Wikipedia talk:Username policy/Archive 18

Product name as username

Is products name like AMD64 allowable as username User:AMD64? I don't think so. This could bring an up serge of usernames like user:coreI7. --Tyw7  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 20:34, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

• I really don't see an issue with it. Having a username on Wikipedia is not going to be at all effective in promoting a product, and I think we are too quick to block users with so-called promotional usernames. Now, if a user demonstrates by their actions that their primary goal on Wikipedia is to promote a product in a non-neutral manner, then warn/block for that. But the username itself isn't a big deal, and we should keep in mind that it's rather difficult to come up with an unused username in the first instance. Sometimes people, having tried a bunch of different names and found them taken, will look around the room and use a product name for a login (I've done this before at other sites). Incidentally, see Wikipedia:RFCN#Lenovo09. –xeno^talk 20:40, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
  • I disagree with you there, for the reasons I outlined above. When a username implies a corporate representation, it is corrosive to our intended environment of peer interaction. Right now there's an instinctive revulsion to such usernames, and I think that's the way it should be. On the same token, I don't like that some WMF employees have put WMF or such in their name. No one here has any special editorial authority (except for official office actions of course). Gigs (talk) 15:03, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
    • I don't share your instinctive revulsion, and I'm not sure to what extent the community does. I think that we (collectively) have been using the username policy as a bit of an end-run around blocking someone for inappropriate COI editing, which usually involves a little more work. For the most part, I really don't care what someone's username is - as long as they are making good edits. If they are making good edits, I'd rather we gently suggest they change their username, rather than blocking straight away and potentially driving off a constructive contributor. What I'm trying to say is that it is not so black and white (see [1], for example) and blocking absent evidence of inappropriate editing should not be a first step. –xeno^talk 15:32, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
      • I'm not saying it is black and white. There's a small company named Gigs, Inc even, who beat me to registering gigs.com. Where I differ is that when a username specifically discloses a employer relationship, I don't think that should be allowed, as it implies that user is special somehow. Gigs (talk) 16:17, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
        • This particular thread is about product names like "AMD64", "Lenovo9", etc. - which may imply an employer relationship, or it may simply be that the user had such a hard time coming up with a username that was not taken that they looked around the room and picked one from the first product name they saw. –xeno^talk 16:21, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
        • It's probably a matter of interpretation. I see "User:Bob at Microsoft" as "Hi, I'm Bob and I happen to work at Microsoft", while others seem to interpret it as "Hi, I'm Bob and I speak for/have some kind of authority in regards to my company". --Conti|✉ 17:53, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

How about this then. Warning then if edits without heeding forcible rename or block.Tyw7  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 22:01, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Like I said, I don't see a huge problem with using a product for a username. If they are making inappropriate promotional edits, they can be blocked for that - but if they are making good edits, there is no sense driving off a constructive contributor. –xeno^talk 20:40, 14 January 2011 (UTC) 22:21, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

• I don't see anything wrong with it, either, as long as they're not pretending to represent the company owning the product. --Conti|✉ 22:24, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

deactivating RFC tag. You have FOUR RFC tags on different pages all about the same thing. -- Ned Scott 03:14, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

• Didn't we just have this same RfC right above? Gigs (talk) 14:58, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Real names as an adjective in the username

A recent RFC/NAME case has me concerned about the precise wording of this policy at "Do not edit under the name of a well-known living person unless it is your real name" and I can't find the exact issue in the archives here. I'll try to make the story as short as possible. I think what I'm getting at is that the wording should be changed to do not use the name of an identifiable living or recently-deceased person as any part of your username unless..., only something actually coherent.

User registers as "Jane Smith's Man" and I question it as it made me feel a little uneasy. Jane is a person of minor (non-article) notability, but still googleable. This goes to RFC where it is still visible (and needs to be cleaned up I think). The outcome is allow, and I think the commenters there made a correct interpretation of the policy as-written and I myself was able to interpret the name as similar to declaring oneself as a fan of the person. However it all went pear-shaped and the end result was that a Google search for "Jane Smith" showed on the first page of results a link leading to an adult declaring his love for, and personal relationship with, a 13-year-old girl, all hosted on the WMF servers. Eventually I blocked, we got an agreed-to name change, and cleaned up most of what will hopefully soon get recrawled into oblivion. There were myriad reasons to make the block, but among the foremost was the possibility of real-world reputational harm to a living person. However I found it very difficult to pin down the exact policy basis for my action.

Hard cases make bad law, but I think what is missing here is attention to use of a real name in adjectival form. User:George W. Bush's Lawyer would be disallowed as potentially misleading unless proven, but what about User:Barack Obama's Worst Nightmare? As written, I think policy would allow that one. This is not a big problem within Wikipedia itself, if they went on to be disruptive enough on political articles we would block them based on behaviour. HOWEVER, Wikipedia has a real-world impact via mirrors and search-engines, so borderline incompetence / malice / deviousness / whatever can mean that the username can rank right up there with legitimate search results. Thus I think the policy wording should change to prevent any declaration of association with an identifiable living individual.

That's as short as I can make it, not sure if I am expressing myself well, but I think there's an issue here that could use some discussion. Franamax (talk) 00:58, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I do believe I know exactly who you are referring to as this was recently at ANI. In the long run I suspect the username will be the least of that user's worries, their attitude and communication difficulties are exacerbating the situation to greater extent than their name. As this is a fairly rare occurrence I'm not sure we need to worry about it as far as the wording of policy is concerned. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:32, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, that one. And yes, no matter how they signed, they were editing their way out the door no matter what, almost from day one. But that's sort-of my point, while that slow and unfortunate process was happening, there was a search-indexing process happening too which linked the on-wiki problems of the editor in a very visible way with the name of a living person who was not themself. Wikipedia seems to have enormous clout with page-ranking algorithms, shouldn't we be aware of that when it comes to this sort of BLP-type issue? Since UNAME issues tend to arise before anything is known about the editor, isn't a preventive approach the better way to go? And since as you say it is a (fortunately) rare problem, presumably more restrictive wording in the policy would inconvenience very few prospective registered editors. Franamax (talk) 07:25, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

• I agree with Franamax here: if the username policy does not prohibit usernames that are using names of living persons in a potentially offensive manner (such as the case that motivated this thread), and the result is that people at RFCN are voting to allow them, then the UN policy needs to be brought in line with the general hardline we take with regards to material about living persons (see Wikipedia:BLP#Where BLP does and does not apply). I agree that these are rare cases, but the example here has been mirrored widely, perhaps because of the delay in addressing it. –xeno^talk 14:32, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
• I have amended the policy to clarify matters: [2]. The only substantive change is that you should not include the real name of a living person that isn't you, whether they are well-known or not. The spirit of the material on well-known names has been retained. Gigs (talk) 15:12, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
  • While I have some reservations about that change (one person's pseudonym may be another (not well-known) person's real name), I would in general say that change is ok...however it could maybe use a bit further review because, for example, if I had an internet pseudonym Scott O'Donnell and chose to edit as User:Scott O'Donnell, it probably would be someone else's real name and wouldn't be my real name, but yet it would still be my valid identity on the internet...yet I would be disallowed from using it under this wording of the policy. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 15:32, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
    • We might adopt some language similar to what is used in the US as the legal standard for simulated child pornography. The standard there is that it can be associated with an "identifiable" person. Bob Smith wouldn't be identifiable but Cherry Chevapravatdumrong would be (even if she weren't well-known). Gigs (talk) 16:46, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
      • Would "known living person" work? The bar should be higher than "well-known" but not as high as "can find in phone book". Franamax (talk) 20:11, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I support this amendmend because one can use another name as a means to stiffle arguement. For example, who would argue against someone with a username of User:BillGate's_Assistant if s/he adds an unverified/crystal ball new version of Windows. --Tyw7  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 23:42, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I would, and so would every Wikipedian who's heard about WP:OR. --Conti|✉ 17:15, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Ban all names like so and so's something. How would you like a username like User:Coti's puppet. It would imply associatoin with someone else, even though they may not be. To avoid confusion, such usernames should be made illigable. --Tyw7  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 09:40, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Please, our username policy is crazy enough. We really don't need to restrict it even further so we're going to block everyone who might hint at some kind of association with someone else. --Conti|✉ 11:25, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes but someone would be hesistant to block User:Coti's sock or User:Coti's alternative account because of a possible association with User:Coti eventhough those accounts may be vandalizing. Also some newbys may shout at User:Coti if those fake account do something malicious to Wikipedia. --Tyw7  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 12:26, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Impersonating other people is already disallowed. --Conti|✉ 12:40, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Well if you allow such user name as User:BillGate's Assistant or User:Chzz's lover you are impling a relationship even though they are not. --Tyw7  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 12:58, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

There is a big difference between impersonation and implying a relationship. --Conti|✉ 13:00, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Impersonation and implying a relationship is almost the same. For example, User:Tyw7's legal alternative account is trying to imply a relationship between me and the user although there is non. In addition, User:Cotni's girlfried is trying to impersonate well.. Conti's girlfriend--Tyw7  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 13:16, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Need more warnings on using real names

People should be warned that if they use their real names editors may track down everything they've every said anywhere on any topic under dispute and use it to claim they are "too POV" to edit on the topic. Apparently it is quite wiki-legal. I certainly would not have used my real name if I knew that. I'm quite disgusted. CarolMooreDC (talk) 01:25, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't see how we could word a warning that using your real name will reveal your real name. Pardon my bluntness but I would have thought that was obvious. The use of off-wiki communications and postings as evidence of bias or bad behavior is not actually "wiki-legal" in all cases, but I assume you are referring to the current report at WP:COIN. As someone there has already said "it is not outing when an editor disclosed that they edit under their own name, and self-discloses their off-wiki activities." They seem to be contending that you gave them a map and all they did was follow it. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:28, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Carol, because you are an "out" editor, as am I, you are likely to benefit from a greater assumption of good faith. You are transparent. Nobody can accuse you of being a sneak. What really starts a mob is when people discover they've been mislead (see Essjay controversy). Jehochman ^Talk 02:37, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

So in other words it is legal to track down everything relevant every professor, student, writer, etc. who is foolish enough to edit in their own name ever wrote to prove that they are "too POV" to edit on some topic you are trying to drive them out of. (And to prove they are a racist/sexist/homophobe/antisemite or whatever it takes to make sure they cannot edit an article in any way related to those topics.) This is the impression I have gotten from a recent WP:COIN. If so, it certainly will allow me to stop editing on a bunch of articles that have taken up far too much of my time and allow me to devote my life to real world activities :-) The idea is starting to excite me. If I have worded the warning wrongly please correct it. But do warn people. CarolMooreDC (talk) 03:01, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry Carol, but I have felt it necessary to revert your changes as they were more like a rant than a formal policy and added little new information. The current wording is more than adequate warning:

Use of a real name allows contributions to be more easily traced to an individual. This may make a contributor more vulnerable to issues such as harassment. You should consider the benefits and drawbacks of making substantial contributions under your real name before doing so, especially if you plan on editing or discussing potentially controversial subjects in Wikipedia articles or on any of the associated project or talk pages. While it is possible to rename accounts (see Changing your username below), a record of the previous name will still exist.

Beeblebrox (talk) 03:27, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

The problem is the impression I have gotten from a recent WP:COIN User:Jehochman initiated and his comments above is that it is wiki-legal to track down everything relevant every professor, student, writer, etc. who is foolish enough to edit in their own name has written to use against them in POV discussions. Also I found today Wikipedia:User_page#Personal_and_privacy-breaching_material which seems to infer the same thing in a more explicit way that this policy.

Anyway, I am still trying to get this new take on "outing" policy which Jehochman refers to. To whatever extent any of it is true, I think the wording has to be more explicit so people will know exactly what unpleasantness they might face if they use their own names. Current wording seems like it can lead the lamb to the slaughter. CarolMooreDC (talk) 03:01, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't see how the strong cautionary language in the above quote could be seen that way. It specifically warns that if you are going to edit in contentious areas (does it get any more contentious than the Israel -v- Palestine conflict?) you should carefully consider the potential drawbacks, including harassment. I'm not saying Jehochman is harassing you, rather saying that the policy as currently written is explicitly states that it could happen. Bottom line: it's not a good idea to start re-writing policy as a result of one incident, and especially not while the person proposing the change is obviously upset. According to your userpage you have been editing Wikipedia for almost five years. The way the policy was written back then was milder:

Historically many wikis have encouraged users to use their real name as their user name see, e.g., MeatBall:UseRealNames, in their belief that a user will offer constructive contributions to the project if they are more likely to be accountable for their actions. Most Wikipedia users choose to use pseudonyms, although many disclose their real names on their user pages. Wikipedia editors have occasionally been subject to harassment outside of Wikipedia due to their contributions or vandal-fighting activities on Wikipedia.

Back in 2004 it actually actively encouraged the use of real names! A lot has changed since then, and most users no longer use their real names. Now we discourage it, but users are still free to choose, as you did, to accept the risk associated with it. Even way back then there was a milder warning, so it's not really fair to claim the wording of the policy led you down the garden path. I'm sorry you are having all this trouble now but altering the username policy isn't going to make it go away. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:55, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I should have waited a few days before commenting. I've been looking for something to get me mad enough to cut my editing back significantly so I can do more real world writing; maybe the realization everything I say off wiki can be thrown in my face on wikipedia finally will be it. :-) I thought it had happened only once before on a completely different issue was because it was against policy, but I guess I was just lucky before. Thanks for listening!! CarolMooreDC (talk) 05:06, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

This is a problem, but I really don't think that any amount of policy writing will solve it. Some people think that stalking and harassment are legitimate ways to "win" disputes in the real world, so it naturally follows that some people think that stalking and harassment are legitimate was to "win" disputes on Wikipedia. (I've actually heard of a Wikipedia editor who received phone calls at home, threatening his family members by name.)

The problem is, if someone is so far gone to basic human decency as to do these things, putting "don't you ever do that" on a policy page simply won't have any effect at all. We all know that the internet lets us communicate with strangers. We also all know that there are an unfortunately large number of people in the world who are hateful and/or mentally unstable. However painful it is, encountering such people on Wikipedia should not really surprise any of us. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:31, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

What I am concerned with is recent postings giving me the impression it's OK Wiki-policy wise for people to go doing a lot of opposition research on your off-wiki writings to claim you are too POV for some article or other. In the past I just had one stupid 2003 off wiki email people kept throwing at me and no one acted like it was wrong to do that. But now I've gotten impression that someone could go through every recent article or blog entry off wiki looking for evidence of whatever. I know you can do this for serious COIN problems. Recently people who want to be able to do this have set up WP:Activist essay and Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard/users‎, perhaps to try to make this kind of opposition research more policy compliant. So maybe it's more something that is being POV pushed right now. I'm not sure. Have been asking around but haven't gotten a good response yet. Thanks. CarolMooreDC (talk) 14:58, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

The community sometimes frowns upon sleuthing, though it is not forbidden by policy, and every rule or custom has its exceptions. When an editor has a high profile, such as being an arbitration committee member, a functionary, or a regular editor at hot topics, it is quite common for the public record to be scrutinized to determine if that editor has a hidden agenda or is somehow doing something to subvert Wikipedia. Editors are encouraged to be transparent about their involvement in issues and to disclose any potential conflicts of interest. If an editor is an officer of a political party, they aren't forbidden to edit pages about that party, but their ought to disclose their agenda and welcome other editors to scrutinize contributions for possible bias, and if any is identified, they ought to heed that feedback. Jehochman ^Talk 15:41, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

(undent) I've seen so many "why oh why did I ever use my name?" incidents come up in my time here that I think new registrants using their own name should have to tick a box saying "I am nuts. I have absolutely no idea what I'm getting into here and no matter what happens, I want it to show up in all major search engines and be used against me here". CarolMooreDC's edit reflected her frustration with her current situation, and while I have sympathy with her on "just finding this out now", her wording was unnecessary. However I do think the wording could be improved to let new editors know more about what problems could occur:

• No policy prevents editors here from looking up material associated with you elsewhere and making it known on-wiki.
• Wikipedia discussion pages where your name appears may be renked highly in search-engine results, and you have little control over the content or title of those pages.
• If you change your mind after a while, you can get a new uname, but you could find it very difficult to get your name removed from every possible place it occurs.

And to Jeh from way earlier, you're right about being honest by using your real name, but I've seen it used as a bludgeon in exactly that way ("You're hiding behind a pseudonym but I'm honest about who I am, therefore I must be right"), and I think once I saw an editor do that and the "OMG take my name out of everything, it's wrecked my Google" when they totally misunderstood what they were getting into. I do think the wording could be augmented to better outline the possible adverse consequences, and maybe what you are saying about being up-front about who you are represents something without giving you any upper-hand could be worded too. As this is a page that could be crucially important to a new editor's experience, I'd like to see more (and neutral) explanation of the risks and benefits so they can decide for themself. Franamax (talk) 23:52, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Good wording. I was just frustrated that day. I agree the box is a great idea!! I was thinking wikipedia should just ban real names and give everyone two weeks to change over. But your option gives people a good strong warning and a choice. CarolMooreDC (talk) 23:57, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

My position has always been that it is best to assume that everything one says online becomes part of the permanent record. Using a pseudonym is not very good security because if the stakes are high enough, somebody will figure out who you are. The more you edit, the more traces you leave about your identity. That said, users should be made aware of the pros and cons of using their real name versus using a pseudonym so they can make an informed choice. I think Franamax should make the proposed edits. Jehochman ^Talk 00:36, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Coming back a couple weeks later and reviewing discussion, it seemed that adding "both on and off Wikipedia" after harassment was not too much of a stretch, though we can discuss at length if it gets reverted.

I also think Franamax's suggestion we add a box people have to check when they register to say they understand using their real name may open them to harassment on and off wikipedia is something that should be brought up at whatever "Pump" is most relevant. It's one of several proposals related to that effort that needs to be added to Proposals for increasing female editors which is partially from ideas coming up at the new Gender Gap wiki list started by Sue Garder. The email list has got public archives so one can lurk without joining. CarolMooreDC (talk) 18:51, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Concerning the web search problem, is there a way to summarily prevent search engine robots from indexing user pages and user talk pages (and all associated subpages), so that they will never show up in search results? Or at least those of individual users who do not like the idea of a web search turning up their user page on Wikipedia? Just curious. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:18, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

I think you can use the template {{NOINDEX}} --Tyw7  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 10:33, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Unified login accounts

I think we need a section on dealing with Unified login accounts which are OK at other wikipedias but do not meet EN Username policy. For example Commons allow usernames with company names ((Commons:COM:USERNAME#Company.2Fgroup_names) if they can proof through OTRS that they represent that company, see for example commons:User:Spot Image or commons:User:YankeGroupofCompanies. Also usernames of users from other language wikipedias can be confusing or even offensive in English, and they can have "Unified login accounts". Is there such a thing as "Unified login account username policy"? --Jarekt (talk) 14:44, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Anonymous user -> unregistered user

{{editsemiprotect}} As per

• WP:HUMAN,
• WP:IP,
• WP:ANONYMOUS,
• WP:IP edits are not anonymous and
• Meta:Unregistered user.

I think referring to unregistered users as "anonymous users" is incorrect and confusing. Registered users who do not adopt their real name as their username are also anonymous. In fact, registered users are arguably more anonymous, since their IP address is hidden.

Also, the phrases "anonymous user" or "anon" are often used in a discriminatory way by editors who do not fully appreciate (yet) the value and potential of unregistered users.

In the spirit of calling a spade a spade, please change "anonymous contributions" in this project page to "unregistered contributions". Thank you. 113.197.147.212 (talk) 13:27, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:54, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Bullet points

We've got a rash of complaints over at COIN about people whose usernames are related to the subjects of their articles. (They're getting rejected at UAA and apparently hoping that students can be blocked for writing about their schools and such.) It made me wonder if we could make the "no actual violation—no actual block" standard clearer in this policy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:48, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. I think we should encourge people to include topically relevant information in their usernames if they want to -- and fix the policies that lead us to beat up people who do so. It's silly for us to ask people to hide information that could help others identify COI concerns -- we have plenty of good ways to politely recognize and counter POV problems without making them personal and blocking the people with an acknowledged POV. –SJ+ 20:24, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Role accounts

The policy on role accounts seems broken. It's not clear why they are discouraged, and other projects have allowed role accounts without trouble. There isn't any explanation for why they are considered a problem suitable for blocking on sight. They are darkly associated with sockpuppetry -- in that there is a section on role accounts on the WP:SPI page -- though I can't think of a case where a role account was used by someone who was misusing alternate accounts.

Usually the people who create role accounts

• do so in order to be transparent about their affiliation
• do so as part of an institutional, or group-wide or class-wide, effort to take part in editing Wikipedia
• are unfamiliar with our use of policy, user talk pages, and non-article namespaces
• edit sporadically, rather than "many times a day, and definitly once a week", as is needed to keep up with many on-wiki processes without one's work being summarily judged

They tend to be not simply well-intentioned contributors, but a representative of a group of hundreds or thousands of Wikipedia users whose views of the project will be determined by how the first editor(s) in their social circle are greeted. When they are warned, blocked, and told they're doing it wrong, usually those early participants in the role account don't come back, and the others are left with the impression that Wikipedia is hard to use.

So: as with the suggestion above that people should not be punished if they haven't done anything to detract from the project, I don't think we should encourage blocking of accounts that have been constructive. Talk to them, explain the reasons that individual accounts are better than role accounts, and help them find ways to create accounts for each editor in their group in a way that is easy for them. [they may want to be able to track all of their groups edits and messages. show them how to create watchlists, &c.]

I have seen a few examples recently of newbies clearly doing good work -- just finishing their first AfC request, or having dozens of student groups contribute on specialist topic areas on Wikipedia for the third year in a row -- greeted with somewhat threatening userpage messages (...will be blocked... if you do not...). This policy should be clear that it does not support that approach. –SJ+ 20:38, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

suggested wording

Replace:

User accounts can only represent individuals. Sharing an account – or the password to an account – with others is not permitted, and doing so will result in the account being blocked.

with

Each user account should represent an individual. Sharing an account with others is discouraged, and in case of abuse may result in the account being blocked. There are better ways to coordinate groups of people who want to edit together, including watchlists and user-page categories.

–SJ+ 20:41, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

redirection of WP:ROLE to this page

...rather than to WP:SPI. I suggested it there.

---

I remember that the reason for blocking role accounts was because of some legal mumbo-jumbo. Basically, every edit needs to be attributable to a user, and if multiple users share one account, it's impossible to determine which edit was made by which person. Or something. I'm not at all an expert on this, so I have no idea if this is actually how it is, or if I'm entirely wrong. Assuming I am wrong, I fully support your proposal. --Conti|✉ 22:09, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Right. Since the WMF has a different lawyer now, it's always possible this has changed; if we want to change the policy, I think we'd have to start there. - Dank (push to talk) 14:09, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

...and that rationale kind of falls apart given that we allow people to edit from shared IPs. See also this discussion. –xeno^talk 14:23, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't know the licensing might be a non-issue. In that case ... my sense and the sense of many others who have a lot of experience with username blocks is that it's not the template:uw-softerblock message that's the problem. (When I wrote it, it was roughly what it is now ... "Welcome to Wikipedia. Because we have a policy against usernames that give the impression that the account represents a group, organization or website, I have blocked this account; you are welcome to create a new account with a username that represents only you" ... except that people have added another sentence linking to our COI policy now, which wouldn't be my choice, not in all cases.) We know that long warning messages before you get to the softerblock and different block templates can sometimes be a real problem. Another part of the equation is: we currently don't have the number of volunteers we'd need (admins and non-admins both) to deal with each new user who uses a company or organization name in the most patient way we possibly could. Some allowances have to be made for the fact that 99.99% of users who pick a username that matches their business and start out with only promotional-sounding edits will never ever give a crap about NPOV or V, no matter how much time we spend gently leading them by the hand (and many of us have put in a lot of effort). - Dank (push to talk) 14:34, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Far too often I see that users have been given a warning for their username, and then they are blocked a few hours later without even being given a chance to act on the warning. Or they are blocked when they are waiting for a bureaucrat to process their name change request. And this happens whether their edits were good or not. Quite frankly, I don't understand why so many people have such a hangup on what someone's username is. It's just a unique identifier. If they are making _good_ edits, they should not be blocked, no matter how "softly" we do it. It doesn't matter if the message is wrapped in nice baby blue and tells them they are only blocked for their username. I would wager that in most cases the user will simply not return.

That being said, let's make sure that we don't conflate the issue here. A company account might be a role account, but a role account is not necessarily a company account. I suspect this thread was created in response to a recent university project that came up at ANI: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive681#Apparent annual creation of role accounts for a class assignment. –xeno^talk 15:03, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Improbably, this ties in with what we're discussing at WT:RFA at the moment. Currently, the understanding is that we're promoting admins to exercise "good judgment", meaning (all too often) that they go out and do whatever they can get away with that makes sense to them. As a result, AFAIK, no two admins operating at UAA operate under the same rules, although all of us are operating within the parameters we've been given so far. (Comments are of course welcome at WT:RFA about what, if any, impact this should have on that process.) It wouldn't bother me at all if the community wants to discuss and arrive at some consensus and ask admins to follow the consensus; in fact, I think that's the right and responsibility of the community. - Dank (push to talk) 15:15, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I did recently tweak the instructions [3] to be more in line with Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Education and warnings, but perhaps this not trickled down to everyone on the front line yet. –xeno^talk 15:20, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Questioning whether we should discourage use of real names

The policy right now seems to gently discourage use of real names: or, at least, it points out potential downsides to using your real name. And I'm not sure that's the best thing for us to tell people. I think there are good arguments for using your real name that aren't reflected in the existing policy. For example:

• It seems likely to me that editors using their real name (or what could pass as a real name) will be perceived as more credible by others. Partly because it implies honesty, candour, openness.
• Real names give some 'scent' for who the person is, that could prove helpful in easing personal interaction. For example, an editor might be more patient in discussions with another editor whose username suggests that English might not be his or her first language;
• There is a good argument that using your real name online, when possible, acts as an encouragement for people to be more thoughtful and accountable for what they say, and supports friendlier interactions in general;
• Increasingly, editors are finding their Wikipedia experience helpful for their careers. For example, people are putting it in their CVs, and the Wikimedia Foundation sometimes provides reference letters for editors who are job-hunting. Linking your on-wiki and off-wiki self is obviously easier if you use your own name;
• Using your real name helps other Wikimedians recognize editors elsewhere on the internet -- e.g., on Facebook, identi.ca/Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Some editors won't want that (and some will use a persistent pseudonym in many places), but some will.

Also: I've talked about real name usage casually with some very experienced editors, and a few have told me they now regret not having used their real names when they started editing. Two who were harassed off-wiki told me that they think NOT using their real name may have made them a tempting target: uncovering their RL identity was fun for the person harassing them.

Separately .... I wonder too if it's worth writing something in the policy that's specific to use of real names for women, or perhaps pointing to external writings on that issue? (I have links I think, but not at hand.)

I don't have a strong opinion here and I'm sure there's lots of nuance I don't know about. It just strikes me that the current policy seems to recommend not using real names and I am not sure that's always what is best for either the projects or individual editors. I'm not writing this is in any kind of official capacity by the way: it's just my personal opinion.

Sue Gardner (talk) 02:23, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

You might want to read Wikipedia_talk:Username_policy/Archive_18#Need more warnings on using real names, the most recent comment on this subject.

Personally, I've seen no regrets from pseudonymous editors (who could, after all, have their account name changed), but I've seen a few complaints from real-name editors. The question of whether a small, but probable, benefit is more important than the large, relatively rare harms (e.g., harassing phone calls) is not one we can easily settle for individuals.

Also—I'd bet that almost nobody reads this page before picking a username, so whatever we write is probably unimportant. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:40, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

My concern is more that I don't want my Wikipedia activity linked to me professionally. Wikipedia is a hobby, and while I might tell a few close friends about it, I don't really want the whole world seeing it on a search engine. It doesn't matter what type of search blocks we put in place on the main site because Wikipedia is mirrored so many places and full database dumps are plentiful. I like to be able to go off and edit whatever article I stumble across without worrying about what someone might think about my choice of topic. —UncleDouggie (talk) 09:32, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

When I joined Wikipedia, the username policy recommended the use of real names. I would have no problem if it went back to recommending them, as long as it included caveats. Gigs (talk) 14:06, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Question

Where it says do not use "admin or sysop". If User:example became an admin, could user example ask to be renamed to user:Examplesysop? Inka⁸⁸⁸ 08:05, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

No, admins are regular editors with extra tools. They aren't supposed to use their admin status to carry extra weight in discussions. —UncleDouggie (talk) 09:14, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Right, but would to call an admin an admin be considered a misleading user name? Inka⁸⁸⁸ 09:49, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

It could be misleading to a newer editor who doesn't know the proper role of an admin within this project. I know who the admins are, but I still wouldn't want to see it flaunted about in signatures. Plus, there are many other user rights as well. Should I rename myself to UncleDouggieRollbacker and then onto something even more ridiculous every time one of my user rights is changed? I'd have used 6 names by this point. Furthermore, it would make a desysop ever more painful because the user's name would have to be immediately changed. There are very good reasons why user rights are kept separate from usernames. —UncleDouggie (talk) 10:39, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. A blanket prohibition on names that imply any sort of on-wiki authority is the way to go. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:53, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Quarterly update

It would be helpful if, sometime in the first week of July, someone would add the changes to this page from April 1 to July 1 to WP:Update/1/Enforcement policy changes, 2011, which is transcluded at WP:Update. - Dank (push to talk) 19:27, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi my name is Zina Tran, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zinatran (talk • contribs) 03:41, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

RfC: Should UPOL be changed to allow the usage of Wikipedia in usernames in some cases?

A few days ago, I had blocked SenthilWikipedia citing the username policy, which mentions "Usernames should not include the phrase 'wikipedia', 'wikimedia', 'wiktionary', etc, which could imply the account was officially affiliated with the Foundation or one of its projects." I was subsequently informed by a few trusted editors on my talk page that such a block was wrong. I subsequently unblocked the editor, but now wish to find out whether or not we should change the username policy to include the perspectives mentioned on my talk page... Wifione _....... ^{Leave a message}

Comments

• While I am neutral on the issue, I feel the line -- "Usernames should not include the phrase 'wikipedia', 'wikimedia', 'wiktionary', etc, which could imply the account was officially affiliated with the Foundation or one of its projects." -- might be viewed differently by different users. Wifione _....... ^{Leave a message} 11:24, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
• The current wording indicates "could imply ..." as part of the rule which is the real issue. As long as no one would reasonably consider the name to be "oficial" in some manner, the current rule does not bar it. Collect (talk) 11:36, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

"...which could imply..." could also be read as "...as this could imply..." In other words, some editors might read the statement to mean that usernames should not contain the term Wikipedia as this could imply... Wifione _....... ^{Leave a message} 11:51, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Um -- I prefer to use normal English grammar here ... if the name does not inany way imply official status, the current wording allows it. Cheers. Collect (talk) 22:13, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

• Do not permit - I think the rule is pretty clear: "Usernames should also not include the phrase "wikipedia", "wikimedia", "wiktionary", etc, which could imply the account was officially affiliated with the Foundation or one of its projects." Including the word "wikipedia" in a username does indeed give the imprimatur of officialdom. It is a bit much to ask other editors to parse the username and tease out whether it is an official WP functionary, or a joke, or whatever. Plus, by making the rule fuzzier, it is just making more work for future decisions in similar scenarios. --Noleander (talk) 21:53, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I've updated the wording. Do tell how it looks now compared to earlier. Also, I've removed the RfC tag. Wifione _....... ^{Leave a message} 23:13, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Why would you change the wording? I dont see any consensus developed here or on your talk page to change anything.--v/r - TP 15:47, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

How do I make my username not appear automatically?

Is there any possible way to do this? Androids101 (talk) 22:50, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

This page is for discussing the Username Policy itself. You might get better help here: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). Mlpearc powwow 02:46, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Contradiction in the Company/group names section

The section Company/group names say:

Users who adopt such usernames, but who are not editing problematically in related articles, should not be blocked. Instead, they should be gently encouraged to change their username.

And a couple of lines later it says:

Accounts that purport to represent an entire group or company are not permitted no matter the name; see Sharing accounts below.

Isn't it a contradiction? Or am i misunderstanding something? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 15:21, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes it is in my view. Confusing. Should be one or the other. IMO, if it violates WP:GROUPNAME then it should be out (either spamu, promosofter, or whatever is appropriate in each case). -- Alexf^(talk) 16:01, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't see that it is a contradiction. It says they are not permitted, but they do not need to be immediately blocked - especially if they are not editing problematically. See WP:BP#Education and warnings. –xeno^talk 16:03, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

RFC: Use of non-latin or unicode characters as usernames

Should the username policy forbid non-latin or unicode characters as (part of) usernames?

RFC started: 15:23, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Reasoning

Beginning in 2010, there has been an unfortunate trend with established editors to choose non-latin or unicode characters as usernames for their main or alternate accounts (examples include Δ, ☂ and ✄). While I understand that such usernames are funny and something special, I also know that they are confusing, especially for new editors and that they will not be shown on browsers and devices not supporting Unicode (fully) (and of course they are not really screen reader friendly). Since Wikipedia should be a place for anyone to be able to collaborate, no matter what knowledge of computers they have or what programs or devices they (have to) use to edit it, such usernames are incompatible with this goal.

Therefore I propose that the username policy is amended with the following:

===Non-latin and/or unicode characters===
Usernames should not contain non-latin and/or unicode characters or consist solely of such characters. Such usernames are potentially confusing for new and inexperienced editors. They are also not supported by a number of programs and/or devices that editors might use to edit Wikipedia and as such are incompatible with Wikipedia's goal to be a place that anyone can edit. Users who have had a username consisting or containing such characters before <date of policy change> are allowed to keep the username but encouraged to change it.

This does not apply to editors whose focus is a project where such characters are common, such as an foreign language Wikipedia, and whose account on this project is part of a unified login.

Struck in favor of Carnildo's better worded proposal below.

Regards SoWhy 15:23, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

• I think that (due in large part to cross-project collaboration), we've fairly recently moved from not allowing non-Latin or Unicode characters to allowing them, so this may go a little too far in the other direction. Perhaps it should be re-written to simply consider the "consisting solely of non-Latin/Unicode/symbol characters" issue. –xeno^talk 15:33, 18 August 2011 (UTC) (Actually now I see you placed an exemption for foreign-language users, so my comment is a bit less relevant - but the RFC as written does not address single-character symbol usernames like ^, %, &, etc.)

• Support (edit conflict) But the "consist solely of such characters" is redundant to "should not contain:". In addition to reasons noted, this makes it much more difficult to address them or refer to them in talk. North8000 (talk) 15:37, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

• Are Kanji, Hanzi, Devanagari, etc. all represented in Unicode? NW (Talk) 15:41, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Most of those characters have Unicode representation, yes. There are other/older standards like BIG5 but those aren't supported by Wikipedia as far as I know. FuFoFuEd (talk) 00:49, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support if and only if the technical reasons SoWhy mentioned 'They are also not supported by a number of programs and/or devices that editors might use' is accurate.--v/r - TP 15:48, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
  • I don't know about all screen readers but you can try to get this page read to you using WebAnywhere to see what I mean. Regards SoWhy 16:48, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
    • I tried it and I found more problems than just unicode characters. Take a look at this page and look at the notice at the top. You'll see missing words that arn't even links. I'd say that WebAnywhere appears to be an amatuer university student project and isn't a good baseline to judge handicap readers on.--v/r - TP 17:14, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support per nom. Confusing to say the least. How do you type, refer to them, use them, when you are a new inexperienced user and have no clue on how to do this? That's why I agree. -- Alexf^(talk) 15:59, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. While I agree there are some issues with some people having difficulties with such usernames, we need to accept them because we accept the global login. This would go against that global policy on usernames, which does not and can not forbid them due to the many languages involved in that process. All someone would need to do to get around this proposal is to unify their login, even if they never created an account on another wiki. (and no, my username is not in non-Latin characters) ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 16:08, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose - We would have to modify global policy for this and we can't as 日本穣 said, because of the many different characters on different languages. If they were to create a username on the Japanese Wikipedia and then came to unify their account here and it broke this policy, we can't just block them because their username isn't in accordance with our username policy when they were using a native language on another wiki. I'm sorry but this can't really be done as I can see.  JoeGazz  ♂  16:38, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
  • My proposed wording explicitly excludes such users. Global policy iirc does not forbid local projects to have stricter guidelines. If some project allows promotional usernames and said user came here, they'd still violate our policy against such usernames, wouldn't they? Regards SoWhy 16:51, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. Against global policy. Agathoclea (talk) 16:46, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support. The only reason I'd have for not making it absolute is global login-in, unless it ca be modified to show different names on different projects.I AGF, and do not suppose that people would deliberately choose a non-Roman unified loging to evade the prohibition--and even so , the proposal's requires a focus on a nonRoman wiki. There can at any rate be no justification for using typographical symbols that are not part of any language. User names that cannot be pronounced in English for purely ornamental reasons are disruptive, discourage discussion, and shown a lack of concern for the great majority of users. User names are not free-form personal expression, but for the community DGG ( talk ) 16:53, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

*Support. Usernames should be typeable. I am not so concerned with accented characters or words and names from languages that use non-Roman alphabets, but the use of graphic symbols - characters that are not part of any alphabet, and which can't generally be typed without an extensive search of the Unicode symbol table first - is unnecessary, and in my opinion, disruptive and ultimately selfish. Thparkth (talk) 17:12, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support on en.wikiepdia, of course. For the reasons given above, they're not compatible with screen readers, newbies may not know how to re-produce those characters. @-Kosh► Talk to the Vorlons►Markab-@ 17:28, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support. The current wording seems strained, but I support the general principle behind the proposal. Noting that I don't think current users with these usernames should be grandfathered in if this proposal is adopted. -Atmoz (talk) 17:45, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support The reasons (although not the explicit prohibition) are already in policy. Wikipedia:Username policy#Non-English usernames says that using latin script avoids "confusion and aid(s) navigation" and WP:SIG#NL says that non-latin scripts are "are illegible to most other contributors of the English Wikipedia. Not everyone uses a keyboard that has immediate access to non-Latin fonts, and names that cannot be pronounced cannot be retained in memory. As a courtesy to the rest of the contributors, users with such usernames are encouraged to sign their posts (at least in part) with Latin characters. For an example refer to User:Παράδειγμα, who signs his posts as Παράδειγμα/Paradigma." Therefore, I believe it's implicit that using non-latin scripts is a species of incivility and disruption. Existing policy suggests they should be prohibited. DeCausa (talk) 17:51, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support - If for no other reason than it's just a pain to deal with editors whose usernames are in non-Latin script. Sometimes those usernames show up as a series of boxes to me, depending on what system and what browser I'm using. There's no reason they need to be allowed, and plenty of reasons not to. -- Atama頭 18:37, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Amusingly you have a non-Latin character in your signature, and it's only there to replace the English word "talk". How does that jibe with your position that such characters are "just a pain to deal with". FuFoFuEd (talk) 01:08, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
    • FWIW, 頭 is pronounced "atama", and by itself means "head" in Japanese. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:57, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose as currently written. I think we should probably restrict usernames consisting entirely of special characters, but the current proposal is way too broad and would even include foreign langauge usernames (unless their "focus is a project where such characters are common"). Let's focus on strange symbols and leave out foreign language scripts. --Conti|✉ 19:51, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose Although I support in principle, this is something that would have to be dealt with at meta, and is 100% out-of-scope for en.Wikipedia due to cross-wiki usernames. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 20:03, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

• Neutral, with conditions - While I do support some characters such as the triangle and the umbrella, but to me, other characters are in question, not limiting to the scissors and other unfamilar shapes that may be deemed offensive for some users under local law (varies by country) in addition to Wikipedia policies. Additionally, I am not sure what other common shapes were used commonly in terms of non-Latin or Unicode characters as either in or part of usernames. If my decision is to be made, more examples of both non-Latin and Unicode characters would be more helpful. CHAK 001 ^{(Improvements? Please let me know!)} 20:18, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
  • The "triangle" you refer to is the letter "delta" in the Greek alphabet. --Carnildo (talk) 00:24, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
• Comment/Kind of oppose While I understand the concern, a similar discussion is going on here. My reasoning there pretty much applies here; it's not all that difficult to copy and paste the username if you don't know how to read it. It would also cause unified login issues as described above. That being said, Unicode symbols that can't be read at all (like ☃ (I didn't know that was actually a username until I clicked on it, it was just a hypothetical)) should be blocked, because those aren't symbols meant to be read and are simply disruptive. If this is implemented, we should have a grandfather clause for ☂ and ✄ because they were created before this. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 21:14, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose in part. Usernames should use only alphabetical glyphs unless they're part of specific non-alphabetical writing systems (e.g. Chinese characters), but umbrellas and scissors really aren't appropriate because they're not names. As long as it's an actual name, or capable of being one or part of one, we should permit it. Nyttend (talk) 23:20, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. The proposed policy is unclear. What does "usernames should not contain non-latin and/or unicode characters or consist solely of such characters" mean? Does it mean that usernames containing characters other than the Latin alphabet are forbidden? In that case, I oppose because it forbids users from projects that use other writing systems. Does it mean that usernames containing characters that cannot be represented in Unicode are forbidden? In that case, I oppose because it's pointless: all usernames that the MediaWiki software permits can be represented in Unicode. Does it mean something else? In that case, I oppose because I can't figure out what it is. --Carnildo (talk) 00:22, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. Poorly conceived. I agree with Carnildo. FuFoFuEd (talk) 00:46, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
• Strongly Oppose. It's just rude and irresponsible to ban non-Latin usernames... we have SUL on Wikimedia. The Wikimedia world isn't just enwiki; you could end up blocking a well-respected user or an admin on a non-Latin project for no reason. Cbrown1023 talk 01:41, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose: Not suitable to be made a policy; it will force administrators into long investigations and arguments what exactly constitutes users "whose focus is a project where such characters are common" — how many edits will someone need to be considered for this exception? What about someone who creates the account elsewhere and then edits here — will that be considered "gaming the system"? Apart from that, it simply reeks of the same attitude I sense when Anglos get into a long rant about a short para Español, oprima el dos or some such. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 01:43, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

• oppose I do not get the reason why this is a big deal. Let people call themselves anything they want, within the confines of our current policies. --Guerillero | My Talk 03:53, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose - This is completely unnecessary and completely unenforceable under SUL. It's insulting to those whose native language does not use a latin-derived alphabet. Taken to it's logical extreme, the English Wikipedia would prohibit all characters that are not part of the standard English keyboard, which would prohibit all accents.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 08:40, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. Since -- as the proposal acknowledges -- we have to accept foreign usernames coming in through SUL anyway, worrying about the few people who choose to create such usernames here is a solution in search of a problem. Moreover, this proposal is technically malformed. What, pray, is a "Non-Latin and/or Unicode character"? "Unicode character" is meaningless (all characters on Wikipedia are Unicode), and how far does "non-Latin" go? Do you want to restrict us to the Ascii set? (Is "@" a Latin character?) To the "Basic Latin" set? (What about "µ" or "¥" then?) To all characters marked as part of the Latin script? (Are "ƺ, ǡ, ȵ, ɖ, ʪ, Ꜯ, Ɒ, ꝼ, Ᵹ, ẫ, Ẩ, ṽ" less problematic than "Δ"?) -- As long as you don't properly define the range of characters you are willing to accept, the proposal is meaningless. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:18, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose and rather strongly per Cbrown1023 and others. --m:dferg 15:08, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
• Strong oppose - Prohibiting "unicode characters" would make it impossible to type anything, unless Wikipedia was switched to ASCII. Additionally, prohibiting non-Latin characters is pure English chauvinism. ⚔ (talk) 13:34, 23 August 2011 (UTC) Reaper Eternal (talk) 14:14, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

  Above user is an alternate account of User:Reaper Eternal, whose userpage indicates that the account "is only a joke alternate account"

  I would suggest that you use your main account to contribute to this discussion. –xeno^talk 13:59, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

  Re-signed. Reaper Eternal (talk) 14:14, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

  Thanks. –xeno^talk 14:20, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

• Strong oppose This seems like a solution in search of a problem. Let people be unusual if they want to be, the minor confusion it may cause to new editors doesn't even justify discouraging the selection of non-latin user names, let along fully prohibiting them. There is already enough conformism on Wikipedia. Monty₈₄₅ 04:00, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose - This seems like just looking for a problem because you are bored. Do you realise that your English or French user name is illegible to users on Japanese Wikipedia. They don't force you to have a Japanese user name. Δ is a Greek letter and an English word and including it as an example of the troublesome accounts is some kind of negative -ism. Stifle made a joke of it by creating the scissors account. O MY! The Englishman who went up a hill and got thrown off a mountain. People are way too obsessed with being anti-Unicode. How naïve do you have to be to not realise that there are words in modern English which require characters outside of the standard 52 to properly spell. delirious & lost ☯ ^~hugs~ 04:03, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Question

• Question: Up till now this discussion has focused solely on usernames, as far as I can see not mentioning signatures, which are not necessarily the same thing. So, are we talking about disallowing such characters in actual usernames only, or signatures too? Beeblebrox (talk) 02:28, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

This discussion is only about usernames. A user with a name like ✈ can still use a signature that does not make the name a problem for people who rely on screen readers etc. but the problem persists in logs, page histories, etc. Regards SoWhy 20:31, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I was thinking about it the other way around, they could have a username that follows this new standard but use a sig that is an airplane or whatever. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:50, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

SoWhy, what does the entry in the logs and page histories matter? Is your issue with the name in the logs or the effect on screen readers. I don't think many people are using screen readers to read the logs.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 18:48, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Alternative proposal

I recommend a change to the section on non-English usernames that (I think) captures the essence of what SoWhy is trying to get at:

=== Non-English usernames ===

There is no requirement that usernames be in English. Furthermore, contributors are welcome to use usernames that are not spelled using the Latin alphabet, but should bear in mind that scripts of non-Latin languages (such as Arabic, Cyrillic, Chinese, Greek or Japanese) are illegible to most contributors to the English Wikipedia, and sometimes the characters may not appear correctly. To avoid confusion and aid navigation, users with such usernames are encouraged to use Latin characters in their signature.

Usernames are restricted to characters that are part of a writing system. Use of non-writing characters such as box-drawing characters or dingbats in usernames is not permitted.

By adding the second paragraph, this limits usernames to those that (at least in theory) can be understood and pronounced by someone, and that (again, in theory) can be dealt with properly by screen readers and similar assistive systems. --Carnildo (talk) 02:06, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

• I could support that. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 02:09, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support that's more or less what I was trying to say above, with the grandfather clause from the original proposal incorporated above. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 02:16, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support as this still allows for SUL, but also forbids non-writing-system characters. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 02:19, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support 1st paragraph only. Appears reasonable, but the first paragraph about signatures should be added to the Wikipedia:Signatures guideline, not to this policy. You should be aware that official Unicode writing systems include some hieroglyphs [4], (in fact all these writing systems), and there are even more unofficial extensions in ConScript Unicode Registry. FuFoFuEd (talk) 15:50, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
  • To expand on my vote: I think a short string of Latin-based characters in the signature is desirable because it allows the vast majority of editors here to easily form a "mental picture". I have seen admins here confuse two editors who used only Hebrew characters in their names, for instance. The second part of this proposal is actually forbidding much less than one would think. (I had added a graphic example here, but someone removed it). So the 2nd paragraph proposed is practically worthless, and likely to case only lame debates about whether some symbol you've never seen before is part of a writing system or merely decorative. FuFoFuEd (talk) 15:50, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support I'm fine with Chinese characters, but umbrellas are out of line. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:47, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
• oppose I do not get the reason why this is a big deal. Let people call themselves anything they want, within the confines of our current policies. --Guerillero | My Talk 03:53, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
• Strong oppose - I don't see why this important at all. These are solutions looking for problems. When you put recommendations into a policy they begin to be seen as requirements. This is instruction creep and there is no value added by this. This will still be in conflict with SUL and is therefore impossible to enforce unless you can get the system to reject such usernames.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 08:40, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
  • I would be a requirement. You would be required to not pick an idiotic username that is a symbol. What's your problem with this requirement? Gigs (talk) 17:12, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support Thanks for the alternative wording, it does capture my intention. Regards SoWhy 09:19, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support. This proposal pretty much sums up my feeling. Japanese username? No problem. Spanish username? Bring it on. Username made up of symbols that exist on no keyboard on Earth - no thanks. Thparkth (talk) 11:14, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose per Future Perfect at Sunrise's comment in the above section. It's spot on. Swarm ^{u | t} 15:10, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support We don't need any more people with untypable symbols for usernames. This has gone far enough. Gigs (talk) 17:10, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
• Weak oppose I sympathize with the nominator that usernames on the English wikipedia should be readable. It also becomes awkward to refer to those users in discussion, and their username is not searchable. But, I would argue that many of users who would want to contact or that user or find their contributions are probably watching pages that these untypeable usernames have contributed to, or are already watching their talk page. I agree with Doug's sentiment that recommendations embedded in policy begin to sound like policy, and that the fact that this is not consistent across SUL will cause needless tension between wikis. The fact that some languages are unreadable (but not others) due to Unicode seems unnecessarily dismissive. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 18:34, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

  It's not to prevent writing systems that aren't universally supported by browsers, it's to restrict usernames to symbols actually used as writing. My example above, ☃, is not a readable character in any language (I'm honestly not 100% sure what it is, to be honest); that's what this wording is aiming at. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 02:25, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

• That's a snowman. --Σ ^_talk<sub style="margin-left:-3.2ex contribs 05:07, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

• Well I could have guessed that; I'm not sure if it's a dingbat or something else. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 13:38, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose paragraph 2 - There is nothing wrong with having a set of scales (⚖) or a flag (⚐) for a username. They can just change their signature to "Lord of Supreme Justice" or "Surrender" or something that reflects the unicode character. --Σ _{^talkcontribs} 05:07, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

• For what it's worth, both your set of scales and your flag render as box characters in my up-to-date web browser. Thparkth (talk) 15:30, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

• Your web browser doesn't matter in this case - it's what fonts you have installed on your computer that matter. --Σ _{^talkcontribs} 17:40, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

• Any username that requires the installation of non-standard fonts to view should definitely not be acceptable. Thparkth (talk) 11:48, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

• There could be users from JAWP who could be affected by your wording. --Σ _{^talkcontribs} 05:31, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
• Standard/non-standard on what system? All of these dingbats are standard on my mac, several languages are not, all of the languages used for subdomains except 𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌹𐍃𐌺 (Gothic), မ္ရန္‌မာစာ (Burmese), and portions of Словѣньскъ (Old Church Slavonic) appear to be standard on my work pc, most of the dingbats are not. But my office pc has a very large number of language fonts installed because my employer is a national government. Standard fonts probably limit the languages substantially. So, this proposal either leads to banning usernames that are valid in a language, maybe even the native language of the user, OR banning dingbats that are more common than many of those languages (and are just as easily installed). This proposal has neither a clear scope (it is changing as we go without new proposals being set up, making this RFC internally inconsistent) nor a clear purpose.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 07:06, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose - What is wrong with a "dingbat", as long as it isn't a primary account? ⚔ (talk) 13:38, 23 August 2011 (UTC) Reaper Eternal (talk) 14:12, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

  Above user is an alternate account of User:Reaper Eternal, whose userpage indicates that the account "is only a joke alternate account"

  For one, if another "box character" shows up to comment, I won't be able to tell you apart. I would suggest that you use your main account to contribute to this discussion. –xeno^talk 13:56, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

  Re-signed. Reaper Eternal (talk) 14:12, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

  Thanks. –xeno^talk 14:20, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose Paragraph 2 To pick up the example from Σ above, according to some random translator I found, flag translates to フラグ in Katakana, so フラグ would be an acceptable user name under the proposal, but ⚐ would not be. Seems extremely arbitrary. I would also guess that more people will be able to render ⚐ then フラグ, so how would ⚐ be more confusing? Monty₈₄₅ 04:10, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

  Just as importantly, if not more so (under the arguments of the supporters), far more users of the English Wikipedia would understand the dingbat than would understand the Katakana. (though the position of the supporters regarding understandability is a red herring because as a username 'meaning' is irrelevant)--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 07:13, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

• ✗ because those characters expressly intended to be excluded for being novelties can actually be used to convey a full meaning. Kinda like my use of ✗ instead of ✓ shows i don't approve this motion. delirious & lost ☯ ^~hugs~ 04:03, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support This adeptly addresses the issues that were my reason for opposing the previous suggestion. Nyttend (talk) 03:21, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Please close this RfC, not our call

With SUL, we can't decide which usernames are acceptable or not, we have to accept all of them. Policy on this can only be changed at global level, not on a single Wikipedia. We can make a policy (or recommendations) about signatures, but that's all. Wasting time on an RfC (or a policy) which is utterly unenforceable is useless. Fram (talk) 08:11, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support closure - I would close it but I stated a position elsewhere. I also note that we have allowed users to change their usernames to non-latin usernames in the past. This proposal would cause substantial disruption to the project even without SUL, with SUL it's simply impossible and taken to it's logical conclusion would result in us all having to create new accounts on other wikis that don't use latin-characters; thus defeating the whole purpose of SUL. I'm not sure that we can't prohibit an SUL username if it it's disruptive in English but non-latin usernames are not an issue.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 08:23, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
  • I have removed my "support closure" as I agree that this is not ready for closure and it not out of our hands, I remain completely opposed to the proposals though and I would like to see them closed as rejected.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 10:03, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
• It's not unenforceable. People with SUL accounts can be blocked on en.wp but still edit elsewhere. It can surely cause interwiki friction though. FuFoFuEd (talk) 08:29, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
• Agree with FuFoFuEd. The username policy already forbids certain usernames that are not forbidden globally. For example, there is no global policy that forbids usernames that reflect an organization as far as I can determine. Yet it's widely accepted that we forbid such names on this project. Your argument is "with SUL, we have to accept all usernames" and that simply is not true; if it were, the whole policy would have to be discarded, since it already contains the aforementioned restrictions. Regards SoWhy 08:44, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

• (ec)It's technically enforceable locally. It's practically not and is a disruptive proposal because it would destroy the very concept of SUL and would require many established users to change their names, e.g. User:とある白い猫 (formerly User:White Cat). Especially since even the other english language projects would probably oppose this, en.wp would become a bastion of English language elitism; thus proving the beliefs of many on other projects and many users would be forced to choose between 1) following en.wp's rule, 2) having a separate account just for en.wp, or 3) avoiding en.wp - if I were in that position I think I would likely choose the latter. I find the proposal insulting and I'm a native English speaker with a completely latin username.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 08:50, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

We already enforce the current policy with no complaints whatsoever from other projects. If you have any different statistics, please provide them. If you read both my initial wording and Carnildo's alternative version, you will notice that both explicitly exclude SUL users. The commonly voiced argument of SUL-incompatibility thus makes no sense. I do request though that you assume good faith in me for this proposal and in those supporting it. There is no wish for elitism from any of us and it's a straw man if you attack the proposal for that. It was mainly to further the already established goal of making Wikipedia accessible to all readers, no matter what programs/devices they use to access Wikipedia. I agree that I might have worded my proposal in a way that covers acceptable non-latin characters but you still fail to provide any reason why dingbats and similar characters should be allowed as usernames. Regards SoWhy 09:16, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't assume that you had any intent to be elitist, I only note that it will lend credence to the position that the en. projects are, should we adopt this. I don't see any reason to allow dingbats, I don't see any particularly good reason to prohibit them. To the average native-English speaker with an American keyboard there is no difference between many non-latin characters that are valid letters in some language and dingbats, either as to recognition or as to ease of typing. I can see all dingbats, I cannot see all linguistic characters. My user page on te.wp (te:వాడుకరి_చర్చ:Doug) doesn't display except for my name. If it did, I still wouldn't know what it said. If someone signed their name on my en.wp talk page with a signature in that language I would have no idea what their name was, so I would have to click on it. But then, I would have to click on a large number of user's names because their names are different from their signatures (actually, I would use pop-ups). I don't see what is different about dingbats, I at least would recognize those. And how are they different from mathematical symbols? Are those a problem? In your initial proposal you mention User:Δ, that looks to me like a Delta, though if I type ∆ (which on a mac is <option>+j) I get a different symbol. But that doesn't really matter to me. Why should it. If I click the username, I get the right user page. But it sure looks like you are suggesting we prohibit Greek. This whole thing seems disruptive to me because it seems to prohibit names valid in other languages in Option 1 and commonly used mathematical symbols in Option 2; the first is insulting even if not intended, the second is just unnecessary and solves a problem that no one has yet clearly identified.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 09:55, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Why is this a problem? I could list tens of reasons why this proposal is a bad idea but perhaps the best one is how latin usernames are not necesarily identifiable with people. So why do people think latin usernames are more identifiable? Certainly we have plenty of very strange usernames that contain no unicode but are still not necessarily easy to follow. For instance the username SoWhy would be very confusing for a new user who may confuse it with a regular wiki link. As long as clicking on the username leads to a valid userpage of a well meaning user, I do not quite see a problem. Someone could very well start editing English wikipedia with a non-english username. Furthermore, someone could contribute to English wikipedia without knowing any English. Certainly English is preferable here for the obvious reasons but that is not a requirement. -- とある白い猫 ^chi? 20:26, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

As I mentioned above (multiple times actually), names like ✈ or ❤ are a problem for people relying on tools such a screen readers or uncommon devices to edit Wikipedia. While such tools, at least some of them, are probably able to work with foreign-language characters, they fail when it comes to dingbats and similar characters. And unlike foreign-language characters, there is no reason whatsoever why anyone should use such symbols as (part of) their username or at least no one presented one yet. It would be really useful if we could concentrate on discussing those names the proposal was actually meant to cover, not examples that the proposal actually never meant to cover in the first place. Regards SoWhy 20:38, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I did read it, it would appear as question marks (?) as would all unicode characters like kanji characters if such characters are not installed in the said device. We do not need to make wikipedia compatible with such ancient devices/OS. User:✈ is taken while User:❤ isn't. :/ I think your proposal fails to establish just what exactly it wants to forbid. It can be interpreted broadly and that is why people are this touchy. -- とある白い猫 ^chi? 17:20, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the problem of the initial wording, which is why I struck it in favor of Carnildo's proposal. Do you think that one is also too broadly worded, considering that it explicitly names box-drawing characters and dingbats only? Regards SoWhy 18:35, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I think this problem is best solved at the signature level, rather than the username level. I think a user should be free to use whatever username they want, as long as their signature on each local language wiki is readable in that language. To the user 'とある白い猫' above, I have no idea what your name says or how to refer to you, with the only English portion being 'chi?', which I doubt you'd want to be called in discussions. What would the harm be in the signature instead being 'とある白い猫 (<English alias>)' on the English wiki, 'とある白い猫 (<Korean alias>)' on the Korean wiki and so on, using the native script for the relevant wiki to represent an alias within the brackets? This would preserve the user's ability to choose their own username, unified across the projects in the script of their choice, while still making it possible for people on each localised wiki to still be able to uniquely identify and refer to that user. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 00:17, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

If a lot of people are finding it that big a problem, then possibly; that would be a discussion for WT:SIG (I take no stance on it here). For the record, his username is three words, pronounced "toaru shiroi neko", which means "a certain white cat"; in his case, you could just call him White Cat and everyone would know who that is. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:22, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

And if you clicked on the user's signature you would be taken to their userpage and would immediately learn this. Alternatively, if you want to know how to refer to the user, you could refer to them as <snip><paste>とある白い猫, which I expect is exactly what you did. So what is the problem? In response to SoWhy, I could just as easily say that you have absolutely no reason to expect to be referred to by two words run together in CamelCase that"there is no reason whatsoever why anyone should use [CamelCase jammed together phrases] as (part of) their username" particularly where the words alone are anything from completely ambiguous to meaningless in the language of this wiki. I am pretty sure that most screen readers will provide the same nonsense for many languages as for dingbats, in some cases, some older screen readers may treat some dingbats as letters; but I expect they do the same thing with non-latin alphabets. --Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 09:53, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Please also understand SoWhy, I have absolutely nothing against your username (although I will note that it means nothing to me as a native speaker of English except in some vague poetic sense - if there's a literary allusion, it is lost on me), I only commented on it to show what I see as a flaw in the reasoning you've presented. I'm unsure how a screen reader would interpret "sowhy" but, even if it pronounced it "so, why?", it wouldn't make much sense to most people unless they knew it was a user name.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 11:40, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I think the main issue is readability, not meaning. SoWhy's name is readable and easily recallable to an English reader, regardless of whether it has any meaningful interpretation. Even non-words can be readable, like VKR9. Their readability, and more importantly their ability to be pronounced in some fashion (eg. vee-kay-arr-nine), creates a memorable key in a reader's mind that can be associated with the persona of the author, which makes it much easier to follow discussions with multiple participants. Characters in foreign scripts don't convey this advantage to readers who can't interpret those characters and can hinder their ability to smoothly follow conversation and dialogue, both of which are key aspects of the Wikipedia project.

Worse, with many computers simply not having a wide variety of language packs installed, the likelihood that a user's foreign script signature is going to come up as a set of boxes is higher. On the system I'm on here (SOE controlled, which I have no choice over), the parenthesised portion of Blade of the Northern Lights' signature (話して下さい) and WhiteCat's signature (とある白い猫) both render as 6 empty boxes. If BotNL didn't also have Latin characters in his signature, I'd have to click through to userpages to see who was who, on every comment in the thread.

I'm not opposed to a bit of creative flair in signatures, but collaboration and community interaction are key elements of this cooperative project. Making a pretty signature shouldn't come at the cost of readability to native readers on the different local language projects, and foreign script usernames should be supported by native language aliases in signatures. Unreadable signatures really don't benefit other readers or the project as a whole. As I've mentioned in other comments, I don't think this is something that can be reasonably prescribed at the username level because of SUL, but adding something to the signature policy seems like a perfectly reasonable thing. There is a somewhat-mangled discussion on WP:SIG at the moment (and prior to this one, in fact) to that effect. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 06:35, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

But now you're talking about signatures not user names; and signatures have barely been mentioned here. Everyone seems to have a different problem with these names: is it 1) these usernames can't be parsed by screen readers (SoWhy and others); 2) that these names are confusing in the logs and page histories (SoWhy); 3) that these names show up as boxes for many users (several comments); or 4) that these signatures give no meaningful recognition. (TechnoSymbiosis). Further, is the perceived problem a) non-Latin characters and dingbats, or b) just dingbats. SoWhy, specifically said that this was not about signatures, above, excluding any version of 4 and he has modified it to only b - so as not to prohibit non-Latin usernames that are valid in another language. You would seem to say 4a so you are directly contradicting him. Others say only b but for reasons 1 & 2 which is logically inconsistent because many browsers will recognize dingbats but not many of the non-latin characters. I will give you that your position is the most logically consistent of all the positions. It leads to "signature must have Latin characters in order to give the majority of English speakers something to mentally grab on to". It is however, completely different from the proposal in either it's original or modified form. The problem here is that many people think there's a problem but for different reasons yet they are tagging on to the same proposals. The original proposal got stricken, even though it had several supports; what are those users supporting now? There will be no way to find a consensus here because it has become such a mess. If anyone wants to do this right they need to set up a new, much more formal, RfC with "Position by User:Foo" and endorsements; "Postion by User:Bar" and endorsements. I now think it's time to close this RfC as no consensus because we aren't even sure what the proposals are anymore.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 10:03, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I think there is consensus support for the first paragraph of the alternative proposal (but not the 2nd). I agree that the rest is either in non-consensus territory (and unlikely to move out of it due to confusion) or has developed consensus in opposition. Monty₈₄₅ 13:56, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the current discussion is a mess. The discussion over at WT:SIG is also a mess of different proposals. My stance is that usernames and signatures are closely but not inextricably related. Because of SUL we have very limited control over what kind of username a user may have, and I think the freedom of users in any language to name their account as they see fit and be able to use it across any of the projects should be preserved. In that regard I disagree with SoWhy's proposal. However I do believe that we have more power to make changes in the signature policy for this specific project and while it won't solve all of SoWhy's concerns (eg. it won't make names more readable in logs and page history), we can make them more readable on talk pages, which represent a fairly significant portion of places where a user's name is likely to appear. So my suggested solution isn't completely disconnected from the original proposal, it's just incomplete and attempts to solve the cause of the problem elsewhere in our policies.

The other part of the problem, with logs and histories, is that it's not limited to non-Latin usernames making things confusing. A user named 'Bob' who always signs as 'Fred' in talk comments is going to be similarly obscure when comparing histories against talk page comments. I've considered ways to improve this situation, such as by altering the wiki software to allow for 'username (short alias)' formed identifiers to be displayed in logs and histories, but I don't believe there's any elegant way to resolve this part of SoWhy's concerns without carrying with it even more opportunities for misuse, and without compromising on SUL's flexibility. I don't consider that to be an option. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 00:43, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

If screen readers are really the concern here, wouldn't it be possible to incorporate some sort of alt text into signatures?--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 12:00, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Recent revert

I agree with Mlpearc Public in reverting recent edits by WhatamIdoing. My concern is that it gives an impression that a single purpose account is not problematic. While it may be fine for them to identify themselves as part of a company, it should primarily be for identification of the unique user, and not to announce a potential conflict. IMO--My76Strat (talk) 18:49, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Just for the record my revert had nothing to do with how I feel about the changes, just the fact if your going to change policy you should seek consensus first not just change it. Mlpearc Public (Talk) 18:59, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing - If you keep reading the section you point out it continues, "because policies and guidelines are sensitive and complex, users should take care over any edits, to be sure they are faithfully reflecting the community's view and to be sure that they are not accidentally introducing new sources of error or confusion.Because Wikipedia practice exists in the community through consensus, editing a policy/guideline/essay page does not in itself imply an immediate change to accepted practice. It is, naturally, bad practice to write something other than accepted practice on a policy or guideline page."

I just think that if your going to post that it's OK to include Company/Group names in a username, it would be more efficient to discuss it first and see how the community feels about the change. Mlpearc Public (Talk) 20:27, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Are you aware that it has been discussed extensively, and that there are dozens of users who do this? "Accepted community practice" is actually defined as what the community accepts, and we certainly do accept this: See User:Maitri Shah, PharmD, GSK, User:Mark at Alcoa, User:BSW-RMH ("BSW" stands for Bioscience Writers), and more.

My76Strat, SPAs are a problem if they are POV pushing, not merely if they happen to edit in a narrow area. A substantial number of editors, especially newbies, are technically SPAs, because they only ever edit one article (often only once). What WP:SPA describes as "well-intentioned editors with a niche interest" are welcome on Wikipedia, even if their niche overlaps with their profession.

Mlpearc, I know exactly what Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Content_changes says, including the parts you have omitted here; it happens that I am the primary author of that section of the policy. I did "take care"—it was not a thoughtless or sloppy edit—and I'm curious why you reverted both changes, including the one that makes this policy more accurately reflect the contents of the COI guideline that it is supposedly describing, which does not actually prohibit people from editing articles about their employers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:54, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

COI disclosure can be obtained in other ways, I just don't think it's a good practice to use Usernames to do it. Mlpearc Public (Talk) 21:01, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Did you type what you mean, or is that "do think" supposed to be a "don't think"?

And do you recognize the gap between "best practice for typical circumstances is not to name an employer" and "naming your employer is 100% prohibited by policy"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:17, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I think we are all pretty much on the same page. The BRD cycle has proved effective in this very example. I do think, with discussion, a better end can be achieved. I think we should always be interested in clarifying issues where ambiguity might exist, while being careful not to further introduce alternative ambiguity. I stand by my earlier comment that we should not define this as a manner of declaring a conflict.--My76Strat (talk) 06:41, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Let's deal with the simpler problem: This policy previously seemed to indicate that employees should never edit the articles about their employers. This is wrong. This is the source of all sorts of (frequently stupid) complaints at COIN. Does anyone here actually mind if we say "use caution" about editing articles on subjects you're closely connected to (which is what WP:COI says) rather than appearing to ban it? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:34, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Since nobody has any apparent objection to making this accurately reflect the COI guideline's actual contents, I've restored this small change. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:05, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Edit request

Include redirect WP:U in "Shortcuts" box. 71.146.20.62 (talk) 02:54, 28 November 2011 (UTC) -- In haematuria causes,sugest to vasculitic syndromes like SLE etcm thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.202.23.210 (talk) 06:45, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Yves Bot

"Also, unless your account is an approved bot, your name should not be easily misunderstood to refer to a "bot" (which is used to identify bot accounts)"

An unregistered user on another forum brought up an interesting point: If Yves Bot or Ben Bot were to register an account on a Wikipedia, would he be allowed to use his real name? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 17:32, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I would say so, yes. --Conti|✉ 18:03, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Email address usernames

I've always wanted to contribute, but never signed up because I don't create AOL-esque user/screen names. I only create logins using my e-mail address. Why can't I use my e-mail address as my login on Wikipedia?

Mainly, it is for privacy reasons, as far as I know.Jasper Deng (talk) 04:48, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the fast reply! I understand that some people want to be anonymous, but what about people like me who specifically want one unified online identity? I really hate creating new usernames, and only post things online that I wouldn't mind being tied to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.58.7.230 (talk) 05:03, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, every edit is legally attributed to the person who made it. Vandals on Wikipedia often spam editors who give out their email addresses, but if you want to let people know that your online identity is an email address, create an account and disclose it on the userpage.Jasper Deng (talk) 05:26, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Examples

Here are some examples of inappropriate usernames:

Disruptive: User:Homosexualkiller
Offensive: User:123poop
Misleading: 123admin
Promotional: User:Softsoap
Nonsense: User:1AlK82;)aM&$0AmLqAre1$!

--99.163.124.116 (talk) 23:53, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Unused username reclamation

Has it ever been considered to reclaim the seemingly huge number of unused usernames that are over a given age?

I just looked at a few pages of usernames at Special:ListUsers, and when filtering to show only users with edits was less than surprised to find that a huge number of the usernames previously listed were gone. Since the alphanumerical limits will almost certainly force some users to miss out on their first choices, would it not be healthier to make it policy that any username not used within a year (or whatever) will be reclaimed?

I'd suggest that this (potential) policy could be retroactive without causing too much fuss, but I'm quite certain others would disagree. Any thoughts or pointers? fredgandt 05:32, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

There was fairly strong support for Wikipedia:Delete unused username after 90 days (the !vote is on the talk page), but the devs said they couldn't do it. bd2412 T 19:36, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Very interesting. I've asked for a dev at BugZilla to explain why it won't happen. After 3 1/2 years I think it would be quite fair to reopen the discussion. Thanks for your response bd2412. fredgandt 23:21, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Link please? Gigs (talk) 21:58, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

A problem with the username policy

I've always thought there was something misguided about this policy: it doesn't take into account any editing, at all, and instead focuses on what is nominal (literally). This is a recent prime example of such a failed idea... and who knows how many other well-intentioned users blocked over the years just gave up instead of appealing.

This has just grown unnecessarily, in my opinion; accounts associated with companies can be blocked for spamming, instead (otherwise we might even give them the impression that if they change their names they can keep spamming) - and attack accounts are usually obvious VOA candidates. Can we, perhaps, change the username policy to take into account any edits made before the users are reported/blocked? (That is, I think it would be reasonable if this only affected accounts who already edited, so we could more accurately evaluate their intentions, instead of basing our judgement on a single word/phrase that could potentially have different meanings in other languages.) -- Mentifisto 14:10, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

If your last name is "boner", you should expect to be blocked now and then from web sites. Gigs (talk) 21:56, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Why was "product" removed from the list

This is to address the comment Toddst1 made here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AUsername_policy&action=historysubmit&diff=476135087&oldid=476070953

The reason I removed the word "product" from the list of inappropriate names is because product is the only item on the list not mentioned here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:UserLogin&type=signup&returnto=Wikipedia:Username+policy . If the concenus is to forbid the usage of product names it should be spelt out right where new wikipedians are likely to see it. Ottawahitech (talk) 12:13, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

What is a "group"?

It has been more than a month since I was blocked from editing Wikipedia for "... your username doesn't meet our username policy as it appears to be related to a group, organization or a role", but looking at this project page I still do not understand what is meant by "group".

Since I know for sure I am not an "organization" nor a "role" it would set my mind at ease to know that I am also not a "group" - so what exactly is a group? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 20:22, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

:You may get a wider response here: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User names. Just a thought. Your account name is over four years old. Mlpearc (powwow) 20:37, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

It means any name which represents a collective entity rather than an individual human being, such as a corporation, church, union, couple, team, partnership, society, workgang or Yahoo! Usergroup (such as, say,OttawaHiTech). --Orange Mike | Talk 20:48, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

And in practice, there are many examples of group and product names being accepted, just like there are many examples of editors getting accused of bad names because their made-up username, unbeknownst to them, just happens to be the same as some small company. This provision is not strictly enforced, and we should probably have an official "use some common sense, people!" exception to it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:03, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

What is a group?

The article does not explain what a "group". " is. Since it says right in the first section:

Promotional usernames are used to promote an existing company, organization, group, or website (including non-profit organizations) or product(s) on Wikipedia.

I believe it is crucial to define "group" in this article. Don't you agree? Ottawahitech (talk) 19:20, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Would it not be an overemphasis? What should you wish to be included in the definition? Wifione ^Message 14:54, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

• A "group" means different things to different people. If a Wikipedia policy forbids the use of a "group" as an ID on Wikipedia, Wikipedians should know what a "group" is? No? Ottawahitech (talk) 14:25, 17 March 2012 (UTC) Problem has finally been fixed by Gfoley4 - a big THANK YOU. Ottawahitech (talk) 14:37, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I think the change made is both wrong (it's not just "business" groups that matter here) and needless WP:instruction creep. As far as I can tell, all groups are nominally prohibited, so the fact that it means slightly different things to different people is unimportant: all of the people are correct. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:31, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

You're right. I've put in a larger definition of groups. Tell me if it works. Wifione ^Message 13:58, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

trademark/copyrighted usernames

I thought previously I had seen a ban of trademarked/copyrighted usernames, or character names from comics/movies/etc, but I do not see it in the policy anymore. Am I confused? Was this removed? Gaijin42 (talk) 03:09, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I did a quick check on half a dozen names of cartoon characters. We seem to have a lot of accounts using character names (most of them with minor variants, like adding a number), and none of them were blocked over their usernames. So I don't think that such a rule was ever enforced much, even if it existed.

Of course, if the trademarked name is an organization's name (implying that the account belongs to the org rather than the individual human user), then the user would need to change that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:36, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Just to clarify what a rename does: two questions

Hey guys, i just had my username changed (thanks ‎MBisanz), and have two questions:

• It seems that a rename is largely a whole bunch of redirects or transfers from an old username with a new username, while letting the user log into both usernames. Is this correct? In particular, I was surprised that I was still able to log into my old username.
• What happens if some time later another user wants to usurp my old username, assuming that at that time I'm still actively using Wikipedia (on my new username)? Will the other user be allowed to usurp it because that account now has very few edits? I'm just concerned about my old signatures etc being linked to another user.

-Well-rested 04:50, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Btw, apologies if this question is in the wrong place. On second thoughts I should probably have asked at the talk page of WP:CHU. I'll shift the question there if no one replies here in a while. :) Well-rested 04:55, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

What is the actual point behind WP:NOSHARE?

See also Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive744#Shared account. What is the advantage to Wikipedia in blocking a couple's shared account if they like to edit together (and are open about that)? I don't get it. The argument of licensing issues has been given, but that appears to hold no water. So what gives?  --Lambiam 14:01, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Licensing certainly IS a legitimate concern, as material once contributed to wikipedia is irrevocably contributed. Its too easy for people to try and start weaseling out if they can say "that wasn't meant to be released, someone unauthorized did it, but they did it with the account that is otherwise used for authorized releases. Additionally when people are breaking the rules : it wasn't me! don't punish me! Or for issues that have legal liability (copyright violation, BLP violation, threats, etc) we need to be able to show the account (and therefore individual) that is doing those actions. Gaijin42 (talk) 14:13, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

This is true of accounts which are shared widely, or within an employment relationship. For partnerships I think things can be clearer as they can be reasonably treated with equal responsibility. Arrangements might also be agreed for using personalised signatures where it matters, or specifying a more general licence. But the reality is they have chosen their joint licensing arrangements and it is reasonable to assume they are happy with them.

You know a very similar argument was once used to support a blanket ban on open proxies. It was argued, in effect, that without knowing who was editing, the content couldn't be licensed properly, or something - I never really understood it. The fact is the person contributing has chosen both their licence and attribution. When you have a shared IP address with unregistered users editing from it (open proxy or not) then there is no possible way, unless you're in law enforcement with a reasonable excuse, to know who was editing. We also do not need to show which individual is making threats, BLP violations, etc. If it is a legal problem only law enforcement can make a guess about the individual behind it (and even then not always). We on the other hand just ban the IP or account and blame everyone with access to it. If they didn't want to share responsibility they shouldn't share an account, so it should be their problem not ours. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 15:39, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Copyright is the biggest one. There is no such thing as copyright assigned to a couple (married or not); and with corporations, you start getting into issues such as work-for-hire and the like. We have decided to simplify things by insisting that each edit must be attributable to a single individual human being: full stop. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:43, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Your first argument does not hold (see below). Also otherwise I do not think it really simplifies or achieves anything at all: semicolon pilcrow.  --Lambiam 21:25, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

I am in agreement with your statement OM, but how does that mesh up with the anon ips and open proxies? Frankly, I think we should spot anon ip, as frankly its actually LESS anonymous. I know nothing about you other than what you choose to tell me. I actually know a hell of a lot about an ip.Gaijin42 (talk) 15:57, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Copyright can belong to joint authors in the US and most other places - not just sequential editors, but concurrent ones.[5] -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 15:58, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, for example my copy of Freakonomics has: "Copyright © 2005 by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner." So they can write a book together, but they could not donate content to Wikipedia together. That doesn't make sense.  --Lambiam 21:04, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

An original copyrighted contribution (an edit) can be made by a married couple as well as two blokes called Steve, where they agree that their contributions are joint and indivisible. As with a book, they can write an article, a paragraph, or a sentence and the work is indivisible. Does it make sense to say an edit or an article was made by Mr and Mrs Smith? I don't see why not. Do you get two Christmas cards from every couple you know? We have already sorted out the attribution and blame issues. And then there's things like Lennon-McCartney and Jedward.

I'll just say that I find the argument that these types of edits from a married (or not) couple aren't allowed somehow (outwith Wikipedia policy) to be completely unsupported. It gets rehearsed every once in a while in long lists of mostly uninformed Oppose votes. To be honest I'm not persuaded either way about what we should have for the policy. I'd prefer married couple like this weren't penalised, but there remains the problem of companies. It could probably be resolved with a diplomatic rephrasing of the policy. But please let's not continue justifying another policy for reasons that don't make sense - especially with the tautology that something is bad because official Wikipedia policy says it is. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 06:02, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Just to point out, that while this is a very interesting discussion, it does not impact the policy. If you really want to fight this fight, you would need to make an RFC on changing this policy. Expect this to be a GIANT CLUSTERFUCK of a political fight if you do. Gaijin42 (talk) 21:16, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, I thought, before I start an RFC to change the policy, let me first ask what the point is, because, after all, it is entirely possible that I am overlooking a good rationale for this policy, and then I would just be wasting everyone's time with an RFC.  --Lambiam 21:30, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

I think it's more practical for the community. There's less potential for WP:LITTLEBROTHER excuse-making (all vandalism was always the other person, right?), if someone screws up it permits us to block only the person screwing up, and whatever notices are delivered (e.g., about ArbCom's discretionary sanctions), we can be sure of them reaching both people (without "But I didn't know about that... someone else using the account must have read it!). WhatamIdoing (talk) 11:56, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Freaknomics' is a bad example to use; when works are severally copyrighted like that, the publishers insist on proof of very extensive contractual clarifications of exactly how the copyright is shared. Anybody with experience in the publishing industry can tell you that such partnerships often end up in court; are you prepared to fund the lawyers necessary if ex-spouse 'A' claims ex-spouse 'B' violated his/her copyrights by posting their valuable mindchildren to Wikipedia? --Orange Mike | Talk 18:23, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

RfC on the WP:NOSHARE prohibition

There's no support for this change in policy, so I don't see any harm in closing early per the snowball clause. Steven Zhang ^{DR goes to Wikimania!} 10:23, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

The prohibition on shared accounts "[f]or reasons of attribution and accountability" was introduced on April 2, 2007. An argument presented at the time was that "[p]er the GFDL, all contributions must be by a single identified user". However, the text of the GDFL refers to "one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship", while the text of the CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported License uses "the individual, individuals, entity or entities who created the Work". Also, we allow contributions by unregistered users, possibly operating from Internet cafes, even though they can obviously not be attributed to a single identified user and any accountability is purely fictitious. Copyright law allows multiple individuals to hold joint copyright. It appears that there is no legal reason for the prohibition.

The proposal is to lift the prohibition for certain clearly harmless joint accounts, for which in fact the prohibition itself may be harmful: the case of couples, married or otherwise, who choose to contribute to the Wikipedia project together, as a single entity, and who accordingly will hold joint authorship and accept joint responsibility for their contributions. A tentative replacement text for the section is as follows:

The editing privileges that come with your user account are solely given to you, individually. It is not permitted to give others the password to your account or otherwise allow them access to your account. Doing so will result in the account being blocked.

This rule does not apply to accounts that directly represent the Wikimedia Foundation or internal Wikipedia committees, and bot accounts that are maintained by more than one contributor, provided the existence of such an arrangement is made clear and has consensus.

It does also not apply to accounts registered by couples who contribute to Wikipedia together, provided that they do not use the joint account individually, but always as a single joint entity.

However, please concentrate on the principle, and not the particulars of this text; if there is consensus for a policy change, the precise formulation can be adjusted by the usual Wikipedia editing process.  --Lambiam 14:20, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Support

• Yes.  --Lambiam 14:21, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Oppose

• oppose while the particular use vase is valid, it opens up a huge loophole for others to invalidly claim, and cause confusion regarding why some joint accounts are allowed and not others. Why not business partners? Why not parent/child? Why not organizations, etc. Gaijin42 (talk) 14:58, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
• oppose - We do not exist to allow corporations to use role accounts to maintain PR about themselves or socialize. Socking is often made easier when role accounts are used. I would support a limit of a maximum of 2 people per account, but not like a whole group.--Jasper Deng (talk) 19:31, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

  The proposal is to allow couples to edit together. It would still disallow "corporate" shared accounts, in which obviously not all users of the account would always edit together as a single entity, but instead take turns editing.  --Lambiam 19:51, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

  Well, I still have concerns about socking, and I also have privacy concerns.--Jasper Deng (talk) 19:53, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose: Joint accounts are still unnecessary even with a couple. Couples should still edit individually (why would there be a need otherwise?) because they may have different opinions - and it would look a little bizarre if the account is conflicting themself by changing their vote. For example, users use this tag: {{User married wiki}} to show that two individual editors are a couple. Regards, Whenaxis (contribs) ^{DR goes to Wikimania!} 00:56, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Good point, couldn't we create a template similar to the above mentioned "married" template to show "User employed by" or similar? Troll-Life (talk) 12:52, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

I think there's a template for that... can't find it right now - but I think it's something like {{User COI}}. Whenaxis (contribs) ^{DR goes to Wikimania!} 14:39, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. Couples (or other associations) can just as well use individual accounts. These are required because responsibility for one's edits, on Wikipedia, attaches to individuals. That is a necessity because we allow pseudonymous editing and therefore cannot verify or know about any form of association; allowing shared accounts would make making people responsible for their conduct even harder.  Sandstein  07:17, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose: I don't see any reason to make an exception for couples.—Kww(talk) 16:15, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
• Solution searching for a problem. Stifle (talk) 17:23, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
• The concern is not really copyright, I think; it's transparency. Also, couples wanting one account aren't a big enough demographic of our users to require more complex rules. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 17:29, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
• Strong oppose This is, frankly, a terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible idea. Opens all sorts of cans of worms and would cause uncountable problems but with absolutely NO measurable benefit to the encyclopedia to offset them. Have I mentioned this was a terrible idea yet? Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 08:19, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• No - Per the above. Reaper Eternal (talk) 12:44, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose: though I agree that GFDL doesn't forbid shared accounts, the matters of personal responsibility apply. All of the Wikipedia rules and processes are created on top of the assumption that there is exactly one person behind the account, and explicitly allowing account sharing will lead to major problems with determining consensus and permission assessment processes. In the lack of more or less valid use cases (the case of married couple using a joint account is the worst rationale I can think of in this context) such changes are simply unwarranted. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 18:15, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Strong oppose - unless somebody is planning to endow in perpetuity a fund to pay for lawyers to represent all parties involved in cases where the sharers are no longer in harmony. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:19, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - Current policy is logical and works fine. Carrite (talk) 05:44, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose I don't see why this exception is necessary, and as noted above there is plenty of room for confusion and all sorts of issues to open up. I don't see what advantage there is to a couple editing under one account when it is so easy to register one. Wikipedia is not real property. Daniel Case (talk) 15:02, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Addendum: To extend my argument to what appears to the be the foundation of Lambiam's, the text of the GFDL, a license designed for writing free software documentation that was found to be useful for creating an open-content free encyclopedia, is not controlling on our policies. That "entity or entities" language would permit such a username policy, but does not require it. Daniel Case (talk) 15:04, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose I see where you're coming from- the license doesn't require it and there could be a legitimate situation where sharing an account is OK, but I think administratively disallowing shared accounts is a better idea and I don't think that situation really requires a rule change. OSborn ^arf_contribs. 01:47, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - while the policy may be the conservative interpretation of GFDL or CCSA or other copyright terms it doesn't seem to be overly conservative to the detriment of the project, and I see no upside or benefit in repealing the policy (I don't see a line of married couples asking to share an account).  7  02:08, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. I like the idea, because I can conceive of situations in which it would be convenient for specific individuals to share an account, and a couple is the best example. However, the potential for abusing this idea outweighs the benefits, which are indeed rather small; Daniel Case hits the nail on the head. Nyttend (talk) 02:15, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - For all reasons stated above. Mlpearc (powwow) 02:32, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. Whilst there is a valid argument about attribution, NOSHARE is fundamental to user interaction. If we have accounts running around with multiple personalities and operators, I think it would be no exaggeration to say the impact on our project would be catastrophic. AGK [•] 22:59, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose The small benefit gained from changing for the reason stated does not outweigh the huge costs. Blue Rasberry (talk) 02:59, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Other comments or discussion

• There are problems with a draconian no-shared-accounts policy, but I don't think that explicitly permitting one relatively unusual but highly specific case of shared accounts is the best approach. The reasoning behind this would equally well support a relaxation on the use of organizational role accounts, and it seems capricious to allow one but not the other (unless we're assuming that all organisations are presumptively evil...) Shimgray | talk | 17:21, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

propose closing via WP:SNOW ? Gaijin42 (talk) 21:47, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, I can see this is not going anywhere. I have to say, though, that I'm dismayed with the general quality of the arguments – inasmuch as they can be considered arguments. I also wonder what happened to the editors who spoke out above and on the recent ANI thread against applying NOSHARE to couples.  --Lambiam 15:53, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

• I do recall of the top of my head that the reason given for prohibiting all but a few WMF role accounts was due to copyright compliance, which is a reason I have never believed. However, I see no benefit in allowing role accounts, and think the rule should continue. If a group has reason to edit role-wise, let them use accounts such as "GoupA_persona"; "GroupA_personb". To use a group account is to allow editing with anonymity within the group. There could be reasons for this, such as surveying, however, there are better ways to run an anonymous survey, and I can't think of other reasons. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:07, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  This is not about role accounts, in which individuals who are representatives of some entity take turns in editing, but about people editing together, not representing anything but themselves. The current policy forbids this.  --Lambiam 10:52, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  "Editing together, not representing anything but themselves" is what you and I are doing now, using separate accounts, isn't it? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:12, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

  No, you and I are not editing together. We are editing separately. If we somehow edit at the same time, we get an edit conflict. By "editing together", I mean, doing the actual editing actually together.  --Lambiam 07:05, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

  So you and your partner sit at the same seat, look at the same screen, and type on the same keyboard, every time, without exception, and will do forever? OK, say that on your user page, but note that one of you two is in technical control of the account. As for changing the rules, No. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:52, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

• I'm glad the copyright question has been clarified. We should also distinguish accounts which are intended to represent an entity, from accounts which are used by one. If someone's claiming to represent someone, I'll normally block them until they can prove it convincingly. I've been interested to hear the opposition comments. I don't buy the socking argument, and I don't buy the argument that we can't treat the users with equal responsibility. I think with some cooperation a decent policy could be made to cover these things. As I said above, we'll just block them both if they cause trouble. However I think Daniel Case and Nyttend put the true (and possibly the only) case for the opposition. It will inevitably introduce avoidable wikilawyering. I find this persuasive. I'm aware that there are admins and other users who turn a blind eye to such things as a couple sharing an account, or editing together. So the policy will probably remain don't tell. Can I just ask of fellow admins though - please don't block them like vandals with ACB and everything. You are in a true minority when you do that. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 07:58, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

---

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

WP:ORGNAME

The wording "Users who adopt such usernames, but who are not editing problematically in related articles, should not be blocked" was brought up a few times during WP:RFCN#MonmouthMuseumWales. I always thought the intention was that we should first encourage constructive editors to change their names voluntarily and block only if they refuse or ignore the request, not that we should not block at all if they edit constructively with an organisational name. The policy used to say "should not be summarily blocked" (emphasis mine), it appears this edit inadvertently made the meaning less clear. I would suggest re-adding "summarily" or something similar. January (talk) 09:02, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I was reviewing the ORGNAME (WP:Username) and ROLE (WP:Sock) policies earlier, and notice that policy seems to say that you absolutely can't use a name that is the same as a group if it is the full name of that group, but that using a part of the name is generally OK. I made some minor changes to try and reflect that meaning more clearly. The policies together really seem to revolve around the idea of maintaining 1 human being to 1 account. No more, no less. (with a couple of very limited exceptions). Maybe take a look at the wording presently and see if it does a better job of explaining the situation than the wording earlier. I've asked a couple of editors to review it already and gotten generally OK reviews on its clarity of meaning and purpose. -- Avanu (talk) 09:09, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

On the part of a name issue, I think the meaning there is that it's OK for the username to contain the name of an organisation alongside something that represents the individual, eg User:Mark at Alcoa (allowed after this RFCN). January (talk) 09:32, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I've also left a note at WP:AN to ask others to join the conversation to seek a wider consensus.  7  23:29, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm no longer active at WP:UAA these days, but the way the policy has always been enforced there was that users whose username gave the impression they were editing on behalf of a group were usually blocked without warning, except when it was evident that the account was operated by a single person (the Mark-at-Alcoa exception) or where the user was editing something completely unrelated to the group (in which case the user was invited to change his username; an example would be, in my opinion, a User:Disney editing articles about physics).

Users who edit an article about the organisation they give the impression of representing are usually blocked, considering their edits problematic, in that they violate WP:COI, which strongly discourages such practice. In my opinion, the policy is contradictory in that it allows admins not to blocks those users who are not editing "problematically", only mandating that those who edit in a promotional way should be blocked on sight: there is a rather large grey area where a user is not editing in a promotional manner, but his edits can be considered problematic under WP:COI — in these cases, usually, a softerblock is imposed, from my experience. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 12:28, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I would not call the policy "contradictory". "If A and B, then take this action; if A but not B, then take this other action" is not contradictory. In fact, it's so simple that (given a determination of "A" and "B", and both require some good judgment), a very simple computer could figure out whether the account should be blocked. Actually, a single electrical circuit could process that, which is pretty much the definition of "very simple".

I'm actually glad that this policy admits there is some grey area that requires admins to use their judgment and to consider the actual behavior of the users in question, rather than mindless enforcement of "a bot found a company name online that matches your user name, so it blocked you". We have had cases of people who innocently pick usernames and then discover that, completely unknown to them, there are companies or organizations that have the same name. WhatamIdoing (talk) 13:57, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

The situation is not as easy as you make it out to be; the policy does not say A and B vs. A but not B, but rather A and B vs. A but C, because, dealing with an editor whose username gives the impression he's editing on behalf of a group, according to the upolicy, in the first case, what comes into question is whether his edits are promotional, whereas, in the second case, there is a broader assessment for an admin to make, i.e. whether they are problematic (if they are not, then no need to block). Problematicness != promotion. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 14:30, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• Related to this: I have just undone Prioryman's edit where he says that blocking should only be a last resort, as this apparently contradicts the way WP:ORGNAME is currently enforced at WP:UAA by almost all admins active there. So, I think that there should be consensus to add it. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 12:21, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

As pointed out in discussions on this issue, WP:UAAI is pretty explicit on this: "users who adopt such usernames but who are not editing problematically should not be summarily blocked; instead, they should be gently but firmly encouraged to change their username." I believe Prioryman was trying to convey in crystal clear terms what policy already says, since people are being 'summarily' blocked. -- Avanu (talk) 13:41, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

That's your interpretation and, apparently, it is contentious, considering the opinions expressed on WP:AN and Jimbo Wales' talk page... Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 14:30, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

What is unclear about the words "should not be summarily blocked"? What possible alternative interpretation is there? Prioryman (talk) 17:54, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I left very little there to be interpreted, but I will add this. I believe the intent of the request that Administrators hold off on a block is directly related to the little-used Wikipedia Pillar of Civility. Not only is civility a policy, it is also a pillar, and stands as one of the MOST sacrosanct guides to our interactions with one another on Wikipedia. IT IS ROUTINELY DISREGARDED, in the name of policy enforcement and bureaucracy. I challenge you to explain how summarily blocking an otherwise innocent user is in line with plain and simple civility and decency. -- Avanu (talk) 06:02, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

That is indeed a very good point. Assistance rather than punishment should be the name of the game. Prioryman (talk) 07:22, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

The username policy is not disregarded, it's merely interpreted in a different way. The policy asks admins not to block editors who are not editing problematically; currently, many admins consider COI editing to be problematic per se and, therefore, when coupled with a username violation, think it warrants a (softer)block on sight. As I've said, a hypothetical User:Disney who was editing articles about physics would not be blocked. That said, I fail to see how the current practice of blocking on sight those editors can be construed as a violation of WP:CIV. It may be mildly discourteous, but it's most definitely not uncivil. WP:CIV is not a catch-all policy to refer to whenever you don't like the way something is done. And a softerblock, whose template welcomes the blockee to Wikipedia, inviting them to create a new account, is not punishment. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 11:35, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

If any kind of potential COI editing is seen as problematic by default (leading to an immediate block), then our policy should clearly spell that out. The "should not be summarily blocked" line is more than a little bit misleading otherwise, especially to all our newbies who surely do not interpret their own actions as "problematic editing". Of course, why on earth we would want to define someone asking to update an article as "problematic COI editing" in the first place, I have no idea. But at least spell it out in the policy if that's how it's done, please. --Conti|✉ 11:59, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• I completely agree with Avanu and believe that having a organization username does not mean one should be immediately blocked. It is these types of actions that are hurting Wikipedia. Seriously, if we went with only blocking based on how you edit, we would avoid all of these situations. If an account is editing promotionally, then it should be blocked, regardless of whether it has an organization name or not. If it's editing perfectly within the rules, then who cares? I swear, this has all become a huge bureaucracy and no one seems to actually care about improving the encyclopedia anymore, just their little power trips of being able to block people. Silverseren^C 05:41, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I would like to bring up a COMMON scenario for consideration with respect to this. Somebody from the XYZ company reads the XYZ company article and decides to make an addition or correction. Case 1 is a newbie who has never edited before, Case 2 is an experienced editor who wishes to disclose the potential COI without providing information to out themselves, but doesn't even realize that this rule exists. In both cases they figure a way to edit it and disclose their potential COI is to create a user name with the XYZ company name in it. So they create the user name "XYZCompany" or "XYZCompanyPerson" and edit the article. So the questions are:

1. Should we treat these people who have been trying to do the right thing (including declaring a potential COI) as villains and beat them up / be nasty to them?
2. Should they be told that that they should change their username(s)?

North8000 (talk) 12:11, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• See my most recent post on Jimbo's page ... a possible way forward (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 12:28, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Good idea, but I don't think that it directly addresses the scenario I listed unless you categorically consider any indication of the org name to be a promotional user name. North8000 (talk) 12:36, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• Agree with January that the deletion of "summarily", while well meant, did not help. The old wording should be restored to match WP:UAAI. On the more general question, the absolute stupidest thing about this 'shoot first, ask questions later' blocking practice is that many of the same people come back to make the same edits under another user name like User:a2b2. What the fuck does that help? At least if it's User:MyCOI we have transparency. All this stupid practice does is teach people that they have to be sneaky to be Wikipedians. Sneakipedia. If you are prepared to sneak, you are one of us. --JN466 12:46, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
• Example: [6], [7], [8]. The thing is that there was nothing wrong with the edits this person made in the first place, COI or no COI. Yet Orangemike taught them to sneak. Their first Wikipedia lesson. --JN466 12:56, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I will basically repeat my issue with usernames that match the name of companies here (that I mean usernames such as User:Alcoa and not User:Mark at Alcoa), which reflects general business practice and not Wikipedia-specific practice, such as done on Twitter and other social networking websites for marketing purposes. A company will normally employ one or more people to operate this "official company account"; over time, companies may rotate out people in charge of this account. Here, this poses the problem in that we prohibit shared accounts; this practice is so widespread on other sites in that we cannot possibly be anywhere close to consistent in our WP:NOSHARE policy if we were to merely assume that every such "official account" is not being shared and hence ignore the issue at hand. --MuZemike 16:58, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I think when we see a username that is the same as an organisation name, we should point the user to WP:NOSHARE. I also think it would be inappropriate for the user to edit content related to the organisation using that username, even if it is a single user account. Not sure if the latter reflects policy, though. I think I read it somewhere in relation to User:Mark at Alcoa. I'm pretty sure everybody here stands by WP:NOSHARE. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 17:36, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

That's why I'm saying that, if we're not going to block said problematic usernames right away, then we should have some time-delay (in Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Proposed blocking, I proposed 7 days) to allow that person to rename or, if there are no edits in which to transfer, create a new username before we end up soft-blocking. What I don't want to see is that we continue to let that username issue linger around indefinitely. --MuZemike 20:34, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Allowing the users 7 days to change their username sounds reasonable to me. --Conti|✉ 22:12, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

+1. --JN466 01:05, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

At least a week is a good idea, but our default instructions for a new account is simply for the account to be silently abandoned. If they make no more edits, there's no need for us to block it even after the one-week notice period.

Anthony, it's often quite helpful to us to have someone associated with a business or product keep an eye on those articles. For example, they'll be quick to revert vandalism, which we always want done ASAP. Their edits should be checked, but you should be checking mine, and I should be checking yours, because even good-faith volunteers make mistakes or misunderstand things. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:58, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

My above comment related only to accounts where the username exactly matches the organisation name (e.g., User:Alcoa). I agree that we should harness the interest and expertise of people affiliated with organisations, but watch them. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 05:00, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

If it is not problematic, the current policy asks that they never be blocked. However, I am willing to say a month is long enough PROVIDED that an editor has at least attempted to communicate the problem and attempted to assist the person in doing a rename. If there is no communication other than "Your username is wrong" or nothing at all, then we do not need to block them, IF there are no problematic edits. -- Avanu (talk) 03:07, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree with MuZemike, I think If we are not going to block such accounts "User:Alcoa" not "User:Mark at Alcoa" immediately, a 7 day window to address or ignore the issue is sufficient, if the user communicates a reasonable need for more time (at the moment I have no idea what that could be) then the involved Admin can use his/her discretion on a extended wavier. Mlpearc (powwow) 03:54, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

"If it's not problematic" is the question though. Problematic ORGNAME's are

1. names that are exactly the same as an organisation name (User:Alcoa), where the account is being used to edit content related to the organisation and
2. names that are promotional (User:Alcoa protects the environment)

Admins are

1. summarily blocking the former, against policy when they should politely, helpfully point the user to WP:ORGNAME and advise them to abandon the account, at least when editing content related to the organisation, and only blocking if they refuse, and
2. classifying legitimate usernames as promotional when they simply transparently incorporate an organisation name, and summarily blocking them.
3. They're also declaring usernames role accounts on no evidence other than the appearance of the name, and summarily blocking, rather than asking who's using the account.

That is, they are using admin rights in diametric contravention of policy. If policy were faithfully applied in these instances, blocking would rarely be required - only where the use is actually against policy, and where the user ignores a legitimate polite request to drop the name; summary blocks, based solely on WP:ORGNAME, even where the user has an apparent COI, are never appropriate.

I'd like to see an assurance from Mike, Bwilkins and others that have been supporting this admin behaviour, that they recognise it contravenes the community's wishes, as clearly outlined in policy, and will follow the letter (which is very simple and clear) and spirit (help don't torture the user) of the policy in future.

I'm not familiar enough with the templates being used in these cases but some of them appear to facilitate this problematical admin behaviour. If they do, that'll need to be addressed.--Anthonyhcole (talk) 04:55, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

The current practice is most definitely not in diametric contravention of policy and repeating it over and over again will not make that claim true. The username policy is currently interpreted in a way that you don't approve; that's perfectly ok, but that's only your opinion. It's not the authentic interpretation thereof.

Conti, if you want to change the wording of the policy, so that it more clearly reflects current practice, I'm all for it, but I fear such a change would be reverted quite quickly...

Regarding the proposal to institute a 7-day delay, I weakly oppose it. Currently, Category:Wikipedian usernames editors have expressed concern over is almost always backlogged (there are days when it contains as many as 300 accounts); such a rule would cause a massive waste of time and resources. The current approach is more efficient and it's also not that much more discourteous (please, read the softerblock template and tell me what's rude about it, I consider it one of the least bitey templates there are). Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 11:41, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

"Users who adopt such usernames, but who are not editing problematically in related articles, should not be blocked."

I don't see how else to read this. If you are blocking in these cases, then you are going against policy. It's pretty open and shut here. It has nothing to do with interpretation. Silverseren^C 19:45, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

With regard to the category backlog, Avicennasis has this wonderful tool that I've been using for a about 8 months (speaking of waste of time and resources dear god what am I doing with my life) to clear that category. I use the history, find users who've been notified for 7+ days, if they've continued with their editing without any explanation of the name, I block (softer or spamublock depends on the activity); if not, I consider the account abandoned and remove it from the category. (If you would like to rob me or find out when I'm not feeling well, monitor this category, because it only fills when I'm on vacation or sick.)

Most of the pushback I've gotten on this activity is people upset or confused that I did not block the person they warned, even if the account hasn't edited for weeks. It appears that there's a large "block corporate names on sight" sentiment in the community, not just with admins. Danger! ^{High voltage!} 08:48, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Side note: I really like Anthony's example of a promotional username ("User:Alcoa protects the environment"). Does anyone object to including it (or a suitably genericized version) in the examples? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:00, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Preventative blocks

I'm wondering how the idea that an admin must wait to block after such edits of suchly named editors are made meshes with "blocks are preventative, not punitive". Though of course this should be a case-by-case basis type thing, the current restriction seem contrary to broader Wikipedia policy. I welcome others' thoughts on this. - jc37 01:05, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

What is the broader policy that you reference? We're the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. You don't block people on sight if they're just here to help. Just because they don't know all the Wiki-ese and linga wikia, we don't need to drive them out instantly. So we remind them nicely, ask for their cooperation, and if they edit neutrally without regard to their self-interest, we don't bite them. WP:Civility is a pillar, not sure how much higher in policy you can get than that. -- Avanu (talk) 01:09, 7 May 2012 (UTC)