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There is something I don't know:

Who can delete an user account on M.SE?

I'm asking this because yesterday an user have posted this question, I've took a look at his profile and I've noticed that he was registered the same day, but today his account is deleted. Actually I've thought that only the moderators can delete an account.

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    $\begingroup$ Sufficiently high reputation: only SE admins; below that: SE mods; unregistered accounts with little to no activity can delete themselves, if I recall correctly. $\endgroup$
    – Asaf Karagila Mod
    Dec 29, 2013 at 9:47
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    $\begingroup$ The particular case looks like a single-post account, and in all likelihood it was self-deleted as shown here. Self-deletion is immediate; deletion requests to SE team take a little while to be granted. $\endgroup$
    – Post No Bulls
    Dec 29, 2013 at 18:29

1 Answer 1

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Users can delete their account themselves if they have never voted or posted more than once. Beyond this threshold they have to contact SE, those mails are handled by the SE community team who have the ability to delete any user.

Diamond moderators can also delete users up to some unpublished threshold.

There are only two reasons why accounts are deleted:

  • the user requested the deletion themselves
  • the user was used to spam or to post offensive content and had no posts with any value at all.
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  • $\begingroup$ Is the unpublished threshold published to moderators, or do they have to try and contact SE otherwise? $\endgroup$
    – Asaf Karagila Mod
    Dec 29, 2013 at 10:23
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    $\begingroup$ @AsafKaragila We were never told the threshold, it is not documented anywhere as far as I know. We only know that it probably exists from comments by SE employees related to the incident here on MSE that triggered the limitation of moderator powers for deleting users. It actually doesn't really matter anyway, deletion requests are almost all handled by SE, and high-rep user deletions are rare. $\endgroup$
    – user9733
    Dec 29, 2013 at 10:25

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