Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User names (3rd nomination)

Add links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was no consensus. It's clear that many folks have valid concerns regarding the current functionality of the username blocking process in general, and RFCN in particular. From the discussion below, it is not at all clear whether closing that forum would alleviate or complicate the process. One point on which there is general agreement: the initial suggestion that controversial cases are better handled by AN/I has been rejected, given concerns that such cases would flood the board. The consensus below is that this area of policy is more than ripe for innovation; but, a shutdown is a "shot in the dark" without community support at this time. Xoloz 21:04, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User names

As we all know,

bitey page as well, a users first experience on wikipedia being a convoluted discussion of their name, between people they've never heard of, resulting in a block. In my opinion, a short, sharp soft block is all that is required with these usernames, allowing a user to move on and choose a new username without even making an edit from their blocked account. I also refer back to the first MfD where the result was reform, yet nothing here has changed and in many ways it's got worse. If there was a way to change this page to make it more feasible, then I would be all for that, however I believe that UAA and AN could easily handle these discussions without all the bureaucracy, hence why I believe this should be deleted or tagged as historical. Ryan Postlethwaite 21:55, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply
]


I'm just going to put my general comments. First, to begin with, our username policy is
bitey
. There's no getting around that; it is designed to block users with inflammatory or confusing names from editing. For many users, they don't think their name is inflammatory or confusing, but are summarily blocked — a user whose name is "CookieBot" would be blocked. There's really not any way to get around it; many users will end up finding their first experience with Wikipedia is being blocked because their name is not allowed. This page, being part of that policy, is going to be a little bit bitey no matter what we do; even if it was working 100% correctly, the first experience for many editors would be as Ryan describes above. However, I'm not sure that's any worse than just being blocked.
With that said, this page has and probably still is being too bitey. People bring names to that page which are dubiously invalid, and never warn the user. In addition, many "speedy blocks" or "speedy not-blocks" occur, which don't allow an international view of the name. The idea of the page is to advise admins, but often action is being taken without a good cross-section of views being taken.
With that said, I don't know what the alternative is. Our username policy is flexible; we require some forum for the discussion of usernames which are borderline. I'm not sure that the posited alternative, of merging this to
WP:UAA is used for, we could end up with a better venue, but I'm not sure that will solve the problem. --Haemo 00:02, 13 October 2007 (UTC)[reply
]
  • I participate in RFCN. RFCB doesn't work. It's inconsistant; decisions don't always follow policy; people !vote; sometimes people apply policy way too aggressively; sometimes there's a feeling of an "unsuitable username patrol" - and that's sub-optimal. tag as historical. Dan Beale-Cocks 12:16, 13 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't like RFCN, but... people won't take the hassle to bring it to
    WP:ANI. That will result in even more bordeline, unreviewed, username blocks. Are we sure we want this? -- lucasbfr talk 13:57, 13 October 2007 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • We cannot appeal blocks at RFCN? I didn't know that. But even if we cannot, they can still be appealed via the normal unblock request. i said 03:11, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • From the top of the page: "If you wish to contest or question the blocking of a user by an administrator, please do not post the issue here. Instead, discuss the block with the blocking administrator or with other administrators." This was inserted because of the first MfD, and particularly this example. And yet, people try to do this routinely. Mangojuicetalk 15:34, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
{Edit Conflict} Im not debating the trustworthiness of admins. Admins are trusted users who were selected by the community but don't you think
WP:U could be made clearer and that username discretions can vary quite significantly. This is different from blocking vandals. Tbo 157(talk) (review) 21:23, 13 October 2007 (UTC)[reply
]
Keep. On UAA, all that is needed to block a name is one admin who thinks the name is a violation. RFCN acts as a "safety valve" where wider input can be sought on names that might need blocking, and an admin who is unsure on whether a name can refer it to RFCN. If RFCN is closed, I fear that many admins will block borderline names "to be on the safe side" because they know that if they do not block it, there is no other recourse. Personally, I think there is wayyy to much blocking going on over usernames, and putting more weight on the block-heavy UAA process is a step in the wrong direction. Also note that my own name (which I honestly can't see any problem with) was only allowed after a RFCN discussion. An admin wanted to block it as a blatant violation. Is he back? 23:08, 13 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you can't tell if a name should be blocked or not don't block. Its not going to hurt anyone. If someone gets offended by a name later, we can always have a proper request for comment. ——
    Need help? 07:28, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply
    ]
The problem IMO is that there is a longstanding culture at UAA and RFCN about how to deal with usernames, that is held in place by the username policy, Twinkle username reporting, and the fact that new users coming to these pages follow the examples they see there. This ingrained mindset means that trying to make any change in how usernames are dealt with is useless, as things quickly go back to how they were. For example, see how bolded recommendations have crept back into RFCN, how users without edits are again being reported at UAA for only slight violations, etc. I think that just deleting RFCN will not remove this "username culture", and will just mean that all names go to UAA instead and get blocked.
There is an
WT:U#Overhaul, I have suggested a radical solution of getting rid of the username policy, UAA and RFCN altogether, in order to break up the "username blocking culture" that exists now - I believe that a complete cut-off is necessary, because reforms have been tried several times, and things just go back to how they were. My revised opinion is therefore keep RFCN for now, with the option of deleting it if a major overhaul of the username policy makes it obsolete. Is he back? 11:58, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply
]
Precisely, most are acted on with little or no discussion, even the borderline ones. Rlevse 12:06, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Tag as Historical, as said above, many of the cases could be addressed at
    Talk Contributions 15:00, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Have the people saying "keep, because it RfCN is less blocky than UAA" seen some of the recent blocks that have been happening? 'GM Chrysler' is blocked, because it "promotes the car company" (even though that's 2 seperate car companies). Or usernames that have made no edits get reported, without the user being informed. Dan Beale-Cocks 15:55, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Not anymore they don't. That has been clamped down on now. Users are always informed and only reported to RFCN after 2 or 3 days where there is no response. SGGH speak! 16:00, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • That is called consensus, and an admin who was willing to act on consensus. I guess the question we should all be asking is "Do you want admins to have a place to get community input, or should they just make up their own minds?". I would prefer to have a place that lets me get the advice of my peers, but lacking that I will just have to interpret policy the best I can. Oh, Keep by the way.
    1 != 2 15:59, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Most of the users arguing for this page to be deleted seem to be arguing that the process has failed. There is no clear evidence that this process has failed. There are alot of usernames which should get a discussion first. Deleting this page may simply result in more usernames being blocked unnecessarily. This is especially the case as the
    WP:U policy leaves alot of the work to admin discretion. Tbo 157(talk) (review) 17:43, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply
    ]
Some say the problem is with the policy and not the policing, and I think I agree. --Victor falk 09:23, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Then how do you explain all the names that DO go to rfcn? - some users don't understand username policy, thus they create bad names; some users don't understand username policy and thus think someone's name is bad and needs to be checked; some people do understand policy, but don't understand how it's applied (eg: reporting names because they think "someone might be offended", with no evidence that anyone actually is offended); some users are prolific reporters of usernames, (it sometimes feels as if there's a "new username patrol" happening.) Then there's a few reports from people who think a username may be a vio, but they're not sure and they'd like to get advice first. Dan Beale-Cocks 15:17, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep To quote
    UAA. With the amount of requests that are added to the RFCN page on a regular basis taken into consideration, and also the enormous length of some of them, I feel that ANI would be flooded with kilobyte after kilobyte of threads that could be more organized in a separate location. Thus, while I can sympathize with Ryan and the other opposers to this MfD, I think it is a much better thing to do to keep RFCN and keep ANI the way it is without making things any larger than they need be, rather than integrating it into AN or ANI and simply increasing a backlog that RFCN is perfectly capable of handling by itself. The only thing I would suggest is that RFCN work on its flaws, and increase discussion to determine consensus rather than voting to determine a majority. With a few minor tweaks to the system, I am confident that we can save ANI a bit of trouble and keep this division of RFC alive and well :) Cheers, and happy editing, ( arky ) 19:50, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply
    ]
        • You haven't addressed the fact that "mentalbreakdown", clearly a vio, was allowed. RFCN makes some kind of sense if a user can 'appeal' a username block and get other the advice of other users. But not allowing users to discuss a block that's happened forces username talk onto other pages. Which seems to be exactly what all the keepers don't want. Dan Beale-Cocks 15:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't think you understand. We have
    WP:UAA, which already weeds out bad usernames as much as we need to. Mangojuicetalk 14:09, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Well if RFCN is shut down and we have a bunch of admins with no place to go for advice on usernames, I have created a talk space in my user area for username discussions. It is not a noticeboard, you can just talk without all the red tape:
    1 != 2 14:48, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • kEEP RFCN has its use. SYSS Mouse 17:02, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, but I do believe it gets used too early and perhaps too frequently. If it is kept, I would strongly urge it be used only when communication with an active user has failed, or for those individuals thinking of registering a potentially controversial name wish input. Searching for username violations in the list of users is a waste of an editor's time. -- Flyguy649 talk 16:12, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/User_names_(3rd_nomination)&oldid=1147966957"