Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by SlimVirgin (talk | contribs) at 05:37, 1 August 2011 (rmvd contradiction introduced in October 2010, per Misplaced Pages talk:Arbitration Committee; needs some more tightening to remove repetition). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This page documents an English Misplaced Pages behavioral guideline. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page.

Shortcuts WP:DISAPPEAR WP:VANISH WP:RTV WP:RTL WP:LEAVE

This page in a nutshell: Right to vanish means the right of any user, upon leaving Misplaced Pages forever, to request renaming of his account; deletion or blanking of user pages; and possibly the deletion or blanking of discussions related to his or her conduct. The right to vanish does not include the deletion of user contributions, and normally does not include the deletion of user talk pages.

The Right to vanish (RtV) means the right of any user, upon leaving Misplaced Pages finally and forever, to request renaming of their account and deletion or blanking of pages in their userspace. It may also extend to the deletion, moving, or blanking of discussion related to the user's conduct. It does not extend to the deletion of user contributions, and normally does not extend to the deletion of user talk pages. Other contributions, logs, signatures relating to normal routine editing, and some user page templates (eg related to reasons for ban, or past sock-puppetry) are not usually removed.

The right to vanish is not a temporary leave or a method to avoid scrutiny or sanction, is not a fresh start, does not guarantee anonymity, and may be refused if ever abused. Return leads to the "vanishing" being fully reversed, any old account linked to any new account, and any outstanding sanctions or other matters being resumed.

Overview

All Misplaced Pages editors have the right to leave Misplaced Pages for good (ie, permanently). The usual way to leave the Misplaced Pages project is simply to stop editing. Your contributions remain in Misplaced Pages. If you wish to resume editing at a later date, you can simply start again by logging into the same account. Old accounts that have any significant edits are almost never deleted or recycled to new users.

If you wish to leave permanently, and to remove any association with your past edits, you may exercise the right to vanish. It is not a requirement, but the Misplaced Pages community will typically accord the ability to vanish to users in good standing who exercise their right to leave and ask to "vanish" permanently. As a discretionary courtesy the request will be considered and, unless there are reasons to refuse, any steps that are practical will be identified and there will be discussion of which pages are not needed for community purposes and are reasonable to delete, blank, or collapse, after checking they do not contain any entries that need to be kept. Even where the right to vanish does not apply, there is often scope for some blanking.

Once agreed and the user confirms they are content to vanish, then the involved pages will be deleted or blanked as appropriate. Right to Vanish is granted on the basis that the user wishes in good faith to cease editing and sever ties with the site; if the user does return these pages are likely to be undeleted or unblanked, and could be linked to any new account they create. Of course the return of users in good standing or reformed "problem users" is welcomed if they happen to change their mind. Certain ban, sockpuppetry and similar templates (but not most other content) may be retained on user and user talk pages. Also pages that may be of value to the wider community or whose deletion is opposed by other users might be undeleted during a deletion discussion. Pages remain licensed for reuse even after deletion, and may occasionally be cited or deemed to contain useful content.

For reasons related to licensing, accounts themselves cannot be deleted, nor can most other forms of contribution; it is not possible for your edits to be removed entirely and account deletion would potentially violate copyrights by allowing for inaccurate attribution and authorship claims. Users who have left Misplaced Pages may be added to Misplaced Pages:Missing Wikipedians.

Vanishing from Misplaced Pages

Vanishing is the act of dissociating the identity of a user account from the identity of its owner. It does not imply the dissociation of the account from the edits made from that account. With a very few exceptions, all edits made to Misplaced Pages will remain part of the database indefinitely even if the editor chooses to "vanish".

Vanishing typically involves:

• Having a bureaucrat change the username of the account,
• Replacing references to the former username with references to the replacement username,
• Deleting the account's user page and subpages (user talk pages are rarely deleted, and can be undeleted by community consensus)

• (Note: Oversight should be used to remove personal information, subject to the oversight policies; user talks per convention are almost never deleted)

• Posting a brief note indicating that the account owner has left Misplaced Pages and asking that people not refer to the account by its former username.

Vanishing in this way is not a right. It is a courtesy extended by the Misplaced Pages community to make it easy for users to exercise their right to leave. Sometimes the community will not extend the courtesy: for example, if the user is not actually leaving, or if the user is not in good standing. The right to vanish might not be extended to users who have been abusive or disruptive, who left when they lost the trust of the community, or who have been banned. Note also that the Wikimedia Foundation does not guarantee that an account's username will be changed on request. Decisions to rename an account or allow a Right To Vanish, if contested or in dispute, are determined by community consensus.

Deletion of user talk pages

While user pages and subpages may be deleted, the deletion of user talk pages is invariably controversial, and should be the rare exception, not the rule. The reason for this is that user talk pages, unlike user pages, have largely been written by other editors. User talk pages should not be speedy deleted by admins. Whenever there is a request to delete a user talk page, a bureaucrat should be consulted. Community consensus is that bureaucrats should delete user talk pages only where there is a compelling reason to do so—related to serious privacy concerns and the potential for real-world harm. Otherwise, user talk pages should be deleted only at MfD. Any deletion, including deletion by bureaucrats, can be challenged and overturned at deletion review. User talk pages should never be moved to become user subpages in order to facilitate deletion.

What vanishing is not

The right to vanish is only available to users who are also exercising their right to leave. The "right to vanish" is not a "right to a fresh start" under a new identity. Vanishing means that the individual is vanishing, not just the account. Vanished users have no right to silently return under a new identity or as an IP.

Users in good standing are free to request a change of username at any time. All contributions made under the old username will be reattributed to the new username, including deleted contributions, preserving the edit history. Old signatures embedded in past posts cannot be changed due to technical limitations of the Mediawiki software, although in some cases collapsing or blanking is possible.

The deletion of personally identifiable information about users (such as a phone number or a street address) is not "vanishing", and users do not need to leave in order for this information to be deleted. Such information can be deleted on request, provided it is not needed for administrative purposes, which are generally limited to dealing with site misuse issues.

How to exercise the right to vanish

To vanish, as opposed to trying to start anew, you may wish to blank your userpage and any subpages in your userspace. To have them deleted entirely, add the {{db-user}} tag to the top of each page, and an admin will be along shortly to delete the page for you. Note that this will work on all of the pages in your userspace, except for your user talk pages – these are generally not deleted unless there is a specific reason that page blanking is insufficient. This specific reason needs to be established by nominating it via Miscellany for Deletion. In exceptional cases, where there is personal information you wish to have deleted without bringing attention to it by public discussion, you can use WP:Requests for Oversight. It is also best to contact the Functionaries mailing list, who will be able to advise on any privacy issues or specific pages of concern. Finally, the wikipedia bureaucrats should be contacted, either on their notice board or via their e-mail list at wikien-bureaucratslists.wikimedia.org, to implement the renaming.

Notes

1. As of 18 March 2011, the account must have made fewer than fifty thousand (50,000) edits (including deleted contributions). This is a technical limitation in the rename tool, not a policy limitation.

See also

• Misplaced Pages:Changing username
• Misplaced Pages:Clean start
• meta:Right to vanish
• Misplaced Pages:Retiring
• Template:User EX-WP

• Misplaced Pages behavioral guidelines