Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of users whose data is deleted after six months of inactivity. I understand that no one reads the instructions or the fine print in the agreement, but it seems impossible to discuss this here, as it would offend the user’s delicate spiritual nature (according to the administrator, and the authors themselves don’t mention it).
But if the data is deleted, is it possible to at least create a current copy as of the deletion date?
I propose making storing this copy cost-effective, meaning simply charging a fee if the user wants to restore it within the next six months. And then delete it.
Let the site owners determine the cost; why should the administrator be involved in such matters?
I assume the user would prefer to get at least something, even for a small fee, than to lose years of work.
Speak up.
It’s totally fine to discuss this here. What’s not fine is poking at a user or at their choices, while they are in the midst of dealing with the pain of having lost their data. The minimum standard of behavior here requires more kindness than that.
That’s no different from simply not deleting the data at all.
Holding a user’s data for ransom seems much more callous than our current policy. I can’t imagine anyone would be happier knowing their collection still exists, but that we won’t let them have it unless they pay up. The world in inequitable enough without us adding to it.
Regardless of what you’ve seen recently – this simply isn’t a widespread problem. Most users easily recover their data once they know where to look. And it’s pretty difficult for a user to even get to the point where this is a concern. They would have to–
Stop using Anki, or at least stop syncing, on all platforms where they’ve used Anki.
Delete their collection from every device where they’ve used Anki – or fail to maintain their device, or a backup of their collection.
Disregard the email they get from AnkiWeb for an entire month – or fail to update their account to an email address where they can receive mail, so we can’t notify them at all.
If someone doesn’t preserve their own copy of their data, decides to rely only on the server-stored copy, and then doesn’t do anything to make sure that copy is preserved – one might question why AnkiWeb should value their data more highly than they themselves do.
That’s no different from simply not deleting the data at all.
Usually, there are archive servers, which have a different load and data retrieval speed. If this isn’t the case with you, then of course it’s no different from leaving it as is, simply blocking the account and offering to unblock it for money.
But you can’t do that; it’s not humane for you. It’s more humane for you to delete everything and tell the user they won’t get anything back, even for money.
The world in inequitable enough without us adding to it.
Yes, yes, read above how you proceed.
one might question why AnkiWeb should value their data more highly than they themselves do.
I completely agree with you here, but that doesn’t solve the problem of forgetful users. Maybe we could force them to display a window at the Anki level asking them to back up their data to the cloud if they haven’t synced for more than a month? Even if they declined to back up every month, they wouldn’t be asked to restore their data.
I’d like to hear from users here, but from the statistics, I see that people don’t even visit the forum or read the add-on descriptions. They only find out about the forum when they have problems
