User talk:KalenaEJordan

Re: (User talk:ais523) Username: Kalena Jordan

(Copying this message from your IP talk page, where I sent it originally.)

Any user can sign up under any name that doesn't violate the username policy; generally speaking, this is handled automatically by the servers, and administrators like me only need to be involved in the process when complications happen (for instance, the server is suspicious of a name because it resembles something against policy, or a name is too similar to one that already exists and the users might be confused, or someone else has already signed up with that username, or the user trying to sign up is blind and can't solve the CAPTCHA). The problem here is that the username you want already exists, and that there can't be two accounts with the same name. Even if a username hasn't been used to make contributions, there are other reasons why a user might want a username; they might want to set preferences to help them read Wikipedia, for instance, or to maintain a watchlist.

As an Wikipedia:administrator, I can't take an account away from another user, and it's unlikely that policy would allow me to do that even if I could. If you don't want another name (here's a list of usernames starting with "Kalena" that are already taken, anything else could be created via Wikipedia:Request an account), then the only other possibility would be to persuade the existing user to change name, or to have the account name of the other user forcibly changed. This isn't possible for administrators to do, but a bureaucrat is capable of renaming users; however, this would normally only be done in favour of a longstanding account over a completely unused account.

Feel free to contact me again if you have any more questions. --ais523 13:59, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

In response to your followup question: there's nothing I personally can do to rename another user, but you may want to put your case to bureaucrats. Wikipedia:Changing usernames guidelines states "To ensure that good use is made of popular usernames, usurpation is reserved for established users. It is expected that an account requesting usurpation will have existed for several months and made non-trivial contributions to the encyclopedia."; if you think that this is a situation in which the guidelines don't apply (such situations do come up from time to time, and one reason a page is labeled as a guideline not as a policy is that people expect exceptions will come up), I suggest you make your case on the bureaucrat's noticeboard. Hope that helps! --ais523 14:04, 19 September 2007 (UTC)