Wikipedia talk:Delete unused username after 90 days

Application of the Proposal

I have contacted the original creator of this idea, Máté Soós, with this message:

Since I originally created the straw poll at WP:DUU90 and posted it on the Community Portal, the project has had an amazing wave of success. Recently that began to decline again, so I reposted the project on the Community Portal. Now the proposal stands at 222 Support, 6 Conditional Supports (two of which have had the conditions satisifed, so it's safe to assume they count as Supports), and only 17 Oppose (some of which have been proved to be wrong, so that might decrease as well). In other words, the idea has been an overwhelming success, and I would like to propose to you that you make this known to the Administrators, the Sysops and even the Board of Directors and Jimmy Wales himself. This revolution of thinking has come a long way since the first edition and we have you to thank for the little spark of thought which started it. I suggest that we make this known to the Admins, Leaders and Sysops and finally get something done about WP:DUU90. Thank you. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ

Hopefully this will shortly lead to activation of the policy and a cleanup for us all. Well done to all 234 Wikipedians who voted, and others who contributed! Give yourselves a pat on the back for your hard voting and thought-refining. Now all have a sit down and a nice cup of tea. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 19:09, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Discussion and Modifications

Slight change

I fully support this proposal, but with one modification - 6 months, not three. For the reason of counterarguments already given, (prison, grounding by parents) 90 days is too short. If it was increased to 6 months, I would back this proposal with everything I've got. —Vanderdecken∴∫ξφ 15:25, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I support this proposal as modified by Vanderdecken. If someone creates an account and doesn't use it at all for 6 months they're probably not going to. Doppelganger protection accounts don't have to not make any edits, just have them make a minor one or something and that problem with the proposal's gone. --Niroht 12:23, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Is this technical possible? I have read before on Wikitech-l that user accounts can not be deleted because of technical reasons. --Walter 13:22, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

It's true that accounts which have made an edit outside of their own userspace can't be removed without causing database errors. But that's not what we're discussing :) GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 13:51, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

A good idea, though not urgent. The counting of users could be done simply by counting users with edits. Such a SQL query is less efficient, but we don't count users all that often. I have a hard time seeing why a non-editing account would have a watchlist. If this is to be done automatically, a no-watchlist rule could be added to server side code. If it is to be done manually, I think only a very few, if any, users can see watchlists. GRBerry 14:16, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I strongly support the proposal. Many user names are unavailable only because someone used it to make one edit a couple of years ago. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 18:54, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Note that such aacounts wouldn't actually be covered by this proposal. This is only for accounts that have made no edits outside of their own user space. Both the terms of the GFDL and technical requirements of the database mean that any account that's made an actual contribution to the encyclopedia can't be deleted. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 19:09, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Yup. I fully support this proposal. If even visiting the page logged in once in three months keeps the account alive, then that's clearly reasonable. --HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 19:12, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Question so if I go on vacation for 6 months will my username be deleted? Or is it only usernames that have been created and not logged into for 90 days? If it's the second one then that seems pretty obvious and straightforward and I'd fully support it.--Andeh 19:14, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

You have to realize that this proposal is for usernames with no edits to be deleted after 90 days of inactivity. Besides, those with email would be notified after 60 days anyway.--digital_me^{(TalkˑContribs)} 22:55, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I support the proposal as it appears to be the second of the two ideas Andeh is thinking of. People have to remember that accounts can be recreated. If someone has an unexpected year-long tour in Iraq, for instance, they can return and create a new one. Is that really a big deal? joturner 21:08, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

They can recreate it, and odds are it isn't a big deal because they have never even edited here. Chris M. 22:46, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Clarification

Okay, I think there's some confusion as to the wording of this policy. I've clarified it. There are two requirements: 0 edits and 90 days of not logging in (that does not mean 90 days of not editing). So, any account with one or more edits is safe. Any account that has logged in in the past 90 days (either to edit, or to use a watchlist, or to customize based on skins, date/time preferences, etc.) is safe, so long as they log in at least once every 90 days. TheProject 23:00, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be a good idea to rename this proposal to "Delete unused zero-edit usernames" or something similar to avoid the common misinterpretation. --Zoz (t) 14:42, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

A question and a thought

Just to clarify: this is for accounts with 90 straight days not logging and 0 edits ever, correct? Also, I think we should make sure we don't apply this ex post facto. If we approved this policy today, we shouldn't delete accounts that have had no action since their creation three months ago; it should only apply to accounts that were created after the policy is approved. Also, we should mention this policy when you create an account. zafiroblue05 | Talk 23:53, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

0 edits ever is correct. But I don't see why we shouldn't apply this ex post facto. From what I'm reading, the whole point of this rule is to get rid of all latent accounts that have accumulated over the last few years. TheProject 01:41, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

0 edits and no logins for 90 days - I see no reason why this should be a problem? 99.99% of these accounts are obviously inactive and even if someone out there logs in infrequently but never edits anything it's hardly a big problem to register a new account. I don't foresee any problems of any kind. Gardar Rurak 00:14, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

All inactive accounts, even ones created before this policy, should be given a warning and the 90 day wait period. Other than that I see no good reason to not apply this retroactively. But I agree that a disclaimer of this policy be provided to new users.Trfs 03:05, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Can we really ay this only applies to no edits ever? Or does it mean no current contributions? To clarify if a editor only edited on a page that was later deleted they curently show no contributions, but have actually edited and will remeber doing so.--Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 19:19, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Full support

I don't see any reason not to go through with this AND apply it ex post facto. The accounts being deleted are just spam that is taking up space, and nobody will care. However, put a warning that if people don't want doppleganger accounts to be deleted, they should edit with them. The issue of spurious single edits can be solved if the guideline isn't posted, just enforced (silent deletion after 90 days of no use)--Zxcvbnm 04:33, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Preferences and watchlists

I like the idea of removing accounts that have never been used. However, some users may have spent some time setting up a viewing account where they customise their preferences and watchlist. This proposal would remove their accounts after 90 days of not logging on whilst somebody who did nothing with their preferences, nothing with their watchlist and just one minor edit would get to keep it for ever. Could we extend the definition of unused to include unused preferences and nothing in their watchlist. --MarkS (talk) 20:01, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Selective criterion for the "validating" edit

I propose that the one edit be either a mainspace or Wikipedia or talk edit. Some users just messes around with their user page and does nothing with it. -- Миборовский 21:54, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I would object to this. I have a second account (MarkS2) which I use for viewing pages via a netgem box on my TV. It has a heavily customised monobook.css to simplify the interface and make it workable. The account has never been used for editing articles or talk pages. I wouldn't want to loose this account and would just end up performing a (pointless) edit in the mainspace just to get an edit. --MarkS (talk) 14:53, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know, but how many people do you think are in the same situation as yourself? If the number isn't high we can have a list of accounts exempt from this. -- Миборовский 22:02, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

That, and you need to log in to use your monobook.css anyways, so if you log into the account frequently, there's no reason why it should be deleted. TheProject 02:29, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

No such thing as a pointless edit. Log in, fix a typo or a disambig link or what not, log out. The edit can be a useful one. bd2412 T 17:24, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Also no account that has mae an edit to anywhere on Wikipedia can be deleted as it will be a violation of GFDL as there wouold be a least one unatributed edit, also it would break MediaWiki for this very reason. LC@RSDATA 18:12, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

No, I don't think it would "break MediaWiki". If I remember correctly, if someone contributes, then their account is deleted, someone else can register an account with the same username and a new password and take ownership of that edit. This is obviously a violation of GFDL. --Lord Deskana (talk) 18:35, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Deleted edits?

Dunno if it was talked before, but how about deleted edits? I know a couple accounts that show zero edits only because their articles got deleted. Would they fall into "0 edits" category? Renata 14:12, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that accounts with deleted edits should be deleted. Wouldn't the deleted edits then be attributed to any future users of that account name? ~MDD4696 15:53, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I am just pointing out that this should also be taken into account. Renata 10:24, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Also, deleted edits may be purged (see deletion review) and thus, unaccessible and disappear from wikipedia database. SYSS Mouse 23:39, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

To resurrect this moribund thread, does anyone know how many of those no-edit accounts appear to have no edits solely because they were created to make spam articles which have been deleted? I don't think this is actually a problem unless some future user gets associated with the deleted content. Assuming it links by userid this should not happen (and also assuming that, a programming change would allow the software to say "account deleted" for these). Or maybe it's just the username which will be freed up, keeping the user in place as a numerical userid. Just zis Guy you know? 19:26, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Question?

I support the idea very much, but what about doppelganger accounts? Those will never make edits, but they are important to keep. Thetruthbelow 19:17, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, these need to make one pro forma edit now. Sandstein 20:45, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

They get blocked if confirmed.--Andeh 08:51, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I fail to see the problem of a doppleganger account (from which no edits are supposed to be made) getting blocked. bd2412 T 17:43, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Also usually the user page of such accounts are redirected by there authors to the correct user page which requires an edit. Thus insuring that account will not be deleted. LC@RSDATA 10:29, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I believe you are incorrect. The current guideline says to put the doppelganger template on the user page, and to add the template using a real account. The doppelganger account should have no edits.SoberEmu 18:12, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

One edit?

Usernames with at least one edit will be kept for all of eternity (unless the developers say otherwise).

Are people actually voting on that policy, or should this more correctly be titled "Usernames with at least one edit are not affected by this policy"? I'm not taking a position either way, just wondering whether that part might be put to a vote someday and whether there's a "severability" in legal terms between that and the zero-edits policy that most people are probably consciously voting on. --Dhartung | Talk 22:04, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

From what I read above, the database experiences errors when user names with edits are deleted, so as it stands it is not possible to vote on that part. MrDre 04:27, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Privacy policy

BTW, I hope you are aware that if this passes, Wikimedia Foundation privacy policy (which is linked to from every WP page) will have to be changed. --Renata 10:24, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

It seems the privacy policy is stating that "if you want us to remove your user account, there's no guarantee that we'll do it", rather than "we promise not to remove your account", although this could really use clarification. TheProject 02:28, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, under ===Removal of user accounts=== it veeery clearly says "Once created, user accounts will not be removed." So first, you'll have to amend this. Renata 10:09, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

The people at the Wikimedia Foundation could just add ", with the exception of the English Wikipedia which deletes accounts with zero edits and those which have not logged in for 90 days." Also a notice would have to be put on wikipedia stating it has been altered. LC@RSDATA 13:40, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

To avoid to delete unfairly

To avoid to delete unfairly some accounts at the beginning of this meassure, (which I support) we should set a testing period of 3-6 months and not 90 days, in which all users that are able to be informed will be informed(via email or automatized posts in the users talk pages). After this "testing" period the deleting may begin imetiatelly and the time period will be normally set in 90 days --Noumenorian 15:55, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Are the background figures - 70% unused - accurate?

It sounds strange to think that the majority accounts of are created without doing at least one edit. Why do people go to the bother of creating an account if they do not want to make an edit? Vanity/name reserving doesn't sound plausible for 70% of users, there must be some other reason. In my case, I did some edits before I even created my account and that sounds a more likely behaviour. Does anyone have comparison figures for other sites where an account can be created? Can someone else query the database to confirm the figures quoted by whoever initiated this--Rye1967 22:56, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

• Going by [1] it is not accurate. In fact it looks like even more accounts have not made an edit. Out of the 1,644,614 [2] current users only 233,158 have made an article edit (about 15%). Conversely that means 85% of the users have yet to make an edit.
  • It's not all that strange to have so many usernames that have never been used. For example, on several forums I frequent, there are thousands of members, but over half of them have never posted. --^hello,gadren 04:22, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, ok then. I guess "theres nowt as queer as folk", to quote a Northern England expression (meaning: people do the strangest things - and the source of the double-entendre title for the TV show .--Rye1967 23:09, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Possible inactive status?

Could these accounts be flagged as "inactive" after 90 days, with some warning given to the user who has that name if they show up, and then deleted after a year if they're not accessed at all? htom OtterSmith 23:51, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Technical question

Just one technical question, since I don't know -- is the logged-in status affected by the "remember me" cookie? I haven't actually "logged in", as in clicking a Log In button, in many months. (Not that this would affect me anyway; just curious.) — Catherine\^talk 20:25, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Someone that actually knows the technical answer should answer this question, but since they haven't yet, I will. As an (confident) educated guess: yes, login via the "remember me" cookie is the same as a login done manually. Just to carry the posed question further, this also applies to logins done via a "remembered" or auto-completed login your web browser might do for you. --Charles Gaudette 06:04, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Warning by e-mail

I would suggest sending a warning by e-mail 14 or 30 days in advance of deletion, even if the e-mail address is not confirmed. NeonMerlin 02:51, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, some users have no email entered. If we delete an account with No edits, how is recreating the account and editng is not unreasonable. The Gerg 00:21, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Straw poll

Support the proposed policy

With or without modification, comment as necessary.

1. Support, since it was my idea in the first place (see history ;) ). I hope it all works out Msoos 12:44, 18 June 2006 (UTC) /PS: Huge thanks go to Vanderdecken for bringing the topic to light/

   No problem! Glad to help. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ

2. For the record, I also support this proposal. Sandstein 06:14, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

   This statement was not originally made as a part of this poll but was moved here by someone else; I let it stand nonetheless. Retroactive enforcement supported too, of course. Sandstein 21:19, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

   I moved it when I created the voting sections, three pages back on the history. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 10:30, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

3. Support here too, including retroactive enforcement. -- (James McNally)  (talkpage)  14:22, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
4. Support here too, including retroactive enforcement. Chris M. 15:46, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
5. Support this impromptu poll. TheProject 16:20, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
6. Support completely. --NorkNork ^Questions? _fnord? 16:28, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
7. Enormous amounts of Strong Support, and support applying the policy ex post facto. Not applying it ex post facto would just be stupid, and defeat the point of the policy. Also, support the policy being mentioned on the account creation page. —Vanderdecken∴∫ξφ 17:13, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
8. Support, particularly if applied retroactively. Bastin 17:56, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
9. Beat the Nominator Support Just a single edit needs to be made to keep an account alive. joturner 18:38, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
10. Support, though I might increase it to 120 days, but I don't really have any rationale for that. It's fine as it stands. -- Mithent 19:31, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
11. Absolutely. I'm shocked that there are nearly a million useless accounts laying idle out there (including my first choice of username!). Coffee 19:32, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
12. Strong support. It just seems like the sensible thing to do. → J@red  20:08, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
13. Support, sensible idea.-gadfium 20:17, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
14. Yes yes yes! But with modification: The edit must be a mainspace or Wikipedia or talk edit. -- Миборовский 21:53, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Per GFDL, it has to cover any space, including user/user talk. Ral315 (talk) 04:04, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
      • What do you mean, per GDFL? Which clause? -- Миборовский 22:03, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
        • What is meant by this is that if we delete an account which has edits but exclusively to a non-mainspace or Wikipedia/talk edit, then there is at least one edit on Wikipedia for which there is no attribution, which violates the GFDL. TheProject 01:55, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
          • Agreed - any edit made in any space must be attributed - the contributor (and Wikipedia) agree to this whenever the save button is clicked. Hmmm... possible glitch there, tho - what if I created an article, and the article was deleted as nonsense or the like (leaving me with zero edits), and my account was subsequently deleted, but then the article was restored? Can we account for users who have had all their edits deleted? bd2412 T 17:34, 22 June 2006 (UTC) (addressed by Vanderdecken below... and above bd2412 T 13:16, 28 June 2006 (UTC))
15. Support Dbalsdon 22:20, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
16. Support applying ex post facto, but must be mainspace or talk--Zxcvbnm 23:12, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
17. Support without reservation. Mostlyharmless 23:59, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
18. Support - Like, I'm so totally supportive, man Gardar Rurak 00:16, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
19. Support - Support. --edgester 00:24, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
20. Strong Support -including retroactively. --Niroht 00:36, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
21. digital_me^{(TalkˑContribs)} 00:38, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
22. Support GangstaEB EA 00:50, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
23. Support. Thunderbrand 01:42, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
24. Support. Clappingsimon 01:43, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
25. Support. Spizzma 02:18, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
26. Support. Shenme 02:37, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
27. Another Support including retroactive enforcement. --james_{(lets talk)} 03:00, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
28. Strong Support including retroactive enforcement Trfs 03:08, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
29. Strong Support with retro enforcement.
30. Strong Support and applying it ex post facto Jould
31. Strong Support with retro enforcement. --^hello,gadren 03:11, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
32. For. good proposition, will reduce the vandal and sockpuppets. Lincher 03:34, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
33. Support, ex post facto. feydey 04:16, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
34. Support, including retroactive enforcement. Kershner 06:34, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
35. Support. I didn't read the whole thing, but a vandal edit shouldn't be counted as an edit. --Anarkial^Talk 07:55, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
36. Support. Including retroactive enforcement. CheekyMonkey 07:58, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
37. Support, having had all my objections dealt with. Batmanand | Talk 08:08, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
38. Support Including retroactive enforcement Rakshat
39. Support ex post facto. LC@RSDATA 10:34, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
40. Support including retroactive enforcment. ShaunES 12:07, 18 June 2006 (UTC).
41. SUpport. Retroactive too. Witty lama 12:23, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
42. Support although it should not be retroactive. doktorb | words 14:16, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
43. Strong Support Unused names creates problems at WP:CHU; when a user wants to change his name, he can't because the account is already taken but has no edits or has been inactive for sometime. It's also taking up sever space. The Gerg 15:30, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
44. Support--Flying Canuck 15:53, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
45. Support I would only want accounts with no contributions, no deleted edits, and no user or talk page to be deleted. If an account has any one of those things, I would not want it deleted. ~MDD4696 15:57, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
46. Support: I'd also like to see an e-mail inplementation warning users to reactivate their accounts. --Slgrandson 16:19, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
47. Support as is, with ex post facto. Chris M. 16:56, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
48. Support the proposal and its retroactive enforcement. Todor→Bozhinov 18:07, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
49. Support Mieciu K 18:31, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
50. Support This time the 2 000 000 user might be an active one. Tarret 18:38, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
51. Support • The Giant Puffin • 18:39, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
52. Support Waggers 20:00, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
53. Strong Support Accounts with zero edits are misleading to all users and non-users alike on the number of editors English Wikipedia has. Bobo is soft 20:05, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
54. Strong Support --NorkNork ^Questions? _fnord? 20:30, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
55. Support, but be aware that this will require not in-considerable technical work - identifying such accounts, as has been suggested does not seem to be a trivial query, and so it may be a very long time before any developers get around to it. But it's nice that (so far) there seems to be support for this. JesseW, the juggling janitor 20:34, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
56. Support. I can't think of a scenario where an actual legitimate editor would lose his account under this policy. (Also, I have to say that if -- well, when -- someone gets discouraged and decides to hate Wikipedia forever because his account gets deleted under this policy, I'm not gonna feel the least bit bad over that. Such a reaction is not indicative of a functional sense of perspective or proportion; there are always people who have ridiculously exaggerated reactions to the smallest things, but that doesn't mean everyone should kowtow to them. I don't think it's unreasonable or unfair to ignore reactions like that. Point is, this policy will not affect a single editor who's actually interested in editing Wikipedia -- hell, all a user needs to do is add a single space to his user page, and his account's completely safe.) -- Captain Disdain 21:56, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
57. Support --Banana04131 22:19, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
58. Support. I think this is a very interesting idea, and anything to clean up the databases is a good idea in my opinion. However, make sure this policy is clearly linked to from the registration page, noting to users that if they don't want their account to be deleted, then they need to make at least one edit (even if to their own Userpage) in order to keep their account. -^demon^{[yell at me]}_{[ubx_war_sux]} /22:55, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
    • I'd like us to be a little more careful with this, though. We should not encourage new users to make a single solitary edit to their userpage just for the sake of keeping their account -- this could just simply complicate the existing problem, but instead of having a million inactive accounts with zero edits, we'd have a million inactive accounts with one edit. Instead, we should tell prospective new users only to sign up for an account if they intend on editing, or they intend on using watchlist/personalized skin functions. TheProject 02:01, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
59. Support, I thought that someone had a point about multiple watchlist, but if some one really wants more than one watchlist, placing the watch list pages on a sandbox and clicking related changes would be alot easier then seting up an editless account--Rayc 23:23, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
60. Support - As ^demon says, people need to be made aware of this when they sign up. Moitio ^(talk) 00:05, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
61. Support. SYSS Mouse 00:09, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
62. Strong Support - Me supporting this is almost ironic seeing as how I made my first edit roughly 2.5 months after signing up, but I would've had no problem with my account being deleted if I hadn't done anything with it in 3 months. --Wizardman 03:01, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
63. Support - Pros seem to clearly outweigh the cons (ie, a possible legit user having to re-register after 3 months for going to jail or something). -- Loudsox 03:10, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
64. Support, ex post facto included. Seems like common sense. One small suggestion: Perhaps two email warnings just in case... one after 60 days, and one after 85 days (or thereabouts). --Alex S 05:15, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
65. Support is there any way of telling when a user last signed in? If they use the account but don't edit from it, it should be kept. skorpion 05:20, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Still support but I would prefer it were longer. 90 days seems a bit too short. What about (as proposed elsewhere on the page) 6 months. I would also suggest not telling the user that they must make an edit when they sign up (to avoid single edit accounts) but suggest it as a reason for login failure. Viridae 11:46, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
66. Support proposal without amendment, without prejudice toward any future proposal seeking to expand on this one. -Joshuapaquin 05:53, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
67. Support the proposal and its retroactive enforcement. --Donar Reiskoffer 09:05, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
68. Support. Someoneinmyheadbutit'snotme 14:04, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
69. Support --WS 14:13, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
70. Support. --Lord Deskana ^{I VALUE YOUR OPINIONS} 17:03, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
71. Strong Support. It's about time. --Pat 17:32, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
72. Strong Support with retroactivity, about time to do it! -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 17:33, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
73. Support, with retroactivity. That inactive accounts will be deleted after three months should be mentioned on the account creation page. -- bcasterline • talk 19:37, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
74. Support --Waldir 19:50, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
75. Support -- E_rulez 20:08, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
76. Support --Philbert2.71828 20:22, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
77. Support with six-month waiting period, to be applied ex post facto, but only counting from the time the policy is initiated. (i.e. no users will be deleted immediately after acceptance of the policy) Ultimaga | Talk 21:56, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
78. Support -- Lobster101 4:25pm, 19 June 2006 (US Pacific Time) I support this proposal after reading the clearification. The "oppose" count should be -2 since I have voted once with oppose, and then one more time with "change of heart". Sorry for the confusion but I would like to leave my "change of heart" line in there in case other people have the same misunderstanding of the proposal.
79. support -- now or later, details fairly irrelevant. ∴ here…♠ 23:36, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
80. Support -- This is definetly an ideal policy Falc 00:19, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
81. Support, I am not a frequent user and I support this with retro-activity, 180-day non-activity period (as people are prone to long periods of distraction), and pre-deletion contact. As someone who works with messy databases all day, I appreciate the need for clean-up. Galeforcewind 00:45, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
82. Support BDSIII 01:23, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
83. Support BaseballBaby 04:54, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
84. Support absolutely and completely. —Nightstallion (?) 06:10, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
85. Support, cause it would really free up space or load on the servers, and those inactive users also arent helping in the community projects. -- Prof 07:44, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
86. Support at 90 days and with retroactivity; we are talking here about "name reservation" not deleting someone who has *ever* edited. As such doing this sort of housework seems eminently sensible. --AlisonW 11:29, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
87. Support --::Slomox:: >< 12:35, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
88. Support TomPhil 12:37, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
89. Support even in its current form, but imo a 180 days inactivity period would be better. --Zoz (t) 12:57, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
90. Support Bob 14:43, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
91. Support Jeekc 15:12, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
92. Ashibaka tock 15:22, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
93. Support MrDolomite 15:26, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
94. Support here here! Englishnerd 16:58, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
95. Support JFW | T@lk 22:27, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
96. Support NuncAutNunquam 23:05, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
97. Support though I agree that 180 days would be better. --Nebular110 23:17, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
98. Support depending on the task force available, the amount of days for the next deletion period should be decided every 90 days. --Jothesmo 00:38, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
99. Support JoeSmack ^Talk 00:39, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
100. Support; good idea, glad to see it. Antandrus (talk) 03:10, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
101. Support I'd be happy with 90 days, but obviously would still support if the latency time is lengthened. Eluchil404 03:29, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
102. Support Original proposal and all variants make sense. Borisblue 04:40, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
103. Support Including retroactive enforcement.Canuck90 05:04, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
104. Full support, with ex post facto application. --Merovingian {T C @} 08:00, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
105. Support BillC 10:45, 21 June 2006 (UTC).
106. Support – Gurch 13:31, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
107. Support – --Heidijane 14:20, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
108. Support with retroactive enforcement Cheers! Themillofkeytone 16:12, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
109. Support--MichaelMaggs 21:20, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
110. Support Socom49 22:15, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
111. Support--Rye1967 23:11, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
112. Yo --Conti|✉ 23:20, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
113. Support - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs) 02:10, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
114. Support No reason to eat up potentially useful usernames to clearly never-active editors. Staxringold _talk^contribs 03:07, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
115. Support -- Shouldn't even affect doppleganger accounts since most users will edit the user page of the doppleganger account at least once. Support ex post facto implementation. SWAdair | [[User talk:SWAdair|Talk]] 04:35, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
116. Strong Support this really should've happened some time ago..I can't wait for my wikipedia to speed up :-) --Andeh 08:46, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
117. Support for, of course, all wikis. One question is, if the user has no apparant contributions but a few deleted one, what happens ? Darkoneko 10:33, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

     An edit is an edit, whether it has been reverted/overwritten or not. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 11:18, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

     No, not reverted : deleted like in "the page it was made on was deleted". Darkoneko 09:31, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

118. Strong Support - Nick C 14:01, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
119. Strong Support - retroactively too. EvocativeIntrigue _{TALK | EMAIL} 14:23, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
120. Support --Epolk 16:48, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
121. Support bogdan 16:58, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
122. Strong support - this will eliminate many offensive usernames created as a one-shot attack, which raised my ire enough for me to make my offensive username proposal. bd2412 T 17:30, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
123. Support the entire proposal, including retroactivity. --Maelwys 17:39, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
124. Support. Recury 17:44, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
125. Support, provided blocked usernames (impostors, Foo on Wheels!) stay blocked and are not deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Oldelpaso (talk • contribs)

     What's wrong with deleting them? Their creators have likely long since forgotten they even existed! bd2412 T 18:34, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

     Perhaps, I'm not that concerned, just thought it might be worth raising. That support isn't intended to be conditional, should've worded it differently (and used the preview button). Oldelpaso 18:47, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

     I've expressed a rationale for why these should be deleted at length at the bottom of this page. Cheers! bd2412 T 03:46, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

126. Strong Support Belgian man 18:39, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
127. Support. VexedTechie 18:42, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
128. Strong Support No point in having all that extra clutter.Abcdefghijklm 18:43, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
129. Support-- 4dhayman This a very intelligent policy
130. Support. Wish I had thought of this, it is such a good idea. GeorgeStepanek\^talk 22:44, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
131. Support, retroactively. Nifboy 06:37, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
132. Support. I always make one edit from a doppelganger account (to its userpage.) I don't think it's too much to expect people to made an edit within 90 days of creating account (most owners of legitimate accounts would want to jump right in, I would think.) Grandmasterka 08:06, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
133. Support with reteroactive enforcement SuperTycoon 20:47, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
134. Support — The King of Kings 21:15 June 23 '06
135. Support easy solution to a problem that plagues any online comunity. Circeus 00:58, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
136. Support I think its a good idea :/ Homestarmy 20:00, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
137. Strong support - needed for a long time. —Celestianpower ^háblame 23:44, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
138. Support The amount of user that are discuraged because they can't get a user name they like far outweighs the amount of user who are moderately annoyed (who have never edited!) when their account is deleted after six months and they have to make a new one (most probally able to get the very same name the created previously!). Jon513 12:19, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
139. Strong Support, but only if it is applied retroactively. - SoM 15:51, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
140. Support - it would be nice to be clear on just how many active contributors there are, without the numbers being inflated by hundreds of thousands of throwaway accounts. This seems like a sensible proposal. Brassratgirl 21:43, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
141. Strong support —Scott5114↗ 09:04, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
142. Support, with retroactive effect. I think this is only sensible. — QuantumEleven 13:30, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
143. Support fully. Deli nk 15:59, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
144. Support fully. Thatcher131 20:52, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
145. Strong Support Matt B."aka" Thetruthbelow 22:32, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
146. Support this is a good idea. Yamaguchi先生 01:26, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
147. Support --BLueFiSH ✉ 06:06, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
148. Support --GW_Simulations_{|User Page | Talk | Contribs | E-mail} 13:58, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
149. Support Unused usernames could create future problems. --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 17:24, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
150. Strong Support. Poppypetty 17:40, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
151. Support, I've done the same thing on a message board (although only with 1,000 or so accounts) and had no problems. Icey 23:02, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
152. Support--RMHED 23:36, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
153. Support. I'm fine with any timeframe >90 days. --HereToHelp 02:08, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
154. Support Good idea. —Mira 02:20, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
155. Support overall - prefer 180 day inactivity period and ex post facto application, but will support even without. – ClockworkSoul 02:51, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
156. Support - Proposal seems reasonable. Cedars 03:24, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
157. Support. --Randy Johnston (‽) 03:38, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
158. Support --ViktorWettergren 06:49, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
159. Support Dr Gangrene 07:36, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
160. Strong support. Definately make it retroactive. — mæstro ^t/c, 09:05, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
161. Strong Support, and this should certainly be applied retroactively as well. -- Lee Bailey^(talk) 14:53, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
162. Strong Support; getting rid of useless names would open up our database of names and could un-bog the servers down a bit. --Bill (who is cool! 15:44, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
163. Support - The proposed policy seems sensible and considerate to new Wikipedia users. It is very simple to create an account as it is and those users who do have their accounts deleted can easily form new accounts anyway. Some sort of evidence on how it would affect server speeds though, would be useful, and in that regard I do agree with User:Bigbluefish's argument. However I support this proposal TG312274 16:52, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
164. Support Makes sense --Spartaz 19:25, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
165. Support Petr K 19:25, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
166. Support --Wolf530 23:35, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
167. Strong Support This makes sense and should be retroactive. Rob Banzai 00:35, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
168. Support Good idea. --ChristineDelusion 01:18, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
169. Strong Support I am giving 110% support to this idea, in all aspects, as it will make the site better for all the people that wish to see it grow and prosper. --No1lakersfan 02:19, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
170. Support although I like the idea of 180 or 365 days versus the 90 originally proposed. AndrewBuck
171. Support Quelqu'un 02:31, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
172. Strong Support I browse through the user created page many times a day and maybe one out of every 30 has a contrib, plus a lot of these are vandals/sockpuppets/etc. This needs to be put into action. It would probably help with any server problems that may occur because of overload by deleting unneeded info. --WillMak050389 03:03, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
173. Support fully. --Quiddity 03:11, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
174. Support Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 03:43, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
175. Support account can never have had anything attributed to them, including a block. (this prevents block for {{username}} being normal.) Kevin_b_er 04:56, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
176. Support borgx ^(talk) 05:19, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
177. Strong Support Useless, dead accounts make lots of websites look unkempt (not to say people will see the unused names), and the registered names could be used by those who want them and will use them. --Neur0X 05:32, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
178. Support --Airborne502 06:51, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
179. Support --Pamri • Talk 08:53, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
180. Support with ex post facto. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 09:38, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
181. Support Even if freeing up all the unused accounts doesn't improve the performance of Wikipedia, the least the policy can do is to free up account names which may have been created by a vandal bot using "The big book of baby names" as a string generator. In the event that the database of usernames need to be optimised further in order to speed up WP, a policy could be made to remove all preferences of a user who hasn't login in, maybe, 18 to 36 months: Essentially keeping only the username, email, password and links to its edits. changed 18:16, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
182. Support cause why not. If someone hasn't used an account a single time, they can't possibly care if it is deleted - and if they do, they'll remake it. Also, most of the opposition below is based on either a confused idea of the proposal, or fear it will expand, which is (as noted for technical and legal reasons), totally impossible. -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 18:56, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
183. Support. More so because it will allow new editors in getting better usernames. — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 20:40, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
184. Support. Very good idea. — Vildricianus 21:01, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
185. Support. --Reaper X 21:30, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
186. Support. Agree with proposed amendments, and supporting per Neur0X. -- Signature Formatting. danntm ^{T | C} 23:20, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
187. Support. Good idea--Evan W. 00:45, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
188. Support, this would free up thousands of usernames, and solve the accounts with 0 edits problem at WP:CHU. Even my first account choice was taken, although in retrospect, "Prodego" is much better ;-). Prodego ^talk 00:46, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
189. Support. It's necessary to do this. Anthony Gao 01:37, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
190. Support. I support the 90 day proposal but would prefer if it were extended to at least 180 days. dr.alf 04:34, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
191. Strong Support In fact, I would reduce the delay period to one week - How long does it take to create a username? Maybe 15 seconds. How long does it take to edit a page? (eg. create a user page) Perhaps another 15 seconds. If a wikipedian can't manage that in one session... Lynbarn 11:40, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
192. Support --Astrokey44 14:15, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
193. Support. I am surprised that this has been allowed to happen in the first place. --Charles Gaudette 18:02, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
194. Support, though it will be sad to see the number of registered users drop so dramatically. --SoberEmu 18:25, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
195. Support, Including retroactive enforcement. Thekiwifish 23:11, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
196. Support, Sedola 23:12, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
197. Support American Patriot 1776 00:27, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
198. Support Brian 06:44, 5 July 2006 (UTC)btball
199. Support. Long long LONG overdue. I never have figured out why usernames were kept forever and ever. --Woohookitty^(meow) 06:51, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
200. Support With retroactive enforcement; 90 days is reasonable--Neuroghost 06:56, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
201. Strong Support Image is important, we don't want a bloated one, quality and flexibility can coexist, deleted users can re-register. Gondola 5 July 2006 (UTC)
202. Support. The bar to re-registration is low, after all. Just zis Guy you know? 14:48, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
203. Support Kraenar 16:51, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
204. Support KopiteCarl
205. Support --Spot87 18:45, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
206. Support Getting rid of waste will make Wikipedia more streamlined. How could it hurt, anyway? Canadian Joeldude 19:50, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
207. Support One edit is not as big a deal as some opponents are making it out to be. Hyenaste ^(tell) 22:54, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
208. support --Cheeesemonger 23:18, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
209. Support wiccanhot 02:11, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
210. As much support as physically possible The policy is prfect! Paragon12321 02:27, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
211. Strongly Support This policy RULEZ!!! Hotmail spammers continue to threaten of such unlikely cancelations, while MSN (& other free email providers) should consider actually applying it. --Jamal 08:04, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
212. Support. If anything, the fact that one edit will invalidate the deletion will make it easier to find sleeper accounts. If an account is over 90 days old, with one edit, there's a good chance it's a sleeper account, and then our old pal checkuser can come into play. And the best part? If it's deleted, and the person wants the account again, he or she can recreate it! Captainktainer * Talk 13:47, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
213. Support It's good. D. Wo. 01:13, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
214. Support -Markusbradley 07:15, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
215. Support for better statistics. þħɥʂıɕıʄʈ^ʝɘɖı 08:51, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
216. Support as proposed. Will help conserve good names for actual contributors. Haukur 10:29, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
217. Support as proposed. I can't see this being anything other than good for wikipedia. Bosola 16:54, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
218. Strong Support retroactively Benabik 19:39, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
219. Support Hessam 20:40, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
220. Support you don't have to count on 'ghosts' Okc 06:20, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
221. Support With retroactive applicability and exceptions for blocked/intentional doppleganger accounts. -Thesocialistesq 11:09, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
222. Strong Support This appears to be an absolutely logical and well-supported move! Sonrisasgrandes 13:06, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
223. Support this excellent idea. --Chaser T 20:40, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
224. Support, for all the mentioned reasons. Sabine's Sunbird talk 01:18, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
225. Support Retroactive application and exceptions for blocks are sensible amendments. Nesbit 01:40, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
226. Support - No need to artificially inflate the account count. However, blocked accounts with no edits shouldn't be deleted. —this is messedr͏̈ocker (talk) 05:11, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
227. Support- my only concerns, about deleted edits and blocked user names are adequately addressed. --Gurubrahma 16:31, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
228. Pile on Support --Robdurbar 20:53, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
229. Support. WP:300 here we come! Ian Manka Talk to me! 18:57, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
230. Support- However, I will not support any form of ex post facto applications of this policy. --Arbiteroftruth 15:44, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
231. Strong support, including to accounts created in the past. Indeed, I would be highly in favor of reducing the delay time before deletion of the unused account from 90 days to a much shorter period, such as 30 days or even a week. —Lowellian (reply) 16:32, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
232. Support including retroactive. My only concern would ever come if users with edits were removed as this corrupts the traceability of edit histories. Ansell 01:26, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
233. Support we need this for images, too! --mboverload@ 21:55, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
234. Support 90 days for zero edits seems fine to me. Personally I would like to extend this to ignoring edits in the user space when counting to zero. While Wikipedia is undeniably a social contruct (yes.. I favour userboxes : ), it's primary focus would seem to be as an encyclopedia. This would also prevent the use of wikipedia as an instant messenger/noticeboard alternative by users with no intention of utilizing the encyclopedia. But in any case, strong support - Jc37 15:13, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

     Note: for technical and legal reasons, userspace edits can not be ignored. bd2412 T 15:59, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

235. Support Reo ^ON | +++ 19:30, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
236. Strong support, definitely including retroactive. 90 days is probably optimal. CP/M ^comm |Wikipedia Neutrality Project| 20:26, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
237. - CrazyRussian talk/email 00:23, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
238. Support, good way to make room for more usernames. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:26, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
239. Support MER-C 12:35, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
240. Support--File Éireann 18:47, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
241. Support. Robert 19:35, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
242. Support, but with no retroactive reinforcement. Make a note on the name creation page, people who are "protecting" their username (a shady practice anyway, in my opinion) can simply make an edit. It does not take three months after registering to build up the courage to edit, or we wouldn't need anonymous editing. Karwynn (talk) 23:13, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
243. Support --Terence Ong _{(Chat | Contribs)} 11:33, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
244. Support Jon Harald Søby 09:42, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
245. Support on Wheels ~ trialsanderrors 07:05, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
246. Support -Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 08:34, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
247. Support with retroactivity. I want to kill somthing --Musaabdulrashid 08:35, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
248. Support, but with a modification: the more edits a user has made, the longer it should take for their account to be deleted. This way we can differentiate between real editors who simply leave the project, and trolls or spambots who create an account only to make a few vandalism or advertising edits. JIP | Talk 16:33, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

     It appears that the GFDL prohibits deleting usernames with edits. Therefore I support this proposal exactly as it stands. JIP | Talk 16:37, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

249. Support-- is there anything that hasn't been said? Dar-Ape 19:44, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
250. Support, retroactively, but don't delete doppelganger accounts, or blocked accounts unless another user is requesting the name. – Smyth\^talk 17:09, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
251. Support unused accounts should be deleted. WVhybrid 03:44, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
252. support, stuff like this is slowing wikipedia down. »ctails!« =hello?= 05:14, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
253. Support. I don't like the thought of new users being denied registration under the name of their choice just because some long-unused account happens to exist. —Psychonaut 02:08, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
254. Strongest possible support. --Masamage 18:17, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
255. Support User A1 09:39, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Conditional support

1. Conditional support provided one or more of the developers backs up the claim that it will have a significant effect on the server speeds. If this is not the case, I oppose unless email warning is sent to all deleted users in advance and candidate users have not had any activity since registering. BigBlueFish 18:39, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

   Any accounts deleted will have ZERO (0) edits. They will never have edited. Those who have made one edit and not used their account since will not be deleted. They will also have gone 90 days without even viewing a page while logged in – Gurch 13:26, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

2. Conditional support It takes a lot of time to understand how wikipedia works and to gather courage to edit somebody's content. I think for people who are getting used to the idea still, its unfair to give such a short timeframe. I have personally been wanting to add to a few articles but have not done so as it takes some time to understand how it works and to check references and all that. I visited this page twice before I figured out how to post my vote. And I am not sure of i have done it right.Kaveri
3. Conditional support If .... See here Garion96 ^(talk) 23:39, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
4. Conditional support If this is also enforced retrospectively after giving an email warning giving 30 days notice for those with accounts already registered but with no activity for 90 days. --TheCooperman 20:51, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
5. Conditional support provided the accounts blocked for bad usernames are NOT deleted. Otherwise, all the "...on wheels" and other accounts which were blocked for very good reason could be recreated. Jonathunder 21:43, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

   Please see my comment on this further down the page. bd2412 T 22:12, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

6. Conditional support This has gotten too long for me to be certain, but as long as zero edits means zero edits including pages that are currently deleted, I support. User space edits must be kept because some folks draft articles in user space. GRBerry 22:37, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

   Just to clarify, that is what is proposed. Wikipedia's database software won't allow the removal of any editor who has ever edited in any namespace -- even if the article is deleted -- so zero means zero. :)

7. Conditional support, but I'd suggest notifying a user via email (if possible) that his account will be deleted, let's say a week before it is deleted. Hopefully we will attract some editors 'back'.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 15:46, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
8. Conditional support. Either send out an email to the user to warn them about their account being deleted or change the timeframe for deletion from 90 days to maybe 180 days (half a year). I first started looking at Wikipedia in 2002, but didn't make an account until 2005. If you look at my contributions, you can see that I did not make my first edit until February 2006. I personally would not like to have my account deleted just because I did not really feel comfortable/or knowledgeable about editing the work of others for the viewing pleasure of the general public. --Nishkid64 ^Talk 22:51, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
9. Conditional support deletion of accounts with no edits, no deleted edits, no oversight hidden edits, no log activity, except for Special:Log/newusers, and no valid or confirmed e-mail account on record. Titoxd^(?!?) 22:13, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
10. Conditional support Only accounts with no edits, to be deleted after 6+ months after creation. Notification by e-mail (if possible) one week prior to deletion is to be required. Physicq210 19:03, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
11. Conditional support. Cyde raised a valid concern with regards to account parking. I've also created accounts on several other Wikimedia project sites for the same reason, and although I believe that I've made at least one edit redirecting back to my userpage here, that might not be the norm. Would it be possible to cross-reference against the user database of our other sites for duplicate names to avoid deleting parked accounts? If so, I full endorse the deletion of abandoned accounts which have zero edits, zero articles on the watchlist, and do not exist in on any other related Wikis. I imagine that the bulk of the 800,000 unused accounts fall into this category. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 19:15, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Changed votes

1. Oppose for now I haven't had time to consider this fully, but having experienced fairly unpleasant illness recently, I'm minded to oppose on the grounds of caution and good faith. Partly because the policy as stated needs, in my view, more detailed work. I've logged a reasonable number of edits in my time, but would be less than happy if a 'fallow' period resulted in my account vanishing. Clarification is needed here as to what class of user account is targetted for deletion and the reasons for doing so. I understand that large numbers of inactive accounts are not desirable (any bulletin board admin will agree with this) but there are more pressing issues in my view. Stamping on the trolls and vandals should take precedence over hunting down the merely indifferent. Calilasseia 16:54, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

   • Only user accounts with zero edits to Wikipedia and 90 days of inactivity will be deleted. Any editor who has made at least one edit to Wikipedia will never have his or her account deleted. --Alex S 19:35, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

   In that case, I shall change my position. Thanks for the clarification. Also the comments below now move me to change my decision to Support. Calilasseia 11:23, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

2. Oppose --Lobster101 02:15pm, 19 June 2006 (US Pacific Time)
   This policy will encourage un-necessary editting. I propose a compromise that idle account (no log in for 180 days) be deleted after email inquiry.

   Change of heart --Lobster101 04:20pm, 19 June 2006 (US Pacific Time)
   Just read the clarification. So it is people who have NEVER made any contribution, and who have NOT logged in for 90 days. Yes, in this case, I support this proposal.

Moved here by Banana04131. from the oppose section.

1. strongly Support!--Soxpatsceltsrule 00:03, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

   Did you mean to put this in the Support section? -- nae'blis _(talk) 16:44, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Oppose the proposed policy

With or without modification, comment as necessary.

1. Oppose --Max 02:55, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
   Not counting edits on this page as of 18Th June this user has 14 edits. Mieciu K 18:53, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

     Perhaps then this person represents the sort of casual, non-committal editors that this would hurt. BigBlueFish 18:28, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

   They could always reregister if they were that lazy. Ashibaka tock 02:45, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

   Huh? This editor would not be hurt at all; they would never lose their account, as they have 14 edits, as opposed to zero. bd2412 T 17:56, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

2. Oppose. This creates animosity with users who have no idea why their account is gone, and is pointless. What the hell do no-edit accounts hurt? Ral315 (talk) 04:03, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

   A simple link to the policy on the page explaining a login failure will inform the person in the very unlikely event that they return after 3 or 6 months.

   Regarding the question of whether no-edit accounts hurt, how about User:! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Linuxbeak sodomizes animals., User:!!!! SlimVirgin was a sockpuppet of Willy on Wheels, User:!!!!!!!!!!!!David Gerard is a pedophile who has AIDS and User:!!!!!!!!!Bumm13 munches cock for crack, for a start? And that's just the first page of Special:Listusers – Gurch 13:23, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

   Oppose63.23.82.33 21:11, 18 June 2006 (UTC) Dont like it.

   I'm afraid this vote cannot count, since it was not cast by a registered member. 22:03, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

3. Oppose but I would support deletion of an account which has not been used for exactly 1 year (365 days). That seems more reasonable to me. --Revolución hablar ver 01:29, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
4. Oppose All this will do is make people do ONE minor edit and say "phew, now I don't have to worry about my account getting deleted". I don't think that should be our goal. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 06:20, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

   Or they can simply log in once every 3 months if they have never edited, not really a large problem I think. Chris M. 07:47, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

   Well, I think that if people cared enough about having an account on WP, that's what they'd do. The purpose of this (to my knowledge) is to free up accounts made accidentally, or by users never intending to make edits, or by users who quickly create a different account for a mistake. → JARED ^(t)  18:21, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

   I agree with User:JP06035, if a user wants to make a Wikipedia account, it is most likely to use it. Someone who comes to Wikipedia just to read and search information may not even need an account or they just may simply feel happier having their own. The main goal of this proposal should be to delete the inactive accounts that were mistakes, or tests. All the unused, useless accounts go into the total user editor count, which makes the user count not very usefull or accurate. Bobo is soft 00:48, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

   And don't forget the "so-and-so is an asshole" account names created as one time attacks with no intention of use! bd2412 T 17:38, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

5. Oppose What are the benefits of deleting unused accounts? If we delete unused accounts we will set a precedent that could one day lead to inactive accounts being deleted too. The next thing you know is that if you do not make an edit every six months your account will be deleted. - sYndicate ^talk 16:53, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

   This 'slippery slope' argument cannot apply since if a user makes at least one edit the account cannot be deleted without damaging the database. Therefore, an 'edit or get deleted' rule is virtually impossible to make even if it wished for.

   The benefits of deleting unused accounts(in more detail above) are they take up usernames other active wikipedians might want and they inflate the amount of users, misrepresenting the number of active wikipedians to outsiders. I do not understand your oppose vote mainly because inactive accounts are not affected by this. --Banana04131 17:23, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

   Counting members who just made one edit so their account would not be deleted is also "misrepresenting the number of active wikipedians to outsiders."

   • But getting rid of unused accounts provides less of a misrepresentation of the numbers of active Wikipedians than leaving it as it is. Harryboyles 15:54, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

6. Oppose -- I agree with #4, because as a new user I just tried to find an article to edit for the sole purpose of maintaining my account if this rule went into effect. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Smith13294 (talk • contribs) 21:43, 19 June 2006 (UTC).
   

   Or you could just log in once every 3 months. I think that's not that a huge issue. Chris M. 02:49, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

   What is this, a cult? Editing Wikipedia requires and always should require no commitment whatsoever. People should have the freedom to secure their identity so that their edits are correctly attributed, but also the freedom to choose when they make their first contribution. The previously used example of military service is a good example of how unforseeable events could prompt far more than 3 months' absence or time without spare time to edit Wikipedia. BigBlueFish 15:52, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

   Editing WP doesn't require commitment. If you made a single edit, your account would never be deleted even if you went to military service for more than 3 months. --Zoz (t) 16:29, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

   Registering shouldn't require commitment either. If even one person registers with the intent to use their account later, and finds their account deleted when they finally find the time, then unless the decision has improved the speed of the servers by a significant amount, it is a failure. BigBlueFish 16:39, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

   Oppose -- Ninety days is too short. Learning to have an interest in and a commitment to Wikipedia will take longer than a year for many. I have been using WP for a couple of years. I started and account to fix some stuff I saw. I still am a greenhorn about how to do a lot of stuff. Putting in a 90 obstacle for people with busy lives is just an unnecessary hurdle. If an account lies untouched for a year, then I think it makes more sense. Right idea... too short a horizon 24.12.168.88 18:54, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

   If you fixed some stuff you saw with your account, then your account will never be deleted. Please read the proposed policy carefully. --Zoz (t) 19:05, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

   You need to log in before this vote can count. Philbert2.71828 20:16, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

7. Oppose User:X06 This is ludacrious (incivility removed) There is no reason to delete inactive accounts that have yet to make an edit within 90 days! A non-editing account's computer may break down, disabling a log-in w/in 90 days! If not the case, it shouldn't matter anyway, as registered accounts should be left alone.

   Calling wikipedians you don't agree with Nazis is not only against Wikipedia:Civility it is also simply rude. Mieciu K 08:19, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

8. Oppose Kdammers 09:01, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
9. Oppose emailing wouldn't work as email is optional, I believe. I wouldn't like to log-in to any site finding my account is gone! When necessary, an usurper can be peformed. Computerjoe's talk 19:33, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

   No it can't. Ashibaka tock 02:21, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

10. Oppose. This doesn't seem to have much benefit to the project compared to the amount of effort involved and feels like an attempt to snag some usernames (ie first names) that were taken several years ago and are inactive. Secretlondon 14:10, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

    If they are inactive, and never edited, then why should they be kept? I don't understand the objection. Chris M. 03:11, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

11. Oppose Editing is not the only way we can help Wikipedia. Macarion 16:17, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

    Could you clarify what you mean by this? --Alex S 18:07, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

    • I think he means that if we do something like donate to wikipedia, then we are helping as well, and that we don't have to actually participate in order to help out. 63.23.38.30 01:06, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

    • Maybe he means that you can proofread without editing? Or talk Wikipedia up to others? I really can't think of a way to help, other than actual editing, that would require you to keep a username from which you never made an edit, and to which you didn't even sign in for more than 90 days at a time. bd2412 T 01:13, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

12. Strong oppose. There are many valid reasons to have accounts with no edits; to keep your preferences, to have an alternate watchlist, to have the same username on several projects (there are people with accounts on all the Wikipedias), to reserve a username (like User:Example and the doppelganger usernames), and so on. Just because someone has not logged in in a while, it does not mean he should lose his account. And emailing the owner of the accounts isn't enough; we have accounts without an email address, unconfirmed email addresses, dead email addresses (some people forget to change it when they change ISPs), agressive spam filters, broken email servers, and so on. --cesarb 18:50, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
13. Oppose I really do appreciate what you're trying to accomplish here, and it took me awhile to decide my vote, but in the end, in actual practice it doesn't seem to serve a useful purpose. All that vandals/sockpuppets will have to do is make one "legitimate" edit with their fake account and the account is safe for future use. Meanwhile, legitimate users who, for whatever reasons, register and then not edit, risk losing their account. And of the 800,000 zero-edit accounts, how many were purely unused, and how many were simply doppelgangers? Plus, I imagine the number of unregistered vandal-user edits far outweighs the number of "stale" accounts, so the time/resources needed to pull this off seems a low priority in my opinion. Danny 18:51, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

    There are ways to mark doppelganger accounts, which requires making an edit to the account's userpage. And since an edit was made to the page, the account can no longer be deleted. While anonymous edits by unregistered users may be a problem, this is just as much a problem. --No1lakersfan 19:39, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

    I, um, know that. What I asked was, "how many?" It's been said that there are around 800,000 'zero-edit' accounts, but how may of those are doppelganger accounts that simply haven't put the 'doppel-template' on their page? Is there even a way to know? For all we know only 25,000-50,000 accounts are truly 'stale', that's hardly an epidemic for a site accessed worldwide. Like I said, the vandals are the ones who'll know the rules better than the newbies, and will exploit the obvious loopholes (I'm not even a vandal, and I can see many ways to abuse this if it became policy.) Like I said, it is a good idea on paper (on the screen?), but in practice it's simply not going to do any good, and only creates one more thing for vandals to mess around with, especially the sockpuppet variety. Further, I find it really hard to believe that this is as big of a problem as non-registered user vandalization. Danny 16:29, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

14. oppose 90 days is too short, once I had an eye injury and couldent read, use the computer, or watch the tv for 2 months Bob000555 21:41, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

    Two months is only 60 days. 90 days is 3 months and the proposed 180 days is 6 months. I do not see what is so complicated about that. I know it may be hard to see that sometimes, but wanted to clarify that. --No1lakersfan 23:15, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

15. Oppose at least until single-login is implemented. There has to be a reason we have 70-85% non-editing accounts, and without knowing what it is, I'm loathe to change the status quo. I don't actually see what it's harming, and the way for vandals to get around it (for the User:!!!!!!!!!Jimbo is a nutbar examples) is trivial. Sorry. -- nae'blis _(talk) 16:44, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

    Given your "single-login" objection, how about if we agree (for starters) to only erase usernames that do not exist on any other wikiproject? bd2412 T 16:48, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

    I'm a sucker for data. The 70%/85% figure is an outlier for me, and I want to know why. For example, how many of those no-edit accounts exist under the same username on other Wikia projects? How many have 0 items on their watchlist? How does the creation rate compare pre-no-IP-page-creation and post-no-IP-page-creation? How many names appear (and this is subjective) to be spam accounts (random strings of characters, for a start)? -- nae'blis _(talk) 16:57, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

16. Oppose Will hurt people who login only for the preferences and the watchlist who have to go away for a while. Time period is too short. Also will affect people on other projects reserving user names.WP 10:06, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

    • Oppose The time until delete should be longer for accounts with more edits. If it has only a few edits on one or two articles, 90 days is fine. If it has significantly more edits to more articles, more consideration should be given to longstanding users who might end up on a wikibreak. /Blaxthos 19:16, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

      Please read the proposal more carefully. Accounts with any edits can not be deleted at all. Ergo, an account with "a few edits on one or two articles" can not be deleted. This proposal only applies to accounts from which no edits have ever been made, and who have not logged in to their account for over 90 days. bd2412 T 19:29, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

      I misunderstood the policy, and my opposition has been rescended. Sorry! /Blaxthos 22:04, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

17. Oppose, I'm "parking" User:Cyde on many other language Wikis to prevent impersonation, and under these guidelines, those would end up being deleted. Likewise, people who speak other languages and are parking their user accounts here to prevent impersonation shouldn't be punished. --Cyde↔Weys 22:02, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

    Once m:SUL is implemented, this will no longer be an issue, but until then this is a valid concern. Right now the best thing to do would be to create a userpage on the wikis where you parked the account (perhaps with a soft redirect to your userpage) then your account will be kept. Prodego ^talk 22:15, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

    But I don't remember any of those passwords; I used throw-away passwords purposefully different from my en-wiki password (for security reasons). I never intended to need to edit with them again; parking indefinitely on that username is good enough. I can't help but think there are other people who've done as I've done and they're going to be bitten by this 90 days thing. --Cyde↔Weys 22:18, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

    Well using throwaway passwords means you will probably get all those accounts counted as conflicts when single login is implimented, with no way to associate them. So far as I can tell, SUL will probably be implimented first, so by then you (hopefully) will have gotten a dev to reassign the accounts for you. If using throwaway passwords is common, it would cause problems for both this, and m:SUL. Prodego ^talk 22:26, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

18. Meritless. Kotepho 23:42, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

About deleting blocked accounts...

Some editors have expressed reservations about deleting blocked accounts. I think that blocked accounts that meet the other criteria set forth above should be deleted. The concern is that deleting the account will leave the original creator free to recreate the account in an unblocked form.

The vast majority of accounts that are blocked have been blocked precisely because of edits made under those accounts; such accounts do not fall under this policy. The only way that an account gets blocked without ever having made any edits is if the username itself is highly offensive, an imposter, or uses a pattern of a known vandal, such as "_____ on wheels" or "_____ is communism".

The creators of such accounts are generally well aware that these accounts will be blocked immediately, and are not making long-term plans to use them. After 90 days, the creator would likely have long forgotten that it had ever existed. If the creator would be inclined to recreate the same account (surely only to be blocked again), this policy would not affect their ability to create an account with a nearly identical username, by having five exclamation points at the end instead of four, for example, or any number of other nonce variations.

Thus, deleting these accounts offers no additional convenience to vandals whatsoever, as they can always create an account with a marginally different name. However, enacting this deletion policy will provide us with the great benefit of erasing many stupid and offensive usernames from the rolls of our user list. I therefore implore the community not to impose any limitation on the application of this policy based solely on the blocked status of an account to be deleted under it. Cheers! bd2412 T 23:19, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, this strikes me as a good reason to keep blocked accounts: once we've blocked "____on wheels", which we will do every time it's created, we need never block it again (and taking the effort to create it and failing may discourage the next vandal, which would be a Good Thing.) Since an account with zero edits should be blocked only for inappropriate user name, this is, I think, the only question. Septentrionalis 20:31, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

My point is, if we don't delete these accounts, they stay in our database, and the vandal (if inclined to make trouble) simply takes the same amount of effort to make a slightly different offensive username. In short, if we don't delete the account, we'll end up having to block a different one, and will only increase the number of such permablocked accounts in our database. Besides, after 90 days, hopefully that vandal will have found better things to do than bother Wikipedia with offensive username registrations. However, I'd be open to some compromise - suppose we agree to start with the oldest accounts first, as there are some never-used vandal accounts who have been blocked for years. Knock out all unused blocked accounts that are more than a year old, and talk about proceeding with the rest after that is done. bd2412 T 22:18, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd be willing to simply add a note, commenting that there may be reasons to leave some blocked accounts, like User:Squidward XXX and User:XXX on Wheels, in existence and permablocked; these may be as numerous as the indef-blocked attack accounts. Septentrionalis 15:59, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Same rationale for deletion still applies. If User:XXX on Wheels vandalized and was blocked, the account cannot be deleted; if User:XXX on Wheels made an account but got blocked without ever having edited (either because they never got the chance to make an edit or because they never intended to do so), I think it fairly safe to presume that 90 days on, the creator of the account will have forgetten it ever existed, and will not go looking to re-create it in order to vandalize from it. Furthermore, if the vandal does want to vandalize, he can just as easily create User:XXXX on Wheels or User:XXXXX on Wheels or User:XXX on Wheels!. By leaving the account, we impose no extra work on vandals, but merely keep our list of users clogged up with nonsense. bd2412 T 17:48, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I will add a note explaining that there is disagreement on this point. Septentrionalis 00:03, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I concur with BA on this. —Nightstallion (?) 09:17, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

To give an example of one of the two cases where I think it might be useful: User:InfinityO is permablocked as an impersonation account of User:Infinity0. In this case, it was actually used; but there are examples where such things were caught immediately. That should stay blocked. We don't want anyone else picking it to impersonate the existing user; and we don't want some newbie picking it by accident. Septentrionalis 17:03, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

That is food for thought - I can see a much stronger argument being made to keep blocked imposter accounts than to keep blocked User:XXX on Wheels or User:Linuxbeak is a monkey's uncle type accounts - are pretty much all imposters tagged as imposters, tho? If they're so tagged, I'm sure we can set them aside for now and worry on them later. bd2412 T 18:09, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Not sure who BA is, but I agree with Septentrionalis; deleting blocked/imposter accounts just makes more work later. We're not in a shortage of names currently, I see no need to go overboard. Seems like it would be simple to make the bot/software that is going to do these deletions skip over any account with a current block. -- nae'blis _(talk) 02:38, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I presume he meant BD - anyway, my problem is that we have some really unpleasant and pointless "attack" usernames which would be great to get rid of (and if they've been around for more than 90 days, it is probably harmless to destroy them). bd2412 T 02:49, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Single login

Don't know if this was mentioned before but wouldn't it be handier to do this after single login is implemented? Many users on another wiki (commons, foreign language etc) made an account here to protect their name. And from what I've heard single login does look now like it will be there in the foreseeable future. Garion96 ^(talk) 11:41, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Won't such users want to trash all the individual accounts in exchange for a single login account then? I concede, I've made accounts on other wiki's which I virtually never edit in order to protect this username... perhaps once this is implemented, we can have a notice posted on the other Wikimedia projects for a short time to alert editors that old, unused Wikipedia addresses are getting deleted, and the way to save them is to make an edit from them. bd2412 T 13:14, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I assume there will be a way to join accounts. If so, then it would be better IMO to wait till single login is implemented. It doesn't seem that this proposal has to be implemented in a hurry anyway. It can wait can't it? See also this press draft. I saw Angela referring to it recently. Garion96 ^(talk) 16:41, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure this proposal would affect anything for people who have cross-namespace usernames. Either their old account will get booted for nonuse, or will get sucked into the new one... I presume that the single user account will not be deleted if there's a single edit from it on any of the projects, but I also don't want to hold my breath waiting for it to come about. My immediate concern is eliminating the unused offensive and insulting usernames created as a one-time gag. Those should never be recast as single-user accounts either. bd2412 T 17:03, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

The only thing which could happen I think is that for instance the german equivalent(famous admin name needed hmm) Tony Sidaway has an empty account here, which he could lose if someone else registers it after the cleanup and makes a few minor edits on it. Therefore making the account impossible to use for the german user. I have to admit that this scenario is not that likely to happen, but still... Garion96 ^(talk) 17:21, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

There should be enough time so that he'd be able to log into it for a certain amount of time, or make an edit to perserve the account. He came here to preserve his account by making it, I'm sure he can come here to perserve it by logging in every so often or making an edit. Chris M. 22:34, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Having a notice posted at every Wiki project for a few weeks before we start deleting accounts should be enough to cover that concern (although I'd give obvious vandal/attack accounts and inappropriate usernames no grace period). bd2412 T 01:41, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

All the obvious vandal and attack acounts of course can definitely be deleted. With all the other ones I still think it's better to wait, just to be on the safe side. There's no real hurry. Garion96 ^(talk) 15:04, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmmmm.... how about if there was a way to check if the same username is registered on another project? That way, we could immediately (1) knock out the vandal/attack accounts, and (2) knock out unused no-edit accounts for which the name exists only on en.wikipedia (which there must be a lot of, because my understanding is that en.wikipedia has orders of magnitude more accounts registered than any other Wiki project). bd2412 T 15:49, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

It would be great if that's possible. Is there such a way? Garion96 ^(talk) 01:23, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Isn't there always? I have great faith in the ability of technology to provide the solution! bd2412 T 01:28, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

There's Interiot's Single User Login conflict checker but it's pretty (understandably) slow. --james _{// bornhj (talk)} 16:36, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm thinking also about the scale of this undertaking. We're talking here about deleting well over half a million never-used accounts - I doubt that can be done overnight. If we optimistically say we're going to delete 20,000 per day (or one every 4 seconds), it will take more than a month to knock out those that exist as of now. We must determine if we can set a priority order - the first thing to go should be any account that includes an obvious vulgarity or attack in the username, and once those are done we isolate those usernames that are unique to en.Wikipedia and do knock them out in chronological order, deleting those longest unused first. Perhaps we can introduce some other qualifiers like length of username or number of exclamation points! ;-) bd2412 T 04:55, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

• Well, we can always look at the evil plans. Titoxd^(?!?) 21:37, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Just a note: Deleting usernames with 1 or more edits.

Cannot happen due to legal reasons. Please read the GFDL... Sigh. --Avillia ^{(Avillia me!)} 01:04, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes. That already was discussed here and on the project page though. Garion96 ^(talk) 01:24, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, that is not what this proposal is about. bd2412 T 01:27, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

How to delete wikipedia account Jaamfidabalch27 (talk) 11:31, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Please delete my account ARSLAN KHRL ARSLAN KHRL (talk) 07:02, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Implement?

This proposal has been voted on for 13 days now, does anyone know when it is scheduled to end as there is virtually no opposition - with nearly a hundred and fifety users voting in support and a mere 9 opposing votes. Just wondering. LC@RSDATA 14:50, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

• I think a community portal bump might help us to hit 200 - if we can say we got 200 votes opinions in favour we can make the powers that be take notice. I'll get bumping. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 13:45, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
• We have reached 200. Shouldnt this be closed by now? Theres overwhelming support for the proposal - • The Giant Puffin • 11:25, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

• Closed by whom? Who has such authority? I suppose someone would have to make a feature request, and then we wait. Prodego ^talk 11:27, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll contact Jimbo. LC@RSDATA 17:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Just one more point

Does the one edit count even if the person made the edit to their own userpage? In that case, would something like User: Conservative Joe be deleted since the user has only made one edit ever? 63.23.38.30 01:03, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify: Conservative Joe's user page was deleted just recently. theProject 04:11, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Two points - first, any edit to any page counts - this is a software limitation, not merely a policy matter, as unattributed edits can not exist; second, it does not matter if the edited page is deleted, the edit still exists in the database (and is viewable by admins). bd2412 T 04:45, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

All-encompassing note

In order to satisify everything about the GFDL and all:

• No edits
• No deleted edits
• No oversight hidden edits
• No log activity, except for new user.
• No otherwise hidden log activity.

In other words, there should be nothing about a user in any of the logs except for the username being created, including any otherwise hidden. The basic premise? They can have done NOTHING that ended up on wikipedia for any amount of time except for being a new user. In this way, the original intention of 'unused' is completely upheld. Anything less will probably get tossed out. Kevin_b_er 04:53, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Unused period

There still seems to be a fairly arbitrary attitude to what the cutoff period should be, despite the proposal title of 90 days. I wondering, is it possible to produce cumulative frequency statistics on how long accounts concerned by this policy have been idle? That would give a more informed insight on how long or short to set it. I also still want to see a server admin say that this whole process will do the servers that much good. BigBlueFish 11:36, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Dissing the GIs?

As a GI who occasionally spends seasons away from anything remotely resembling internet access, I find this topic - and the percentage of those who apparently approve of the proposition - discouraging. Keglined

Please realize that this proposition isn't the slightest bit prejudiced against GIs, or any other group. As discussed several times above and below, any user who makes ANY edit, even just posting a single comment here (as you've already done) ensures that their username will NEVER be deleted. This is a matter of both technical and legal requirements which can never be changed. The only accounts subject to deletion are the ones that have NEVER made a single edit anywhere on Wikipedia, and also haven't logged in within the past 90 days. So if a GI (or anybody else) wants to ensure their account remains reserved even if they unexpectedly get kept away from the internet for an extended period of time, they just have to make a single comment (like the one you just made, or even just on their on user page) and they're safe. --Maelwys 19:54, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Just make an edit to an article as soon as you make a username. That will cover it, and only takes 5 seconds - • The Giant Puffin • 11:28, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

And, if you aren't in a position to make an edit within your first three months, just recreate the account when you get back from your mission. NeonMerlin 02:48, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Paradox

Has it occured to anyone that no one who will be affected by this proposal has (or even can) vote on this page?--Rayc 04:07, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, yes, but if you never edited at all, why would you want to vote? Basically this should not effect anyone, as all these accounts are stale, and would never have made any edits. Prodego ^talk 11:21, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Isnt that a good thing? By voting here, people no longer fall under the caterogy of inactive users, both ensuring their page's survival and showing that they actually check what is going on in the WP community - • The Giant Puffin • 11:29, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

But if there is a valid reason that people get accounts and then can't edit with them, there is no way to find out about it. Though there probably isn't one, I just thought it was an odd paradox--Rayc 14:23, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Um, if you can't edit with your account, then you don't need one (and Wikipedia doesn't need you to have one). As my Contracts professor would say, don't lose sight, don't lose sight of the fact that accounts exist only as a mechanism to assist users in improving Wikipedia. True, we're building an encyclopedia for the world, but anyone can read Wikipedia, account or no. An account is only of use if an editor is using it to make improvements. bd2412 T 00:02, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

If they would not be able to edit with the account, how would that be able to create it? All you need to do is make an edit as soon as you create your account, and you're sorted. I dont see why this is such a problem. Making a minor edit to your own talk page or user page takes 5 seconds - • The Giant Puffin • 14:39, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

200 Votes

Over 200 people have supported this now. Is there any deadline to this, and does any developer actually know about this? If not, someone should tell them. :) --Conti|✉ 15:31, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

• I reposted this on Community Portal exactly a week ago with the ultimate motive of hitting 200 votes. I was going to post a short about it on the Administrator's noticeboard or similar, but now I think I might leave it up to the original inventor of the policy, User:Msoos. I'll drop him a line and ask what he thinks. --Vanderdecken 18:42, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

My first time on WP, I oppose deleted usernames because it contradicts the goal of WP, which is to encourage everyhuman to participate. People well intentioned but busy. If you keep there they might comback after 90 days and contribute. In terms of storage, the space taken by a user account is minimal. So leave them! Thanks for the good work!

The way this would work is that as long as you make a single edit, your account would never be deleted. Your account would only be deleted if it both registered 90 or more days ago, and never edited at all. Prodego ^talk 19:33, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I think one possible idea is to keep account names open, which gives someone who does end up contributing a better chance of obtaining a desired account name, thus encouraging contribution. Kylu 03:01, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it matters how many people have supported this. If the case doesn't exist for implementing it, the developers are unlikely do do so. --Tony Sidaway 15:12, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

It's technically doable. It would require the creation of a maintainance script, similar to those for reinitializing the Categorylinks and Templatelinks tables, that would trawl the User table, and makes sure that:

• Calls to SpecialContributions.php::makeSql() returns empty
• SpecialLog::getRows() gives nothing but log_type=newuser entries
• User.php::isEmailConfirmed() returns false
• time() - wfTimestampOrNull( TS_UNIX, user_registration) is more than 90 days
• SELECT ar_namespace, ar_title, ar_timestamp AS Time, FROM archive WHERE ar_user_text=user ORDER BY ar_timestamp DESC is empty,
• SELECT hidden_namespace, hidden_title, hidden_timestamp AS Time, FROM hidden WHERE hidden_user_text=user ORDER BY hidden_timestamp DESC returns no contributions either.

IANAD, but if any of the the tests fail, the user can't be deleted. Titoxd^(?!?) 00:38, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

• By the way, reported as Bug 6614. Titoxd^(?!?) 06:07, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Will this be implemented any time soon? —Nightstallion (?) 12:01, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

All-encompassing?

In response to the above GFDL reminder it crossed my mind that if a username only has edits inside his own userspace, it would be possible and legal to eradicate said user if we simply wipe his userspace from the database as well. It's not like it'd have any useful encyclopedic information in it anyway. >Radiant< 01:19, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Hey, that's actually right, yeah. —Nightstallion (?) 09:14, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I would go farther than that. If an article is pure giberrish vandalism, we should be able (after an appropriate time) to wipe that from the database as well. And certain edits - such as page blanking or even random removal of paragraphs from an article - do not contribute anything for which any intellectual property protection would apply, and would receive no GFDL protection. bd2412 T 20:25, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Meep?

Likely to happen any time soon? If not, why not? Any 'crats here? —Nightstallion (?) 20:50, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

My guess is that the devs are working on the single user login right now, which will come "real soon"™. It wouldn't make too much sense to implement this before the single user login is implemented. --Conti|✉ 22:27, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Aye, that could be the case. Incidentally, how soon is real soon? ;) —Nightstallion (?) 20:34, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Have any of the devs responded at all? --Masamage 18:20, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

This is not going to happen

Unfortunately Brion Vibber has said on MediaZilla that this is not going to be implemented and has closed the bug. Lcarsdata (Talk) 17:19, 19 October 2006 (UTC)