[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #43442: Add tools for anonymizing of commenters

[WordPress Trac]

#43442: Add tools for anonymizing of commenters
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 Reporter:  azaozz                        |       Owner:
     Type:  enhancement                   |      Status:  new
 Priority:  normal                        |   Milestone:  5.0
Component:  General                       |     Version:
 Severity:  normal                        |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  gdpr has-patch needs-testing  |     Focuses:
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Comment (by allendav):

 Replying to [comment:10 azaozz]:
 > Also wondering if we should support deleting the comment text here. This
 may be required in some cases.
 >
 > Thinking we should still keep the comment row in the db when the comment
 has "child comments". Can replace the text with something like:
 > {{{
 > This content was deleted by the author.
 > }}}
 >
 > That would mean running a lot more complex db queries. I'll run couple
 of tests to see which would be faster.

 I see your point - we can't know if a given comment has personal data or
 not - i.e. it would be difficult to detect things like "I've lived on such
 and such street for the last 20 years, and this was the best parade yet!"

 So... the _expectation_ that comment text _could_ be erased (and replaced
 with a placeholder, not unlike what you've suggested) is probably there,
 if not a legal requirement.

 So... maybe this should be a checkbox on the erasure UX - checked by
 default - to erase the comment text as well. What do you think?

 (The reason for checking this by default is, 1) like i said, the
 expectation is probably there in general that comment text will be erased
 when you erase me from your site and 2) once personal data is erased from
 comments, finding a user's comments to then erase their comments' content
 could be impossible

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/43442#comment:11>
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