1. A method comprises: receiving a delete data object request to delete a data object within a dispersed storage network (DSN); determining a set of dispersed storage (DS) units within the DSN that store a set of encoded data slices associated with the data object; determining a revision number of the set of encoded data slices; determining a delete marker based on one or more of information in the delete data object request, operational parameters, the set of DS units, a data object name, a source name, a slice name and the revision number; sending the delete marker and a write command to the set of DS units for deletion of the data object; receiving at least one receive write acknowledgement from at least some DS units of the set of DS units to produce the deletion; when a number of the write acknowledgements received from the at least some DS units meets a write threshold, sending a commit command to the set of DS units and receiving commit acknowledgements from at least some DS units; and when a number of the commit acknowledgements received from the at least some DS units meets the write threshold, sending a finalize command to the set of DS units to delete the data object.