Henry Castlereigh:
[…] Yet I go to their profile and find it deleted. Surely that's a bit problematic for peoples privacy, especially if they deleted their account for the express purpose of removing their presence in this community?
Profiles can be removed by site admins for rules violations without anyone deleting a whole account, which causes the effect you see. Technically the profiles still exist, but are removed from view for everyone other than the profile owner and site admins who moderate profiles. When the profile is removed a message is sent to the profile owner explaining the situation, the rule(s) violation, and recommended remediation.
Once the member changes the profile to be FF site rules-conforming and notifies an admin able to moderate profiles (usually the one who sent the notice unless that person is not available for some reason), the admin checks that the profile is indeed now within site rules, and reactivates it for all members to view.
This whole time, other user content such as pictures, videos, stories, etc. are in place and viewable, as long as they follow site rules.
When a member deletes their profile, all their content is deleted from the system, is my understanding. Anything less would not comply with current laws various places in the world.
Hope this helps!
