deletingUsers.md

How to delete users on Spectrum

Occassionally people request that their account gets deleted on Spectrum. We have a safe way to do this so that it respects the integrity of data across the rest of the database.

Do NOT ever .delete() a user record from the database!!

Follow these steps to safely delete a user from Spectrum:

1. Find the user in the database and write down their user id
2. Check to see if the user owns any communities. 2a. If the user owns communities, please try to convince them not to delete their account. 2b. If they really want to delete their account, reach out to @brian to handle this
3. When it's confirmed that they don't own any communities, clear all necessary fields from the user record, and add a deletedAt field - this will trigger Vulcan to remove the user from search indexes

r.db('spectrum')
.table('users')
.get(ID)
.update({
  username: null,
  email: null,
  deletedAt: new Date(),
  providerId: null,
  fbProviderId: null,
  googleProviderId: null,
})

4. Remove that user as a member from all communities and channels:

// usersCommunities
.table('usersCommunities')
.getAll(ID, { index: 'userId' })
.update({
  isMember: false,
  receiveNotifications: false
})

// usersChannels
.table('usersChannels')
.getAll(ID, { index: 'userId' })
.update({
  isMember: false,
  receiveNotifications: false,
})

5. Remove all notifications from threads to save worker processing:

// usersThreads
.table('usersThreads')
.getAll(ID, { index: 'userId' })
.update({
  receiveNotifications: false,
})

6. Done! The user now can't be messaged, searched for, or re-logged into. The deleted user no longer affects community or channel member counts, and will not ever get pulled into Athena for notifications processing.