How to Delete Your Wikipedia Account

Make sure that your account is in good standing. Good standing means that there is no current discussion about your behavior (or arbitration cases), active sanctions, or blocks (temporary or permanent) on your account. Check the administrator noticeboard, the arbitration requests page, and your talk page for current discussions. Check the block list and editing restrictions for currently active sanctions.

Place the "{{retired}}" template on your user and talk pages on Wikipedia (or Meta-Wiki). This will inform users leaving messages that you are leaving Wikipedia permanently. (This step only works for the English Wikipedia, if you are registered on other Wikimedia wikis, you may want to skip this step)

• To do so, click on "Edit". Copy the template tag from above, paste it at the top of your user page on Wikipedia, and click on Publish changes.

Place "{{db-u1}}" on your user page if you want to vanish completely. Your talk page will not be deleted unless there are exceptional circumstances. In most cases, you might need to contact the Arbitration Committee if you really want to have your user talk pages deleted.

File a rename request. To do so, go to this page and enter your new username. Make sure it is in the format Vanished user ####### (where # are random numbers). Please note, that the courtesy vanishing procedure is for users that want to leave Wikipedia PERMANENTLY. If you sign up for a new account at any time after the procedure is carried out, and are then discovered, the vanishing procedure may be reversed.