Wikipedia:Courtesy vanishing
 | This page documents an English Wikipedia behavioral guideline. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Courtesy vanishing means any user in good standing—upon leaving Wikipedia forever—may request renaming of their account; deletion or blanking of user pages, and possibly the deletion or blanking of discussions related to their conduct. This courtesy vanishing does not include the deletion of user contributions, and normally does not include the deletion of user talk pages. |
The usual way to leave Wikipedia is simply to stop editing and abandon your account. A courtesy vanishing may be implemented when a user in good standing decides not to return and for whatever reason wishes to make their contributions harder to find or to remove their association with their edits. When there is no administrative need to retain the information, a permanently departing user may request that a wide range of user pages, and other pages that affect them alone, be deleted on departure. The user account is renamed; user pages are blanked or deleted, and pages related to the user's conduct may be deleted, blanked, or moved. Contributions, logs, signatures, and user-page templates (for example, templates related to blocks or bans) are usually not removed. User talk pages are usually not deleted.
Courtesy vanishing is discretionary and may be refused. It is not intended to be temporary, nor is it a way to avoid scrutiny or avoid sanctions. The act of "vanishing" is different from a fresh start and does not guarantee anonymity. Any pages deleted as a result of vanishing may be undeleted after a community discussion. If the user returns, the "vanishing" will likely be fully reversed, the old and new accounts will be linked, and any outstanding sanctions or restrictions will be resumed.
Due to the fact that all contributions are licensed under the CC BY-SA 4.0 License and the GFDL all edits must be attributed to a user. Because of this, it is not possible to delete an account.
Vanishing from Wikipedia
Vanishing typically involves the following:
- A global renamer or steward responds to a vanishing request and renames the account to a randomly-generated string of characters like "Vanished user 157yagz5r48a5f1a1f".
- As part of this process, the account is automatically globally locked, meaning that it can no longer be logged in to.
- References in the history of pages to the former username are automatically replaced with references to the replacement username. Note that references made by other users will not be changed. Additionally, signatures (on user talk pages, article talk pages and project discussion pages) will not be changed, and will, by default, be redirected to the new user name. You can ask for this redirect to be removed.
- The account's user page and subpages may be deleted. User talk pages are rarely deleted, and may be undeleted by community consensus.
- This action will be global due to account unification.
What vanishing is not
- Vanishing is not a way to start over with a fresh account. When you request a courtesy vanishing, it is understood that you will not be returning. If you want to start over, please follow the directions at Clean start instead of (not in addition to) this page. If you make a request to vanish, and then start over with a new account, and are then discovered, the vanishing procedure may be reversed, and your old and new accounts may be linked.
- Vanishing is not a way to avoid criticism, sanctions, or other negative attention, unless you really mean to leave permanently. As such, it might not be extended to users who have been disruptive, who leave when they lose the trust of the community, or when they are blocked or banned.
- It is not a way for accounts affiliated with organizations or interests opposed to the Wikipedia community to erase documentation that they edited Wikipedia. This could happen when an account associated with a business, for example, is criticized on their user talk page for the way they edited Wikipedia.
- Vanishing is not the best way to remove personal information that you may have accidentally revealed about yourself, especially if you want to continue editing. See the page on Oversight instead.
- If you want to change your username, users in good standing are free to request a change of username at any time. All contributions made under the old username will be re-attributed to the new username, including deleted contributions, preserving the edit history.[a]
How to request a courtesy vanishing
First, consider whether you really want to vanish, or whether a simple retirement or clean start might be more appropriate. Vanishing is a last resort and should only be used when you wish to stop editing forever and also to hide as many of your past associations as possible.
If you decide to vanish, you may wish to blank or delete your user page and any subpages in your userspace. To request deletion of any existing pages, add the {{db-user}} tag to the top of each page, and an admin will delete the page for you. Do not create a page just to request its deletion. Or you can replace your userpage with the {{Retired}} template. Note that your user talk pages will normally not be deleted except in rare cases (see below).
If you wish to take advantage of courtesy vanishing, you can use one of the following methods to make your request:
- The best way is to visit Special:GlobalVanishRequest to access the vanish request interface. Requests made this way will be processed by global renamers or stewards.
- If your request is particularly sensitive, you may contact the global renamers via e-mail and ask that your account be renamed, giving "request for courtesy vanishing" as the subject. Please use the contact interface at meta:Special:EmailUser/Wikimedia Global-renamers or email renamers
wikimedia.org. If you send the mail directly, please include some kind of proof that the account is indeed yours. Please be aware a record is kept in the VRT system that can be seen by anyone with access to the renamers email queue. This is restricted to current renamers, stewards and Wikimedia Foundation staff.
There is a public request page for name change requests, but this is not recommended because it will leave a public record of your request to vanish that cannot itself be hidden.
If you have questions about vanishing, or have concerns that might be addressable by a less permanent method, you may want to contact a Functionary or a member of the Arbitration Committee for advice.
Finally, consider the following:
- If you have an email address associated with your account, remove it at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-personal-email.
- Review the remaining data associated with your account, and restore the default preferences (Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-personal).
- Scramble your password. Please choose something long and random, to prevent someone else taking over the account.
Deletion of user talk pages
While user pages and subpages may be deleted, the deletion of established users' talk pages is invariably controversial, and is the rare exception, not the rule. This is because user talk pages, unlike other user pages, have largely been written by other editors. User talk pages should not be speedy deleted by admins. Users who wish to delete user talk pages should consult a Functionary or the Arbitration Committee. Community consensus is that user talk pages should be deleted only where there is a compelling reason to do so—related to serious privacy concerns and the potential for real-world harm. Otherwise, user talk pages should be deleted only at MfD. Any deletion can be challenged and overturned at deletion review. User talk pages should never be moved to become user subpages to facilitate deletion.