A similar concept does already exist as an extension, DisableAccount, except only privileged users may do so. For reference, Fandom adds this ability with their in-house developed extension CloseMyAccount.

Whatever "Fandom" is (probably some hosting service?

Wikia renamed themselves to Fandom.

It would supplement the right to vanish. What close my account does is scramble the password, remove the email address, and change the real name to Deleted Account.

See my questions in T166858#3310169 :)

In T166858#3310169, @Aklapper wrote:

Whatever "Fandom" is (probably some hosting service?),

Yes, Fandom is the global community for all wikis on Wikia.

there is the ability to close one's own account.

Why would you like to "close" an account, compared to not using an account anymore? Which problems does that solve?

Closing accounts prevents unused accounts from being compromised or becoming sockpuppets.

This task currently proposes a solution to an unknown problem.

The problem is similar to why Google and Microsoft offer account closure. It removes most of the evidence that the user never existed: it removes the user's credentials, removes the settings, and scrambles the password, but does not remove the user's contributions.

Can you add that functionality to Wikimedia?

Is this a request to review and deploy the "CloseMyAccount" extension on Wikimedia servers?

Yes

(Removing MediaWiki-User-management tag as this does not seem to be a request to write code in MediaWiki core.)

I don't think this request would be done. The account itself can't be deleted (what should be done with its edits) and choosing between the account would be "blocked" by invaliding password and removing mail or simply isn't used, it seems like almost the same. At worst user can generate random pass and remove mail hisself. But I know about an user who has done it 3 times and always returned ;).

In T166858#3311220, @UpsandDowns1234 wrote:

It would supplement the right to vanish. What close my account does is scramble the password, remove the email address, and change the real name to Deleted Account.

You can vanish. Simply don't use your account.

In T166858#3313114, @UpsandDowns1234 wrote:

Is this a request to review and deploy the "CloseMyAccount" extension on Wikimedia servers?

Yes

In that case, see https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Review_queue for the steps.

There is https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Right_to_vanish, you can request a rename of your account, and request a block on local wikis.

Closure is different from deletion - Deletion removes all existence that the account existed, closure prevents the user from logging in by scrambling the password and changing the username.

In that case we can change the guidelines onwiki as well. Locking such an account would do the same thing, the only difference is, that a steward would need to perform such an action, so we would not need such an extension. When global locks where established, there was a consensus or decision to do not lock accounts on self-request.

The extension should be deployed, only that the username is changed to deletedaccount-[x] where x is the number for the deleted account.

In T166858#3333595, @UpsandDowns1234 wrote:

The extension should be deployed

See T166858#3313519 for the steps you (or anyone else interested in getting it deployed) needs to follow.

Well, as someone who regularly performs RtV requests it'd be more confortable for us if users willing to quit could do it themselves. It'd require a big scary red box saying what that special page would do and that after that there's no way to come back and a confirmation checkbox. On the other hand I worry that someone in the rise of an argument uses this when upset and later realizes that it was a mistake.

@MarcoAurelio there is a 30-day grace period. Adding email reminders at T-30 days, T-15 days, T-5 days, and T-1 day can ensure that the editor is aware that their account is closed.

Looks good to me then.

In T166858#3309917, @Mainframe98 wrote:

A similar concept does already exist as an extension, DisableAccount, except only privileged users may do so. For reference, Fandom adds this ability with their in-house developed extension CloseMyAccount.

DisableAccount is being dropped from Wikimedia: T106067

Before we can even consider this the full https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Review_queue steps have to occur. Currently some are missing.

In T166858#3483746, @MarcoAurelio wrote:

Before we can even consider this the full https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Review_queue steps have to occur. Currently some are missing.

And before anyone spends any time doing that... We need to decide if we actually want it on WMF wikis. A discussion a bit more than a few people on a phab ticket is necessary

Plus... Where's the source code? (hint, it's not in gerrit) Where's the extension page? https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CloseMyAccount

@Reedy Indeed. I've been looking for the code as well on Gerrit/Phab and cannot see it. Without the code we indeed cannot proceed.

http://community.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Closing_an_account#How_to_close_your_account does not give any hint as to where the code is hosted, at least not to me. In any case, the extension should be modified to work with Wikimedia: we use no avatars nor "real name" fields; and we also want probably that the account be renamed to random gibberish as well. In any case, I'd say to ask first at Meta or enwp what do they think about this extension before continuing.

CloseMyAccount can be found in Wikia's App repo on GitHub: https://github.com/Wikia/app/tree/dev/extensions/wikia/CloseMyAccount. They don't have separate repositories for their extensions, rather, their own extensions are in the wikia folder in the extensions folder.

So we literally have to fork it to do this

And it's going to need a lot of work/rewriting to remove the Wikia specific code

Regarding the Community-consensus-needed tag, I would bring this up to the Village pump on Wikipedia, but am currently indefblocked. Where else can I mention this?

I actually realize that this should do the same thing as global locking except that they are given a link to unlock their account that expires in thirty days. Of course, if they contact a steward, then the account can be reactivated, but this will likely be declined unless if their account was compromised.

In other words, modify the extension before deploying.

@UpsandDowns1234: You need to file dedicated tickets for specific issues in the issue tracker of that extension (wherever that is). This task is only about a far away future deployment. This task is not a catch-all for random issues with that extension.

Okay

So, to sum up. It's a Wikia extension we'd need to fork and adapt for WMF use. This requires work and a person or a team willing to invest time and efforts on it. If there are someone interested, we can start forking the repo and importing it to our Gerrit repositories. If there's no one or no team willing to do this I'd say we could decline.

In T166858#4167657, @MarcoAurelio wrote:

So, to sum up. It's a Wikia extension we'd need to fork and adapt for WMF use. This requires work and a person or a team willing to invest time and efforts on it. If there are someone interested, we can start forking the repo and importing it to our Gerrit repositories. If there's no one or no team willing to do this I'd say we could decline.

If Wikia are still using it... They're supposed to be rebuilding their stuff ontop of REL1_30 or so... If it's actually wanted, letting them do that work first, would save some effort

Yes, good point.