Help:Extension:CentralAuth/Global Vanishing

Vanishing is one of the ways to indicate a permanent leave from Wikimedia project, similar to "close account" in some other websites. It may remove your (user)name from history of pages you edits, and much other personal information and discussions about user conduct.

MediaWiki accounts can not be deleted; by vanishing an account, it is renamed to a random name (such as Vanished user 675fafa20d7a8350cb9f7c23a9436da9), so that references in the history of pages to the former username are automatically replaced with references to the replacement username. Signatures (on user talk pages, article talk pages and project discussion pages) will not be changed. In addition, the account is globally locked so that nobody will be able to log in to the user, and you will no longer receive emails from MediaWiki projects.

Even if vanishing is intended to be permanent, the rename and lock can be reversed by a steward.

Requesting global vanishing

• First if you want to remove any personal information from your user pages or user task pages, you can blank them (or in some wikis, replace it with {{Retired }}) or request deletion, since they will not be deleted in vanishing requests. (In many wikis, it is not a practice to delete user talk pages, but you can blank them.) This should be done before request vanishing, since vanishing will lock your account. In Wikimedia wikis, you may request deletion of most of your user pages (and subpages thereof) via Synchbot.
• If your account is blocked in any wiki (you can check it at Special:CentralAuth/<your user name>), you can not request vanishing using this special page, and the special page will instruct you to appeal your block(s) first.
• Now view Special:GlobalVanishRequest. Optionally, you can input a reason, which may be shown to others (so please do not include PII). Click "Request vanish". You may need to confirm the vanishing again after clicking it.
• If your account has no edit in any wikis, the software will automatically vanish your account. Otherwise, your vanishing requests will be placed into a queue to be proceed by volunteers. You can not cancel your request after filed.

See also

• m:Courtesy vanishing
• w:Wikipedia:Courtesy vanishing