2. Personal information on Wikimedia projects

2.1 Username selection

We recommend that you use a unique pseudonym to identify yourself in Wikimedia projects, as all of your edits will be publicly attributed to the username you choose. 

If you edit topics that are likely to generate controversy (including feminist topics, biographies of living women, politics, climate change, etc.), using your real name as a username increases the risk of being a target of harassment outside of Wikipedia. Using the pseudonym you use on other digital platforms can make it easier for your Wikipedia account to be associated with your accounts and activities in those spaces, and for your identity outside Wikipedia to be gradually built up.

It’s possible to edit Wikipedia without creating an account. In this case, the IP address of the device you’re connecting from will be recorded and displayed in the history tab of the page you’ve edited, which creates the possibility of bad actors tracking your geographic location. 

2.1.1 Modifying your username

If you have few or no edits, the easiest way is to modify your username is to leave the account and create a new one. If you want all your previous editions to be linked to your new username, you will need to request the change via this page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:GlobalRenameRequest. There you must indicate the new username you want. Make sure that this name has not been used by someone else. It’s not possible to delete an account on Wikipedia. 

2.2 Userpages

Userpages are places where you share relevant information about yourself with other Wikipedia editors. We recommended that you carefully consider what information you wish to share on this page, as it’ll remain accessible, even if you delete it because it will remain in the page’s View history section. The only exception to this is in limited cases to protect privacy, remove defamatory material, and sometimes to remove serious copyright violations, from any edit, revision, page, or log entry (including, if required, the list of users) on the English Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:Oversight.