Forum:Origin of username policy

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One thing I've noticed over the past week or so is a couple of inappropriate names. Now, these people are obviously vandals, so will be blocked, but I've noticed that they only get blocks for a certain length of time. Surely, given the inappropriate names, they should be blocked indefinitely? Is there not a policy for this? If not, I suggest one be made that states this. Also, I think that any names which are very similar to other users' names should not be allowed, as they are generally attempting to get the other users mistaken for them. --The Thirteenth Doctor 20:01, October 31, 2010 (UTC)

I agree, there seems to be an increase in this recently.--Skittles the hog 20:55, October 31, 2010 (UTC)

We can create a username policy, I'll draw one up based on the Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Username policy and others like the Wikiversity:Username and Star Trek Expanded Universe:Usernames policies which should cover all the problems.

As far as blocking time goes when I or other admins block vandals it's often for a year, the default checked boxes when blocking someone is also to block their IP. On the latter I'm not sure about, given that there's lots of instances where the vandals might be using public computers and blocking the IP for an infinite amount of time might not be the best path to take. --Tangerineduel 13:49, November 1, 2010 (UTC)

Done Tardis:Username policy.

Please check through the policy for anything I may have missed (or mistakes I may have made). --Tangerineduel 15:09, November 1, 2010 (UTC)

Seems fine, i can't see anything wrong as of yet, we'll just have to see in time what needs tweaking really. Revanvolatrelundar 15:11, November 1, 2010 (UTC)

Yep, seems perfectly good to me! --The Thirteenth Doctor 16:07, November 1, 2010 (UTC)

Nicely done. As a member of the hacker community, though, I feel I must question the inclusion of "hacker" in the list of prohibited username components. The word has many valid applications which don't bear categorising alongside vandals and trolls. Rob T Firefly 23:00, November 1, 2010 (UTC)

I suppose the term 'Hacker' is a contextual thing, would it be more appropriate to substitute the word "Hacker" for "Cracker"? --Tangerineduel 01:59, November 2, 2010 (UTC)

Then you'd risk alienating fans of starchy bread products, heh. Seriously though, if it were up to me I'd prefer to just leave "hacker" out altogether. I think if anyone uses an obvious troublemaker name such as "IHackedYourWiki" or acts in some other way to bring about the negative context, their behavior would already be well covered under the username policy's ban on "other names that may give the impression that you intend to cause trouble" as well as our other behavioral policies. Rob T Firefly 13:54, November 2, 2010 (UTC)

I have no desire to alienate fans of dry flour based biscuits. I've removed it from the list. --Tangerineduel 14:02, November 2, 2010 (UTC)