Now, anyone can click on my user name and see all my posts on all my sites.
If I delete my accounts on, say, 2 sites, will they still be linked in that way? Or will those deleted accounts look like they belong to 2 completely independent users?
2 Answers
The accounts will be gone. There is not going to be any indication they were linked.
Any posts from those accounts will have a grey user card with the now-defunct user id on them, with no link to an account.
It is theoretically possible for someone to link the user id to your other accounts if they look at archived copies of Stack Exchange pages. The Internet Archive could include copies of the page with a username on it, or contain one of your other account listing your connected accounts, and by looking at the URL you could confirm it is the same user id. This requires luck and considerable sleuthing however.
answered Mar 16, 2015 at 7:45
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1So in most cases, it would be hard if not impossible to reverse-engineer that connection? Mar 16, 2015 at 7:48
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@ВГДЕЖЅZЗИІКЛМНОПҀРСТȢѸФХ: it would indeed be hard to reverse engineer deleted account ownership. Mar 16, 2015 at 7:49
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1Well, unless there are some meta questions refering other user's questions on other sites... Mar 16, 2015 at 7:52
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Yes, if there are posts explicitly naming a user while linking to posts on a site they are now deleted from, then that's a different kind of record of the connection. Mar 16, 2015 at 7:55
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1@ВГДЕЖЅZЗИІКЛМНОПҀРСТȢѸФХ it is possible, I already was in this situation. I deleted my account and my question got unassociated. In a few months later, I recreated my account and requested my question to be linked back to my account. You need to provide your email you uses to create the old deleted account.– nicaelMar 16, 2015 at 8:07
There would be no link at all, cuz there won't be any account anymore. Just bare "user{your-user-id}", no link, no rep, no badges, template avatar.
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1A SE-ghost so to speak– user273376Mar 16, 2015 at 9:56