however, so such members should notify friends of such a possibility long before it happens.

DocJohn