Wikipedia:Deceased Wikipedians/Guidelines

Main pageGuidelinesDiscussionProject members

This is the procedure for dealing with the accounts, user pages, and user rights of deceased Wikipedians as established by community consensus in this discussion.

On verification

The first step is to make absolutely sure that the user in question has indeed died. This is easiest to do if you had regular prior contact with the editor, e.g., being connected on social media, knowing their name and address, or having prior contact in e-mail. If Special:EmailUser is enabled, then a surviving family member may have access to their registered e-mail account and may be able to confirm the report; alternatively, the editor may write back to say they're fine and have just stopped editing Wikipedia.

Reliable sources are key to counteracting incorrect claims. If possible, multiple attestation is desirable, as death hoaxes have appeared on wiki, and even in reliable print sources. Waiting several days is also helpful, as "pranks" and faked deaths on social media are usually resolved within that time span.

If a user's death is posted on wiki by someone claiming to be a relation or a friend of the deceased, a CheckUser investigation may be conducted to determine whether the post likely came from the same location or computer.

It is not necessary to post a link to an obituary or publicly share any evidence. If the user had not disclosed their real-life identity on wiki, then please use caution when linking to any off-wiki communication. If you are unsure of whether posting a link to an obituary or other such notice is appropriate, please contact the Oversight team for a second opinion.

If you cannot confirm the death with certainty, then please list the editor at Wikipedia:Missing Wikipedians instead of in Wikipedia:Deceased Wikipedians.

What to do

On their user page

When it is confirmed that the user has indeed died, the community recommends communicating this on the user's page. There are several ways to do this.

• Consider leaving a hatnote or other message at the top of the User: page and/or the User_talk: page to let other editors know that the user has died. The most common way to do this is to post the {{Deceased Wikipedian}} template.
  • This step may be bypassed if the family does not desire the information to be shared at this time.
• Please leave a request at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection to ask that their User: page be fully protected, to prevent vandals from defacing the page.
• Finally, if the user is notable, please check to see if there is an article, Wikidata item or Wikimedia Commons category about them, and update as required.

On their talk page

Consider leaving a message on the talk page to let other editors know that the editor has died. Those who choose to do so may leave tasteful condolence comments on the talk page; see the information below about memorial pages for more information.

• Consider adding the {{Deceased Wikipedian}} template at the top of their User_talk: page. This template automatically adds Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to the page, which should stop most automated messages.
  • If you don't want to add the {{Deceased Wikipedian}} template, then you can add the {{nobots}} template and the Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery category. This combination will prevent most boilerplate messages from being delivered by bots and scripts.
  • Generally, editors avoid adding discussion or deletion notifications, such as automated WP:XFD notifications generated by Twinkle, to the talk page after someone has died. However, if the editor has created many articles, and the page is being watched by many active editors, then keeping these notifications may be desired.
• You may edit the user's talk page to archive old discussions, as well as any notices about disputes, warnings, or deletions.
• Unsubscribe the user from any automated newsletters, such as The Signpost, Tech News, WikiProject updates, etc.

About the account

Getting the account locked at Meta-Wiki

As a symbolic gesture of respect, accounts of deceased Wikipedians should not be blocked locally (unless they have been compromised). However, while local blocks are almost never done, stewards will usually globally lock the account of a deceased user to prevent impersonation and for security, upon confirmation of death. They will require some evidence that the editor has died. (This information can be sent in e-mail to protect privacy.)

• Request a global lock (not global block) at meta:Steward requests/Global for that Wikipedian's account(s).
• Add the Meta-Wiki template for deceased editors or a similar note to the top of their User: page at Meta-Wiki. This will update their global user page. If they did not have a User: page at Meta-Wiki, then it is acceptable to create a User: page at Meta-Wiki for this purpose. If they were active on Meta-Wiki, it may also be helpful to add the template or a similar note to the top of their Meta-Wiki User_talk: page.

Removing any advanced user rights

Please request the removal of any advanced user rights to prevent harm to the encyclopedia if the account gets hacked in the future as soon as practicable. Most editors do not have any advanced user rights. You can check for these user rights by putting their username into Special:UserRights. For example, at Special:UserRights/Jimbo Wales, the box "View user groups" says "Member of: Extended confirmed users, Founder, Pending changes reviewers".

• For most editors, the only user rights listed are Extended confirmed users and "Implicit member of: Autoconfirmed users". If that's the case, nothing needs to be done, and you can move on to the next step.
• The user rights to be removed locally primarily include template editor, edit filter manager and helper, administrator, and interface administrator. You can post this request at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard.
  • Please edit the editor's User: page to remove any user rights categories. If the category has been added via a userbox or other template, add |nocat=yes to templates such as {{Administrator topicon}}, to prevent it from automatically listing users in an active category.
• Some local user rights have to be removed through a global process. They are bureaucrat, checkuser, and oversight. If the user has any of these user rights, you can post this at meta:Steward requests/Permissions#Removal of access.

Notifying other wikis

Most Wikipedia editors only edit a few wikis, but some have been active in many communities, including other languages of Wikipedia, Commons, Wikidata, and other sister projects. It would be helpful to notify those other communities. There are two ways to do this:

• Find out whether the editor was active in any other communities. Do this by going to Special:CentralAuth, which has a complete list of every wiki the editor has ever visited (read) and a list of how many edits they made at each one. This will also show if they have any user rights (e.g., sysop) at other wikis.
• For communities where the person was active (usually more than a few edits): Notify the community. This can be done by:
  • Adding {{deceased}} (or the local equivalent) to the User: or User_talk: page. Do not create a local User: page for this purpose. If they do not have a local User: page, then the global user page that you updated or created at Meta-Wiki should display instead. If you need to find a list of all of the existing local User: pages, then try the https://global-search.toolforge.org/ (e.g., https://global-search.toolforge.org/?q=.*&regex=1&namespaces=2&title=Example for User:Example).
  • Posting a note on their User_talk: page to explain the situation. (It can be written in English.)
  • Posting a note at the local wikis' 'village pumps' (list of links sorted by project and language) or equivalent pages.
• If the person has any advanced user rights at other wikis, or any global user rights (e.g., global sysop), those should also be removed.
  • Every community has its own process for handling local user rights removal. However, you don't need to figure out every single process yourself. Just post a note at their village pump, or ask any active admin (type Special:ListAdmins into the search bar to get a complete list of all admins at that local wiki), and someone there should take care of all the details for you.
    • If you're headed to a wiki where they speak an unfamiliar language, remember that most web browsers have some built-in machine translation tools. You can also set the interface language for all WMF-hosted wikis to English at Special:GlobalPreferences. This won't change the content of the pages, but it will help you find the 'Edit' buttons and read the standard menu items.
  • When you made your request at meta:Steward requests/Global to have the account locked, the Stewards probably also removed any global user rights at that time. However, if you want to make a separate request, then it belongs at meta:Steward requests/Permissions#Removal of access.

On WP:RIP and memorial pages

Constructively contributing community members who have died can be honored with a listing at WP:RIP. Criteria for inclusion in Wikipedia:Deceased Wikipedians page are flexible, but these are generally popular reasons:

• The user should have been active enough to be considered part of the community. As of 2026, this usually means thousands of edits over months or years, but there is no set rule, and a person can be part of the community without having this level of activity, and a person can have this level of activity without having formed any relationships within the community.
• Another editor personally remembers that person and wishes to memorialize their involvement in Wikipedia.
• No one familiar with the situation has any significant doubt about whether the person died.
• The family has not objected, and there is no reason to believe that the user objected to it prior to their death.

Entries to the Wikipedia:Deceased Wikipedians page should generally be similar to the other entries. This means, for example, they are usually short (typically less than 150 words), are primarily focused on facts, always contain a link to the editor's user page, might or might not contain a photo of the person, and do not contain inspirational content (e.g., decorative images, poems, quotations, or overly personal messages to the deceased editor; however, a very brief remark, such as "Rest in peace", is unlikely to be removed). Entries to the page should be as tasteful as possible; edits that fail to be tasteful will be removed.

Messages to surviving loved ones can be left on the deceased editor's User_talk: page. This is a more suitable place for personal messages, inspirational content, etc. Comments attacking or disparaging the deceased are in bad taste and will be removed.

These pages are not mandatory; they are created by the community, for the community, rather than as a requirement.

Consider notifying The Signpost by posting a comment in the Newsroom talk page or the Signpost's suggestion page. Optionally, you may include suggested content for an obituary to be published in The Signpost.

Also

If the user was close to you (e.g. a close friend or loved one), you can also add {{User grieving}} or the userbox User:Pdebee/UBX/RemembersAbsentFriend to your user page or talk page.

If you would like to remember your friend with an editing project, you can check their sandbox and other user subpages, or their more recent contributions, to see if there is any unfinished work. Some editors find comfort and satisfaction in finishing work that was left behind.

Planning ahead

If you are approaching the end of your life and you wish to have the Wikipedia community informed of your eventual passing, you can make some simple arrangements to let others know. These can include:

• Leaving a note on your User: page if you have a serious medical situation. This can be done with a template such as {{User health inactive}} or {{In case of death}}, or by just posting an ordinary message on your talk page.
• Privately contacting a couple of editors you trust, to see if they would like to be notified. For example, if you are both Facebook friends, and you expect your loved ones to post the funeral arrangements to Facebook, then they will be able to see that information and relay it as necessary to the Wikipedia community. Alternatively, if your loved ones will send e-mail to a list of people that you would like to have notified, then you could put their e-mail addresses on the list.
• If you don't mind permanently disclosing your identity on wiki, you can post your name on your User: page along with enough information (e.g., your location) that it will be easy for someone to find obituary information.
• Tell a loved one that you would like them to notify the community, and give them a simple way to do this (e.g., tell them how to post a note on your User_talk: page). This information can be written down with any other information about arrangements you are making.