[Mediawiki-l] Re: Never delete users !

[Sy Ali]

On 10/12/05, Rick DeNatale <rick.denatale at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/12/05, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Why would that be the case? Users are merely a row in a table in a
> > database, as far as the software is concerned, and databases are
> > designed to handle data...
>
> However, it's a relational database, and what's important is
> maintaining the relationships between the various tables.  The user_id
> (which is the key to the user table is used extensively in other
> tables. Removing users will destroy the integrity of the database.
>
> An analogy would be that ram chips just hold data, and computers are
> designed to handle data, so you should be able to rip out arbitrary
> ram chips...

Aah, now I understand.. so really one would have to remove all sorts
of entries in the history as well we removing associated users.. or
would have to take all references to various users to be deleted and
re-reference them to a placeholder user so that the various pages in
history (incorrectly) point to _somebody_.