Deleting user account when user has published articles

Question

We've got a few dozens registered users on our website. They all have the right to publish, and edit articles in selected categories. Some of those users no longer need their access. So I can either block, or delete those ids. I'd prefer to delete them.

Question is about any drawback, or possible problem deleting a user might cause. Especially if that user is the author, or editor of published articles.

A quick test showed that Joomla! still displays such an article, but without showing the author. So it seems to be prepared for this case. But is there anything I didn't consider?

This is a Joomla! 4 site, if that matters at all.

Answer 1

All the records in the Joomla database that have created_by or modified_by fields will have the same issue when you delete users in Joomla's User Manager.

I don't think that removing users will break your Joomla 4 site. However, you might want to test:

• Joomla's Contacts (com_contact) if there are any contact pages for those users and if they still work.
• Joomla 4's new Workflow functionality. If you are using it, you'd better test if everything still works after removing a user.
• Any 3rd party extension that uses Joomla's userid in their tables.

To get rid of the annoying "missing user" message in the back-end in Joomla's article manager, you could run some SQL queries to change the created_by/modified_by to another userid. Some SQL queries (backup your database first!) are available here: https://talikka.com/?view=category&id=8

Furthermore you could use a commercial extension RO Users to fix those missing users in Joomla and some 3rd party extensions: https://extensions.joomla.org/extension/ro-users/