I have meticulously read through similar questions, answers and their comments but I still do not understand how the deletion is done. From what I understand I email the customer service and then they do what exactly? > 1) They disable my account so that I can no longer use it? > > 2) They reassign all of my questions and answers to some other > account? To which one? > > 3) They delete all my questions and answers so that they go away from > public view? What is the flexibility (if it exists) of the deletion procedure? Is it possible to erase the traces of my former association with the site. Can I request any of the following be done? > 4) All of my questions and answers be deleted from public view? > > 5) Some of my questions and answers be deleted? If yes what criteria? > > 6) Can I have all of my contributions be assigned to some other > account which runs as sort of a "collective account" and already has > tons of content so that it doesn't happen like my contributions just > move to some other url but still stay grouped under that location and > therefore that location can be discovered as representing my account? > > 7) Can I have my contributions dispersed through several "collective > accounts? > > 8) Can my current public name be removed from any comments to my posts > so that my posts cannot be identified later as once belonging to me? Please be polite with me. I wouldn't have asked if I have found the answer in the other questions. The other questions are also old and it is not clear what the situation is as per 05/2012. UPDATE (for those interested): I asked the Stackoverflow team about the procedure. Apparently none of the points 2-8 I asked above are possible, only 1 will take place. The link to my user page from my contributions is going to be removed and replaced with non-clickable text of an anonymized user name like "user1234". Whether this number is the same as my current user_id is not clear. That's all the information I got. I'm going now to rename myself to "Anonymous" then request the account deletion. Those interested in the procedure will witness the exact result on this page. Farewell.