On 3/6/06, Jan Vanoverpelt <jan.vanoverpelt(a)gmail.com> wrote: Because, as typical for a MySQL targeted application, our database schema doesn't ask the database to enforce referential integrity. As a result it is possible, through the deletion of users, that you can leave the database in what is effectively, from MediaWiki's perspective at least, a corrupted state: Our behavior is not (well)-defined for many cases where a user is referenced but does not exist. Deletion is possible as long as you understand the schema and MediaWiki's operation well enough to perform it... but the software wasn't designed with that in mind, so you have to watch out for pitfalls. An easier solution would be to just rename such users with a name that will end up at the end of the sorted output. As to why people would want to do this, it's simple: bad intentioned users have realized that if they spam the userlist on MediaWiki sites their spamming will likely go unremoved.