Wikipedia:Wikipedia welcomes but warns editors who strive for anonymity

As an editor on Wikipedia, you will have a choice:

• You can abstain from registering an account, instead making edits with one or several temporary accounts. This can be an option for the editor that edits infrequently, but for most users that return to the site, registering an account is preferable. This essay discusses users who decide to register an account.
• Creating an account is fast, easy, and free of charge. Registering an account provides various benefits. The first choice you have to make is come up with a username.
  • You can let everyone know who you are by using your real name as your user name. You are strongly discouraged from this choice unless you are absolutely certain this will not come back to haunt you: Wikipedia keeps permanent records of your account's editing history.
  • Or you can make your edits with a pseudonym, a made-up user name, making your true identity more difficult to ascertain. This is the preferred option for the vast majority of users.

Hoping to remain anonymous is your right. But there are ways in which your identity can be revealed, even if you desire to remain anonymous. In the modern era, you should never assume to remain anonymous if you have an online presence.

Even when you take every reasonable precaution to remain anonymous, your identity can still be revealed through no fault of your own. The amount of tracking and surveillance your browsing gets subjected to in the modern era can defeat even computer experts. The host of Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation, might be compelled through legal action to reveal your details. Even if there are no known breaches of Wikipedia's internal security, bad faith actors can still hack other accounts at other sites you might maintain and piece together your Wikipedia identity that way.

And of course, it's easy to accidentally out yourself. For example, if you are so proud of an article you created that you tell people you know in person, they may read the article, and from looking at your contributions, they can then learn what else you did on Wikipedia. It is very possible that you do not wish for these people (who could be your relatives, friends, or even your boss) to know about other edits you have previously made or that you plan to make in the future. So before you go and brag, you may wish to be aware of this.

You may also get to "know" other editors on Wikipedia (without knowing their true identities) if you work on a project or on many articles within a common area. These are people you may end up in deep discussions with. You may not want them to know about your other areas of interest.

Hiding such edits from your edit history is a legitimate use for having a second account.

Voluntarily sharing your identity

There are various ways in which you can share your identity with others if you do wish:

• Your username: You can make your username your own name, or a name that will be directly tied into your own identity (at least to those who know you). Or you can use a pseudonym, making it one through which no one can determine who you are.
• Your user page: You can provide information regarding your identity on your user page. Or you may leave this out. You do not even need a user page if you do not wish to have one.
• Discussions: Sometimes, there will be moments within discussions where it will be acceptable to reveal your identity. You are never under any obligation to do so, but this can occur.

Details of your identity

There are various details of one's identity that may be kept secret, but may be revealed by one's editing patterns.

• Gender/Race/Religion/Ethnicity: There is no need to reveal one's gender, race, religion, or ethnicity. But by looking at one's edit history, the articles one has edited may be those of interest to members of a particular group.
• Geographic location: There is no need to reveal where you live. But it is pretty common for people to make at least some edits to articles pertaining to the area where they live, and to have familiarity with these subjects. In order to avoid revealing where you live, if you wish to edit articles pertaining to your locality, create a separate account for this purpose or edit a variety of locality articles.
  • Timezone: Even if you actively avoid revealing your location, you will always leave behind some trace of your current timezone to anyone reading the edit history. If you have an account and edit regularly, this will accumulate over time into information about your location, free time, sleep schedule, workplace, or school. Months of active editing that sharply decline over one weekend may indicate the exact time span of your vacation.
• Interests: If you edit articles pertaining to a particular interest, particularly a place where you live or an unusual hobby, someone who knows you may be able to detect your writing style and specialized interests and determine you made these edits.
• Writing style and posting patterns: Large language models can analyze the posting patterns and writing styles of pseudonymous users to reveal their identities and connect otherwise separate accounts. Even if you use a completely anonymous Wikipedia account, you should not expect anonymity if you post anything elsewhere online written in your own voice.
• IP address (and other metadata): You may leave a data trail when visiting a web page at particular times that correlate to edits on Wikipedia (when verifying or adding a citation, for example that requires visiting a specific article). This data may be available through data brokers or other means to connect your IP address and identity to your pseudonymous account or anonymous edits.

See also

• Wikipedia:An article about yourself isn't necessarily a good thing
• Wikipedia:Anonymity
• Wikipedia:Outing
• Wikipedia:How to not get outed on Wikipedia
• Wikipedia:How to protect your privacy on Wikipedia from outside interference
• Wikipedia:Wikipedia is in the real world
• Wikipedia:IP edits are not anonymous
• Wikipedia:IPs are human too
• Wikipedia:IP addresses are not people