How long to keep conversations and posts
Choosing retention periods you can explain: honest to the user and workable when a dispute arrives.
“Kept until you delete it” is convenient for the service and poor for the user: it means forever. A good period can be stated as a number and explained.
What to base it on
Why the data exists. Conversations — so you can read them. The moderation log — so a disputed ban can be reviewed. When the purpose ends, so does the period.
How long questions keep coming. A dispute about a ban arrives within a week, sometimes a month. Almost never after a year. Hence a year for the log and half a year for content.
What the law requires. Some records must be kept longer than you would like — transaction data, for instance.
A sensible set
- Conversations and posts — 180 days.
- Moderation log and support tickets — one year.
- Drafts and temporary uploads — 24 hours if unused.
- Backups — up to 60 days.
These are not the only correct numbers, but they can be explained in words instead of a reference to “internal policies”.
Soft deletion
When someone deletes a message it should disappear from the interface at once and be erased for good at the general deadline. That protects against accidental deletion without making “deleted” a fiction.
Our periods and the account deletion procedure are on the data and security page.