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Allow users to delete their account. Then display "[deleted]" for the username in the comment threads. If you want the names to ensure they stay unique in a given thread you could generate a new token for the user and show something like "[deleted-xS72d]".

This would allow users to disassociate their comments with their online handle but not screw up the old threads by deleting the actual content.

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Although then someone might set up a mapping file saying "deleted-xS72d equals ptaipale" and 10000 similar records. It might be illegal in EU countries, but that doesn't stop it from happening somewhere in the US, or China, or South America, or whatever.

I've faced similar requests on a small board that I maintain, and there's no very good solution that wouldn't break the right of others to keep their own submissions intact and meaningful.

Could make the deleted-suffix unique for every thread of comments, this would be a reasonable balance between allowing the interplay of conversation participants to be left unscathed, and preventing tracking/correlation of comments across the entire site.

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