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As the title says, I wonder if scheduling for deletion of an account (say on The Workplace) will also delete the Meta account related to that Stack? (Meta The Workplace)

I checked How can I delete my account? but the answer does not specify that bit. It does mention that your meta posts are not deleted along with the "main" user and the delete-able posts.

That FAQ indicates a way to manually navigate to the URL for deletion. However, if I try it for meta.workplace I get a 404, and under Settings, there is no "delete" option when trying to do it on the meta site:

https://workplace.meta.stackexchange.com/users/delete/current

My hunch would be to say that the meta account is also deleted (as there is no option to do so, thus suggesting that to delete a meta account you have to delete the main one), but I wanted to be sure.

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2 Answers 2

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Yes, I searched for a recently deleted user on a Meta site who had posted a question (on Meta), they are no longer there.

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  • Thanks for your input bobeyt6. My prompt was motivated by a soon-to-be-deleted account on TWP who asked about this. In T -6 hours we will be able to observe if their meta counterpart is gone as well simultaneously, and get another empirical "yes"... although it would be nice to get a more "canonical" yes, or perhaps include it on that FAQ?
    – DarkCygnus
    Commented Jul 20, 2023 at 0:56
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    @DarkCygnus if you can't find it in the FAQ, then I doubt I can :P. There can be some weird glitches with account merging where only the meta account is left, but I don't think this applies to your situation :).
    – bobeyt6
    Commented Jul 20, 2023 at 2:52
  • Well it's kind of common sense thing, hence not in the FAQ. Since meta sites have no profile of their own (and this part is documented pretty well) it's common sense that deleting the main will result in the removal of the "secondary" meta profile.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Jul 20, 2023 at 7:52
  • @ShadowWizardStrikesBack yes I know it's common sense, but aren't FAQs a compendium of things many think as common sense?
    – DarkCygnus
    Commented Jul 20, 2023 at 17:43
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    BTW guys, @bobeyt6isstricken I see that the user I mentioned is gone both on meta and on TWP main, so we have proven empirically that this is true.
    – DarkCygnus
    Commented Jul 20, 2023 at 17:43
  • @DarkCygnus so we can always add to the FAQ. :-)
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Jul 20, 2023 at 19:50
  • @ShadowWizardStrikesBack I'll take a shot at editing it :)
    – DarkCygnus
    Commented Jul 20, 2023 at 19:55
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    @ShadowWizardStrikesBack done. I put it on the miscellaneous information at the bottom.
    – DarkCygnus
    Commented Jul 20, 2023 at 20:09
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They usually are, but of course there are exceptions. Here is a list of 930 Meta Stack Overflow accounts which have no direct counterpart (i.e. if you click "Main user" on their profile, you get a 404). A few of those accounts do have a main Stack Overflow account (which may have been recreated later) but with a different user ID.

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    But, question is how they got deleted. I assume most, if not all, are due to merge issues. And since the profile deletion became automatic (for ordinary users) doubt it's causing such a thing.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Jul 20, 2023 at 7:58
  • Thanks for the data Glorfindel. Huh... interesting... quickly browsing that data I see users that are 11+ years old and some that say a month ago, suggesting this exception/orphan accounts still happens. Seems that we found another question to enhance/clarify? :)
    – DarkCygnus
    Commented Jul 20, 2023 at 20:12

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