The "delete account" button is too scary and could be used to grief

I'd rather delete deletes your account, cred, etc. but leaves claims and comments. It can change who said them to deleted-account, that'd be fine. But keep discussions alive.

It's on your home page, under account settings.

At least, if comments are deleted, I would prefer that there was a placeholder left behind; something like "this comment has been deleted", so that those reading threads later aren't confused.

Agreed.

Plus, it wipes some of my favorite comments!

I remember reading somewhere comments and such made online remain the intellectual property of the author, and the site must remove or redact them on their request... Can anyone say for sure?

i doubt that's universally true, though it may be true on jyte. however, that can be a separate process from deleting the account.

it entirely depends on the TOS.

While the owner maintains copyright (usually), there is an implicit license to publish upon posting on a public website. Whether that is an idefinate, royalty free license or not depends on what you agreed to when you made your account.

Is that a dare? Are you daring me? Paypal me a dollar or I'm deleting my account.

Where's my dollar!?