Re: Schema design: user account deletion vs. keeping family tree data

Bernice Southey <bernice.southey@gmail.com>

From: Bernice Southey <bernice.southey@gmail.com>
To: Christoph Pieper <christoph@fecra.de>
Cc: pgsql-general@lists.postgresql.org
Date: 2025-11-24T13:17:53Z
Lists: pgsql-general
Christoph Pieper <christoph@fecra.de> wrote:
> Question:
> From a PostgreSQL point of view (database best practices, data integrity, performance and long‑term maintainability at millions of rows), which approach would you prefer, or is there a better pattern for this kind of “account can be deleted, but genealogy should remain” use case?

I can tell you what I'm doing. It solved many design problems, but I
don't claim it's "best practice". I split my table in two.
    1 - columns that I can keep indefinitely
    2 - personal data
That way I just delete the personal data row when I want to remove it.

Thanks, Bernice