# Anonymize user quotes keeps username
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymize-user-quotes-keeps-username/60281
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [April 1, 2017, 12:33pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymize-user-quotes-keeps-username/60281 "2017-04-01T12:33:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Patrick\_David](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Patrick_David)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2017, 12:33pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymize-user-quotes-keeps-username/60281/1 "2017-04-01T12:33:19Z")
Not sure if this is going to suck or not (I feel like it probably will).
I recently anonymized a user at their request. Everything appeared to work as intended with the exception of the retention of the username in all replies where they were quoted. ☹
Is this expected behavior? It seems like it’ll require some work to really scrub the username association with quotes, but it also feels like it should be done for consistency?
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2017, 7:57pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymize-user-quotes-keeps-username/60281/2 "2017-04-01T19:57:50Z")
It has always worked this way, the replace would be very expensive.
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### Author:  [@Patrick\_David](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Patrick_David)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2017, 8:09pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymize-user-quotes-keeps-username/60281/3 "2017-04-01T20:09:37Z")
That’s what I figured. 😬
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2017, 8:36pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymize-user-quotes-keeps-username/60281/4 "2017-04-01T20:36:29Z")
If you are interested in globally replacing to anonymize the quotes in other people’s posts for that user, perhaps @techAPJ can write up how to do that at some point.
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### Author:  [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2017, 11:48pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymize-user-quotes-keeps-username/60281/5 "2017-04-01T23:48:29Z")
I did some testing on this a while ago, though I never got as far as to dig into the code involved.
Rebaking old posts will result in the anonymized name being displayed.
But quotes are not the only place where prior names will display. They also remain in @ mentions and Notifications.
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### Author:  [@mattbr](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mattbr)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2018, 1:01pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymize-user-quotes-keeps-username/60281/6 "2018-05-18T13:01:15Z")
@gerhard I just saw your post over on: [https://meta.discourse.org/t/ability-to-merge-users/9220/102?u=mattbr](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ability-to-merge-users/9220/102)
With the release of 2.0.0.beta10 does anonymizing users also update their mentions, quotes and avatars as well?
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### Author:  [@gerhard](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gerhard)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2018, 1:08pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymize-user-quotes-keeps-username/60281/7 "2018-05-18T13:08:24Z")
Yes, it does. See also [Anonymizing Users in Discourse](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymizing-users-in-discourse/86929)
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### Author:  [@gerhard](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gerhard)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2018, 1:08pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymize-user-quotes-keeps-username/60281/8 "2018-05-18T13:08:57Z")