Rosetta Code:Village Pump/Acceptable usernames

From Rosetta Code
Acceptable usernames
This is a particular discussion thread among many which consider Rosetta Code.

Summary

What makes an acceptable user name for the site

Discussion

I have just blocked [1] as I thought that it might confuse users, especially casual readers of the site. They might confer special status on the username.

I did not set the "Prevent account creation" or the "Automatically block the last IP address used by this user, and any subsequent IP addresses they try to edit from" buttons in the hope that they will simply use another username.

What do you think makes a bad enough to ask someone to change, username? --Paddy3118 07:39, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

P.S. I had done similar for someone using profanity in their username in the week before, but I was more sure of myself on that one. --Paddy3118 07:39, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me; a genuine contributor can just pick another user name (though if there's a way to send them a message explaining what you did and why, that perhaps ought to be used). I just wish that there was some way to stop the large-scale creation of usernames that is going on. Trouble is, I don't know how to do it without making things awkward for new contributors too. –Donal Fellows 10:49, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Rather than simply lock down users, perhaps we could lock down new user privileges? Since task creation requires some expertise (I am uncomfortable doing it myself) and some familiarity with the site, perhaps new page creation can be restricted until after the user has shown their capabilities in other contexts? This relates to the difficulty that a non-admin user has for deleting page titles (and, also changes to an existing page can be easily reverted). --Rdm 15:57, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
I like the idea of not allowing a new user to create new pages until after some time, but could it be done without too much effort and what aboutthe creation of users pages? Hmmm, maybe it would not work as a new legitimate user would want to create his user page and these could be spammed by idiots. --Paddy3118 16:38, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
Maybe the user creation process itself can create the user page. Sure, it can be spammed, but then we're talking about ordinary spam rather than page-creation spam. CRGreathouse 17:43, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
Yes, creating the user page (or making an explicit exception for it) should be fine. A problem with existing page spam is that the page title itself -- a part of the url of the page -- is spam. And correcting that takes admin privilege. So giving each user permission to create their user page, or a talk page on an existing page, should be fine -- or at least, that's not what current spammers are doing. And it's easier to clean up spam that fits into an existing url scheme than it is to clean up spam that has spam in the url. --Rdm 17:52, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
That said... if someone goes to the effort of designing a language which is programmed using spam? And if the spammers cared enough to (a) provide a working (and safe to use) implementation, and (b) posted advertising spam in existing entries? That would almost be legitimate... Not sure how I would feel about that. So far, however, no spammers have been motivated to go to that kind of effort. --Rdm 17:56, 24 August 2012 (UTC)