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PHP

Anonymize the Comments of Deleted Users

When a user account is deleted, keeps their comments but replaces the name with "Former member" and removes the email address, website and IP address stored with them.

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Code

// Name shown on comments of deleted accounts.
$wpide_former_name = 'Former member';

add_action( 'delete_user', function ( $user_id ) use ( $wpide_former_name ) {
    global $wpdb;

    $ids = $wpdb->get_col( $wpdb->prepare( "SELECT comment_ID FROM {$wpdb->comments} WHERE user_id = %d", $user_id ) );

    if ( ! $ids ) {
        return;
    }

    $wpdb->query( $wpdb->prepare(
        "UPDATE {$wpdb->comments} SET user_id = 0, comment_author = %s, comment_author_email = '', comment_author_url = '', comment_author_IP = '', comment_agent = '' WHERE user_id = %d",
        $wpide_former_name,
        $user_id
    ) );

    foreach ( $ids as $id ) {
        clean_comment_cache( (int) $id );
    }
} );

Notes

WordPress normally keeps the commenter details of deleted accounts; change $wpide_former_name to your wording.

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