Wikipedia talk:User account policy/Archive 3

This page is an current talk page .

Application of this policy is becoming even more problematic. From a discussion on my talk page, it seems that users with non-latin characters are having their user talk pages deleted even after being forced to change name because they are designated as "temporary Wikipedians" purely on the basis of not having the right sort of characters in their original name. This seems completely unjusitfiable to me. Angela. 12:16, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. A redirect would seem the right thing to do here. Note that displaying latin characters in the signature is not enough, as one person suggested, because the edit history of pages displays the username, and that needs to be readable by all. See also Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Usernames_containing_non-Latin_characters. Carcharoth 12:51, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Er, what is this temporary wikipedian category and who keeps applying it to pages? That really isn't neccessary. pschemp | talk 05:26, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

The category is mainly for deleting the user pages of blocked vandal accounts after a certain period of time, but is also used for IP user pages that have unnecessary things created on them and maybe for other things too. It is part of

User:FireFox and vandal-produced obscenities). —Centrx→talk

 • 06:11, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Is there a policy on banning users from having a username after a name of a place? =Nichalp «Talk»= 05:05, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

It is generally accepted that we don't allow usernames that are the exact names of countries, ie, User:Sweden because no one can presume to be editing for an entire country. So far, other placename are not problematic unless the user asserts that they are editing on behalf of that place. An example of what you are talking about would be helpful though. pschemp | talk 05:25, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Madhya Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. There was a user:TAIWAN who was blocked once before. =Nichalp «Talk»= 10:14, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the improper use of trademarked sports team names, I would like to remove the following parenthetical language: "whether it's whole or just the team". What does that mean, exactly? Does it mean that the user name "Eagles" is just as unacceptable as the name "Philadelphia Eagles"? I would hope not. Obviously, we should prohibit the use of trademarked names, but this particular language is ambiguous and unnecessary. -- Satori Son 01:14, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Since I see the discussion has moved on, and there being no objections, I have removed this confusing language. -- Satori Son 19:18, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Good start. Why not remove the whole rule? It sounds like a big non-issue. 192.75.48.150 19:30, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Is it clear enough that the dos & donts apply to both registered usernames and names used in signatures? Deizio talk 01:50, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think so. The section

WP:U#Signatures states "In general, the same rules apply for signatures as for usernames." Maybe we should remove the "In general..." qualifier; I can't think of any exception to the guideline for signatures. -- Satori Son

02:13, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I think we could safely tighten that up. Either remove "in general" or try "unless specified otherwise,..." Deizio talk 02:23, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I've also added the following line to the "Signatures" paragraph - "While not an absolute requirement, it is common practice for a signature to resemble to some degree the username it represents." Imho this section seems a lot tighter now Deizio talk 16:19, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with all of your changes here. Personally, I would like the "signature to resemble to some degree the username" to be mandatory, but I realize there is not yet an established consensus for such a guideline, so your wording is apt. -- Satori Son 16:55, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

There's an established editor

Yes. As I noted on the talk page of

WP:CHU, all he needs to do is place a request there and we will change it for him. Essjay (Talk)

06:03, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I have carried out the user's request today. Redux 13:21, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I was wondering since when did the new restriction causing this go into place?

Uninsureddriver

22:23, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

older detailed disscusion on this issue is above at

For those of you not familiar with the upcoming "unified login" event, once this occurs, en.wp will be host to a plethora of Non-Latin Character names. This policy on non-Latin characters will therefore be a contradiction and should be removed. Bastiq▼e ^demandez 15:03, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

For more information about Unifed Login, see m:Single login. Bastiq▼e ^demandez

That's blackmail. Waaah! — Nearly Headless Nick ^{{C} {L}} 15:47, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

So for someone like me who cannot see foreign scripts (they just show as boxes), how will I know the difference between a name of 5 boxes, and a different name of 5 boxes? Maybe this has been discussed before. --Ali'i 15:56, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Errrrm, just download a good browser ? :) guillom 16:01, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

"A good browser" can't do jack without fonts. Microsoft Windows does not come preinstalled with a set of fonts that covers the entire Unicode space. --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 22:50, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Would be nice, but what if I happen to do most of my editing while at a public library? Or other public computer? I can't download stuff onto it. So I am stuck with boxes where foreign characters should be. --Ali'i 16:05, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Sir Nicholas's opinion

I am really not supportive of any kind of policy like this. Anglo-centric? Isn't English itself Anglo-centric? English is an international language, while the others are not. As for the obvious problems this would cause, I am reiterating below from the policy page –

Names with non-Latin characters: Unfortunately, most of your fellow editors will be unable to read a name written in Cyrillic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or other scripts. Many of them will also be additionally burdened, as such names may be displayed for them only as question marks ("??? ??"), squares ("□□□ □□"), replacement characters ("??? ??") or worse, nonsense or mojibake ("Ã!%ôs*"). If your name is usually written in a non-Latin script, please consider transliterating it to avoid confusion, and allow easier access to your talk page by typing your name in the search field or URL bar.

Questions everybody should ask themselves

• Can you imagine the problem caused to administrators who want to block vandals and trolls, when their browsers do not support non-latin characters?
• Do you realise the extent of the problem of impersonation would be? Are you competent enough to distinguish between those difficult Chinese, Japanese characters? Can you understand the difference between those squiggly things that look all the same in languages like हिन्दी and العربية?
• I cannot comprehend why people who are genuinely interested in contributing to the encyclopedia would make a fuss about the issue.
• If this is an English encyclopedia, why do you give a stuff about other languages, unless you are contributing to language-related articles?
• What do you do when you need to find a particular user's talk page? Search your contributions or try to find their contributions?
• For your information, India has over 80 languages and over 6000 dialects, and mind you, fonts for a majority are available. Are you sure you want to open the pandora's box?
• For your information, I am Indian, so please assume that I do not have any kind of biases against non-English speakers and users.
  

Yours truly,
— Nearly Headless Nick ^{{C} {L}} 16:19, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Look, this is coming one way or another. As soon as single user login is implemented, anyone coming here to do transwiki links will be doing so under their home-wiki username; blocking these accounts would obviously be unreasonable. What I would suggest is that we encourage users from other language projects who intend to be editing content and participating in discussions on en: to use latin script for their signature, and to create a doppelganger account and a redirect to their userpage at the name used in their signature. --Robth^Talk 16:39, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

That's absolutely reasonable till it is restricted for those who are coming for transwiki work. — Nearly Headless Nick ^{{C} {L}} 16:42, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

But that doesn't have any effect on people who do not sign their names. If they are only making edits to articles, the article history could just be filled with foreign characters... I don't care about being able to tell them apart much, but the whole boxes/??? thing is more of a concern. --Ali'i 16:45, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

What exactly do you see to be the problem? Even if you have two editors in a history with the same number of boxes when you hover your cursor on the link and html is displayed you can see if they are the same editor or not. The html will be unique no matter what script is used. I am not sure what you cannot do or know because the username is indecipherable to you.--Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 16:53, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps we can have a requirement that the custom signature be readable, I believe custom signatures(all preferences) will be different for each wiki? This won't solve all problems, but may minimize the effects. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 16:56, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I guess we better start writing some of these articles in languages other than English to avoid the anglo-centric accusation. The policy as I understand it is based on two issues firstly that on many browsers these characters don't render properly (happens on at least one of the computers I use) coming out as little boxes or ? or some such. In article histories this is worse than meaningless. And secondly that the use of abusive names or terms can go unchecked for a long while. The former is not easily solveable and why we encourage users to use such characters in their signature where usually hovering over the link shows the underlying username and the usernames show up properly in page histories. (Though in a recent RFA there were complaints that the signature was too different from the username...). The second is also not easily soluble and single login with local blocking, may indeed make it a real issue. Personally I don't see it as unreasonable to ask people to pick a name which is legible and renders well in peoples browsers. On the question of your proposal, the way things normally seem to work is we discuss and then take action, not take action then discuss --pgk 16:43, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if I'm a little snipy, but I take "Anglo-centrism" accusations to be rather snipy themselves. It's too bad that we're being Anglo-centric on the English Wikipedia. If I'm going to go create a username on Arabic Wikipedia, I won't be using characters people don't recognize. And they shouldn't do so here either. And, for that matter, to address the "get a better browser" argument (which is simply awful anyway, as many people like myself have an older computer which won't recognize any characters becuase it's not in the OS): actually, many characters are unreadable to the English reading eye anyway. I'm sorry, I can't read left-from-right in Japanese, and I don't think I should have to learn characters in Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Hebrew, Cyrillic, and Chinese just to be able to decipher a username on Wikipedia so that someone can have the "right" to a non-readable username. There are more important things in life than making a

point about Anglo-centrism. If you use English Wikipedia, use a username that can be read by English-readers. Period. -Patstuart^talk|edits

17:10, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I think we have a lot in common. ^_^ — Nearly Headless Nick ^{{C} {L}} 17:19, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, where are you reading Anglocentric accusations on this thread? Bastiq▼e ^demandez 17:25, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I think he was redirected from the

WP:AN page. – [1]. — Nearly Headless Nick ^{{C} {L}}

17:32, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I guess from your comment "not only is blocking users solely for use of non-Latin characters overly anglo-centric" on

WP:AN --pgk

17:37, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Please note we are talking about people who create user 'outside of en.WP and are granted universal access to all Wikimedia wikis under that username through single user login.--Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 17:17, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

This has not been implemented yet. — Nearly Headless Nick ^{{C} {L}} 17:23, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Clarification. The wholesale blocking of users simply because of non-Latin characters needs to stop, now. This should be a suggestion, but not a policy. Furthermore, non-Latin usernames will be coming as a result of Unified login. So as a suggestion, it's fine, but as a policy, it's completely out of line. Bastiq▼e ^demandez 17:25, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I like the tone of "..needs to stop, now", less demands more meaningful dialog may help. The policy has a rationale perhaps you could try responding why the rationale is false/outdated etc. The problems with non-rendering still occurs, the problem that the names maybe absolutely out of line, the equivelant of say "CumGuzzler" yet those not knowing the language are ignorant of that. With single login the name itself maybe created on another wiki and blocked there for being inappropriate, whilst we happily let it edit here due to the locality of blocking... To put some perspective on this we have blocked about 9 of these since 14th December (6 days) (Filtering the block log for a block comment containing "user" somewhere and then a manual look through, so any errors in this figure are mine). --pgk 17:35, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Please stop attacking everything I say. Bastiq▼e ^demandez 17:48, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, how am I attacking everything you say? I have pointed out a turn of phrase I find either demanding or patronising, and I have pointed out why I consider the current rationale to still hold. If you didn't want people to address what you are saying then I guess you shouldn't have bothered stating a "disucssion" --pgk 18:20, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I have notified Yamaguchi先生 regarding this discussion, as he has been previously involved in a dispute with other admins. Guess how much time it took for me to search for his user talk page? Cheers! — Nearly Headless Nick ^{{C} {L}} 17:28, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

At a technical level, we (or rather the developers) could fix the blocking/telling other users apart issue, by having such characters display differently on en in special pages like histories and suchforth, possibly with the unicode points for such characters instead of the actual ones. This could be an option. This doesn't solve the problem of signatures, mind. Morwen - Talk 17:34, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Just to throw my opinion into the ring ... I really don't want to have to start dealing with usernames in dozens of languages, most of whose fonts are not supported by default on most of the browsers/OS installations out there. I don't know if there's some way to have SUL names be displayed in transliterated English on here, but it really doesn't make sense to have them all displayed as potentially unreadable characters. --Cyde Weys 17:36, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

This user m:Requests for permissions#User:.E3.81.A3 was blocked on en.wp for no other reason than having a single character Kanji name. When I used the term Anglo-centric earlier, I meant, "Without regard of the other projects." The English wikipedia is the only Wikipedia with this policy. Other active Latin script wikipedias like French and German do quite well without it, and include users that use non-latin scripts. Bastiq▼e ^demandez 17:54, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Cary, Cary, Cary; I thought you knew how much affinity GNAA has with en.wiki? There is a huge difference between the userbase on this wiki and other wikis. There can be no comparison. — Nearly Headless Nick 18:05, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

How am I supposed to type that name in? or recognize it? Even if it didn't look like a box with some numbers in it, it would still be indecipherable to the English editors on the English Wikipedia. For the same reason, we do not allow User:♣⊗√∀x. —Centrx→talk • 05:23, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I've considered blocks against non-English usernames to be reprehensibly anglo-centric since the very beginning, so I am glad to see some people having a change of heart. I'm not bothered however by asking people with non-latin names if they have a latin nickname/transliteration that might acceptable (or included in a sig, for example). Such things are helpful to us American idiots who can't read kanji, but I have never agreed that we should force people to only use latin alphabets. (Especially since we have been making exceptions for accented latin characters that are just as untypable on most keyboards as the foreign character sets.) Blocking people for using their real names, according to the way they naturally should be written, is like a color blind person demanding everyone else to never wear red. Except this is worse since the vast majority of wikipedians should be able access browsers/font packs capable of displaying that name with only a little effort. Dragons flight 05:51, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

We also speedy delete non-English articles. Can you imagine? The English Wikipedia uses English! —Centrx→talk • 07:05, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Do we also speedy-block people who are translating and transwiki-ing? (to english) ;-) Kim Bruning 21:52, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Clarification

I think we need to explain things a little more. The facts are:

• for the moment, non latin accounts are blocked on sight.
• in the very future, SUL will merge all accounts from the same person into one single account.

What bastique and others, including me, ask is:

• blocking accounts in a different alphabet should not be the default behavior anywhere, neither on the english-language wikipedia nor on the japanese or russian ones.
• If people use their account to add interwikis sometimes, there should be no problem with them keeping their non latin username.
• If people are active on the project, we assume they know the language at least a little. Thus, we can ask them to use an alias (see Special:Preferences > signature) readable by the people on this project.

Thanks for your comments. guillom 17:58, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree entirely with this. The one addition I would make is that people who are going to be editing actively should register a dummy account and create a redirecting userpage at the latin-character name used in their signature, thus resolving the issue of how to find their userpage through the search box. --Robth^Talk 18:25, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Conditional support. Only flagged interwiki slaves users should be considered for this. :) — Nearly Headless Nick 18:29, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Guillom and Robth.

DVD+ R/W

18:42, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I, too, agree with Guillom and Robth. (PS: when blocking a non latin script account, please don't block the IP, as happened to me ;-) ) Kipmaster 09:21, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Cool Cat's approach

I think both sides have valid arguments. A non-latin username will indeed cause problems to people without the necessary files and Non-latin characters will look like '?' on computer without the necessary files.

However en.wikipedia cannot afford to ban non-latin characters if it is seeking a multi-cultural and lingual community. It is perfectly legitimate for an Arabic speaking person to have a username he/she can read. Users are not required to know English to contribute here. People can work on stuff like interwiki links without knowing any English.

On commons for instance people are not required to speak English but are recommended to do so. In deletion debates most of the discussion is voluntarily in English even though participants of such debates can discuss the matter in their native language.

I can have a Japaneses username and alter my signature so that it displays the romanised.

This rule isn't compatible with single user login

--Cat out 18:11, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Why not just use those symbols in your signatures, if you want to have some fun. You can't have the cake and eat it too! ;) — Nearly Headless Nick 18:15, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Some anonymous fool's approach

Since we're already messing with it, history, recent changes, and all that, to add the (+123) stuff, make it so that a user number is displayed in the bracket. This makes it no worse than dealing with us anonymous fools. E.g.:

* (diff) (hist). Wikipedia talk:Username‎; 17:37 . (+186) .  дурак (#1283712|Talk|contribs) (→Non-latin characters and Unified Login)

192.75.48.150 18:29, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. Unusual, but innovative. In a case of impersonation, however; we would not be expecting administrators to remember each other's numbers, would we? Maybe change it to something unique like instead of the number we have something in English (like their En.wiki usernames/transliteration of their usernames in English), implemented universally. — Nearly Headless Nick 18:34, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I think this approach would work out the best. If someone's computer can not understand the username, they can always see the id number to block.

Naconkantari

19:03, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

This type of problem illustrates why, IMHO, this is not a good idea: [2]. Patstuart^talk|edits 19:54, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

How does that illustrate the problem? Bastiq▼e ^demandez 20:18, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Aside from the English text the person used, there was no way to distinguish between vandalism and legitimate edits, just as there is no way to distinguish whether the name means "FUCK JIMBO" or whether it is just a common name in Chinese? —Centrx→talk • 05:30, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

There is no shortage of Wikipedians that do read Chinese (especially watching articles like Beijing, I'm sure) and no particular rush to address such issues, anyway. If the troll really does use a language very few people can read, then he hasn't actually accomplished much. There is a difference between respecting people's right to use their own name, and saying that the encyclopedia itself is written in English. Dragons flight 07:49, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

If the purpose of allowing these characters would be to welcome speakers of other languages, I should think they would not be welcomed very well by seeing unchecked inflammatory epithets written in the language. —Centrx→talk • 21:20, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I can also write « que jimbo aille se faire foutre chez les grecs » with latin characters, but you don't understand it either :) guillom 09:24, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I like this idea too, it adds a way to distinguish people without adding anything restrictive (+combine with guillom's proposal above). And I guess it's very easy to implement. Kipmaster 09:29, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Some more further info

As brion has indicated, single unified login is going to happen. There is no changing that, and no amount of arguing, whining or crying is going to change it. So, we are going to be confronted with the creation of thousands of accounts with foreign usernames. So, there are some options:

1. Keep the existing policy. This means that users coming from, let's say, ruwiki, have their account created automatically, and then have it blocked and forced to create a new latinized global account. So much for "single, unified", huh? It is evident already on foundation-l that actions like those would cause a severe strain on interwiki relations.
2. Ditch the current policy.
3. Adjust it slightly, as Guilliom suggests.

Either way, saying, "I don't want to deal with this problem" is not an option. We have to deal with it before the feature is turned on, as accounts will be created automatically at that point. Hence, I've tagged the policy section as disputed. Titoxd^(?!?) 00:38, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

• I strongly support Guilliom's suggestion. Maybe we can make use of those automatic transliteration tools someone mentioned on the mailing list so that people can automatically generate a localised signature for themselves. --
  talk
  ) 05:48, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, automatic transliteration programs won't work with all languages, especially with trying to determine the context of certain characters. For example, determining which pronunciation to choose for certain Chinese characters, determining the difference between Hanyu and Romanji, dealing with

AMA

) 19:45, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Titoxd, we are not whining or crying. We are in discussion. No one can impose anything without consensus on Wikipedia. — Nearly Headless Nick 07:48, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Well actually developers and the board can impose things. Single User Login is one such thing which will effectively import very many foriegn language users on this and every other project (many tens of thousands, if I had to guess), and make it so that when a user visits another wiki they automatically use the same account as on their home wiki. This has advantages for user tracking, ease of editting multiple wikis, and preference management. It also allows things like cross-wiki notification of talk page messages. Single User Login will happen. The question is how will en respond to the new accounts. Will we simply block every Japanese wikipedian whose name is written in kanji (and thus breaking any of the advantages of single user login), or will we find a more measured approach (such as asking for transliteration in sigs rather than requiring it in usernames). Dragons flight 08:49, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Some of the discussion on the foundation mailing list can only be described as that.

Brion Vibber, the Foundation's CTO, has indicated that is going to go ahead, in its current form, and that many details of it are not negotiable, including the fact that an account will have the same alias everywhere. No transliterations, no way to use alternate accounts, no nothing. This means that admins from the Japanese Wikipedia will have a local account created for them automatically, as soon as they enter the English Wikipedia while logged into their global accounts. There is actually no way to stop that from occuring. As Dragons flight indicates, the only thing that we can do is to decide how to treat our new visitors. Do we block them? I wouldn't. On the mailing list, A few users admins have already indicated their desire for the Japanese Wikipedia to block latin-script usernames if the English Wikipedia policy continues, and I am not confident that they meant that in jest. Please try to see the broader interwiki ramifications that continuing a policy that will become technically obsolete will bring. Titoxd^(?!?

) 08:58, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

So their reason for blocking would be revenge, without which they would allow latin usernames? —Centrx→talk • 09:07, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

If some unlikely suggestions are adopted, yes. Cooler heads will probably prevail, though. Titoxd^(?!?) 09:08, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

They do presently allow latin usernames. Dragons flight 09:10, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Ral315's opinion

Moved from

1. Stop blocking non-latin; I agree that this goes too far. Now that brion's disallowed the mixing of different scripts, it shouldn't be too much of a problem.
2. Create a page: Wikipedia:Font help for users and admins alike, explaining how to install all unicode scripts on their computers.
3. Have active editors with non-latin usernames create an alias with non-latin characters (perhaps a transliteration of their username, if possible), with a redirect from the latin name to their non-latin name. Have them sign with the latin name for simplicity.
4. Create a page of active editors with non-latin usernames, allowing users to go to this page and just click their username to get to their userpage (probably use {{userlinks}}).

Thoughts? More importantly, to language geeks, is it possible to easily install all scripts at once? Ral315 (talk) 05:12, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

• What about casual users? Should the readers and editors on Wikipedia be required to install additional software in order to identify other users on the English Wikipedia?
• Will these users be required to sign comments with their latin redirect names? How are the latin usernames going to be identifiable in page histories? If they are creating latin usernames, why can they not just use those instead of the non-latin ones?

—Centrx→talk • 09:13, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

• Why should users who are starting on the English Wikipedia use non-Latin characters? With single-user logins, the home wiki can police the user names of their users, but the home wiki should be able to read the username. Will we end up with the bizarre situation of a username blocked on the Japanese Wikipedia because it is inflammatory or libellous, but allowed on the English Wikipedia where almost no one can read it, remember it, or type it in? That is, we would be allowing non-Latin characters in order to accommodate other wikis, but the wikis we would be accommodating would have blocked the very username we were supposed to be accommodating! —Centrx→talk • 09:22, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Why can't a user on the Japanese Wikipedia, or better yet, an admin on the English Wikipedia that speak Japanese, tell us that the name is offensive? Besides, the reason someone who is starting out on the English Wikipedia gets a non-Latin username is because the software automatically generates it for them as soon as they visit it. Titoxd^(?!?) 09:26, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

• The numbers of characters of various other languages would increase massively once SUL is implemented. Do you think the Japanese (or other language) administrators (which are in the absolute minority here) be there all the time to hand out blocks? — Nearly Headless Nick 09:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

• • Ultimately (though not in the initial implementation probably), single user login will allow for unified log files so that you could check a single log and learn about any blocks issued against that account on any other Wikipedia. Obviously if an account had been blocked indefinately on their home wiki that should be a massive red flag and prompt further investigation. It also opens the possibility (in the even more distant future) that username blocks could be issued globally rather than applied to only a single account on a single wiki (though rules governing any global blocks would require significant discussion beforehand). Dragons flight 09:33, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Question from a newbie

I have just been reading a bunch of policy stuff, and have a question. This whole "once SUL is implemented, the non-Latin name blocks have to stop" doesn't seem to fit with history. Whatever happened to individual wikipedias determining their own policies? Jimbo Wales, the founder of WP, said that each wikipedia would have its own policies, etc. So why are a few people from other language wikipedias trying to change en.wiki policy to suit them? Maybe I am being harsh, but isn't blocking names that many editors can't make heads or tails of our own prerogative? Help a newbie out. Mahalo. --Ali'i 13:47, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Probably part of the idea is to help the process of flowing content outwards from en (and the other big editions, such as de) to other editions. Ultimately, if you see a lot of ????? and &^$(*$&^ people editing stuff, you have to do the obvious thing and look at the edit, not the person (which is a good general principle anyway). If you think the edit is dodgy, leave a message on their user page. They may not understand you, but if they do, they will probably do their best to reply. If you know their language, you can try and reply. If the edit is obviously wrong, revert it with an edit summary explaining why. Report vandalism to those who have the correct fonts installed and can tell the difference between ???? and ????, and they can investigate further and take it from there. There will probably also be lots of help for those wanting to get all the correct fonts installed. If you can't read the language, there will hopefully be a more readable universal attribute, like an ID number, so you can tell if two edits are by the same person. Carcharoth 14:17, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

ID num. in Signatures?

Why not include the id number in signatures (or anywhere else usernames are used)? This would prevent any sort of impersonation on talk pages. -- Jmax- 08:29, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

You can always fake a number. 227287 08:58, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

What about common sense?

Let's see: main reason for blocking offensive usernames are negative feelings of legitimate users they cause. How many users will feel uncomfortable when they see User:Jews did WTC? Many. And when they see its Russian equivalent User:Евреи взорвали ВТЦ? Not so many. When a Russian-speaking user will notice such username s/he'll report it to AIV with a brief explanation and malicious user will be blocked. If a user with offensive uswername remains unnoticed, his purpose is not accomplished. If he's noticed, he'll be blocked. If he starts making disruptive edits, he'll be blocked no matter of username. So, do non-latin usernaes still need to be blocked at sight? I don't think so. MaxSem 09:51, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

We are talking about the technical issues surrounding lay people who edit Wikipedia, without the knowledge of non-Latin scripts, not a hate campaign against non-Latin scripts. =Nichalp «Talk»= 14:00, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Nichalp's opinion

I am against having non-Latin scripts in the English wikipedia. Robth has the best solution of having doppelganger en accounts. His idea is simple and effective. This is what I have to add.

• Don't block the non-Latin account on sight.
• If the offending account makes content changes to the en wiki, then request him to create a doppelganger account, with a redirects from his old user and talk pages to his new ones.
• In the probability that he doesn't, then consider a block.

Why I seek a block

• Even though I may have the script, I have no clue as to what the character is even if I look it up in the Windows Character map. Take this اج for example. How does one effectively know which script it is from? Is is Farsi, or is it Arabic? (It's Farsi btw, taken from the Taj Mahal). Next thing: Which character? Look at the number of characters supported in Arabic. To the untrained eye, almost all appear similar.
• Next, when dealing with many scripts, there exists the problem with
  Devanagiri
  . It's a conjunct, which means that the character will only be displayed after typing in certain sequence of characters. Do most people know about this? No.
• No one has mentioned the problems associated with working with right to left languages. Try mixed character editing in the Hewbrew or Arabic to see what I mean.
• Some fonts will always be problematic. am:, got: and si: have been slightly problematic in the display of fonts.

Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= 13:34, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

This does not address the issue of incompatibility with SUL. If people must use a second account on certain Wikimedia wikis they will not have a unified login, user contributions, nor talk page notice.--Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 16:04, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure we could ask the devs to link two accounts together. I'm sure it would be child's play as compared to the SUL code. Then submit a request on the lines CHU, and problem solved! =Nichalp «Talk»= 16:20, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

If this is actually implemented, I will stop objecting.--Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 21:50, 25 December 2006 (UTC) I mean if this is actually announced as part of the SUL implementation. I don't mean that I need to see it go live. Sorry for the poor wording.--Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 01:27, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Brion has indicated previously that he will *NOT* allow linked accounts as part of SUL, at least in this iteration. Titoxd^(?!?) 23:18, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Yuser31415's opinion

I suggest that we continue to block usernames containing non-Latin characters on sight. This is the English encyclopedia, not the Japanese, Chinese, Russian, or Siberian equivalent. Why should we allow usernames that make collaboration and actions with that user hard, if not impossible? As for an above argument that users could have an account name they could understand, don't we have to understand it too? Just because a user does not know English and is adding interwiki links to other Wikipedias, that does not mean they can't have an English username. Feedback?

Everything I've been saying, rehashed in a few words. Amen. Patstuart^talk·edits 16:17, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

The best idea I've seen so far is this: there needs to be, attached to each account, a universally recognised attribute that can be recognised by any user from any language in the world, and which displays in all fonts and operating systems. This would avoid the problems of being unable to distinguish between different peopole in edit histories (the "????" vs "????" issue) and would enable people to refer to an account by this attribute (eg. editor 7643924 instead of editor ????). See this post on the wikien-l mailing list. I don't post to or subscribe to that list, but can someone please pass this on. I will also post this to Brion Vibber's user page.

As for what the universally-recongnisable attribute should be, I would tentatively suggest the Latin numeric script (ie. we all get a unique ID number). Is that universally-enough recognised and displayed worldwide in different languages and systems?

More generally, in the above discussions, people seem to confuse two separate issues: that of people being able to read the script (a problem of not knowing the alphabet or language), and that of people's computers being unable to display the script. A universal attribute that is not a username possibly solves all this. Carcharoth 14:07, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Two more relevant mailing list posts on this issue: [3] and [4]. Carcharoth 14:55, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

svn:trunk/extensions/CentralAuth/central-auth.sql has the relevant database specification. It will include a global database ID number, so it could be exposed, if developers authorize. Titoxd^(?!?) 18:59, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

At the risk of BEANS, we can distinguish between allowing a non-latin manual account creation and an automatic one from a brother wiki.

I think that the word God could be taken off the list of directly prohibited terms, perhaps to be replaced by something referring to the unclear distinction being drawn now. I have been disagreed with twice, yet both people have provided an example of an acceptable use. This makes me think. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 03:34, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that a username containing God is a bit unrequired; for example, why should one create a username that might be considered "dodgy"? To an extent, I believe usernames containing the word 'god' are okay, but not 'God'. Wikipedia is supposed to be

Yuser31415

03:51, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I believe that "God" is a title, while "Jesus" and "Jehovah" are personal names for hypothetical entities to which that title might be applied, rather like "Her Majesty" versus "Elizabeth Windsor II". JRSpriggs 09:41, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

"Elizabeth Windsor II" is more like "Jesus of Nazareth". Elizabeth, on the other hand, is a popular given name. So is Jesus. And let's not forget Mary and Joseph. Or Mohammed for that matter. Not that the latter are considered divine, but they are religious figures, which is what the rule forbids.

Why are we trying to draw sharp lines based on what we think people might do and who we think ought or ought not to be offended as a result? As far as I can tell this line was introduced here. So rather than trying to distinguish between God and Jesus, how about we just trash the whole line? Wikipedia does not allow potentially inflammatory or offensive user names. This general rule ought to be good enough until it is shown that there really is a need to outline specific cases. 192.75.48.150 16:29, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Admitting my bias as a non-Christian, I'd say that a blanket prohibition on "*[Gg]od*" in usernames is overkill. Anything actually abusive/presumptive can be dealt with on a case by case basis, while freeing up silly things like User:God of War or User:Nintendo God. -- nae'blis 17:29, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

The banning of usernames including the word "God" is completely asinine. It offends me that that would be considered offensive and that we consider it our job to make sure no one on Wikipedia is ever offended. But wait a minute, if we're banning "God" to make sure people aren't offended, what about people who are offended by it being banned? Are the sensibilities of people who value free expression (and even a bit of levity every once in a while) less important that the sensibilities of those who are deeply religious? If so, why? Kaldari 06:58, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

• There is not, nor should there ever be a blanket ban on including G/god in usernames, just a ban on using it and other religous terms alone, which I think is fair, heads off potential inter-user problems and certainly does not prevent us from building an encyclopedia. The case-by-case consensus basis at
  WP:RFCN on potentially controversial names, including compound words including G/god works just fine. Deizio talk
  09:10, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

• I totally disagree with the statement, "Being forced to pick a specific criteria from the list will also cut down on illegitimate blocks, which are a major problem and could easily drive off good contributors who happened to make a silly choice of name." That assumes facts not in evidence. No one has shown any evidence that we are driving off good contributors. To the contrary, I think it is clear that anyone too-thin-skinned to choose a new username will probably not make a good contributor. At the same time, I support the proposal to number the list of username criteria. It won't hurt, and it may be helpful. Johntex\^talk 21:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
  • If a user's first experience on stepping through the door is a seemingly arbitrary and unfounded block, that's not going to leave a good impression, and VPP has a post up right now about people being blocked improperly. The policy itself says that good faith name choices shouldn't be blocked for the very reason of not wanting to drive off good contributors. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:27, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
    • I realize there is a VPP post. That is why we both came here, isn't it? An anecdotal claim that someone what driven off does not mean it is a recurring problem. The fact that someone left (even if proven) over the username does not prove they would have been a good contributor. As I said, I'm fine with numbering the requirements, but all web sites have restrictions on usernames. People coming here need to be able to accept that or they will likely not be good contributors. A good contributor would be more likely to say "Hmmm...I wonder why that one didn't work? Oh well, let me try..." Johntex\^talk 21:51, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
      • Since the discussion at
        WP:VPP is much more extensive (I think that's a mistake - the discussion should have been here, given that VPP isn't archived (permanently) and this page is, but whatever ... ), I recommend any further comments be there rather than here. John Broughton | Talk
        15:02, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I put forth the idea that the idea that illegal actions in a name not be specifically restricted. Alcohol is illegal in several countries, beef in another. Should a name that refers to free elections be blocked because free elections are illegal in some country? Laws are just too varying and often created through less than altruistic motives. Any thoughts? HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 20:57, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd assume it meant illegal in

talk

21:04, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Illegal in Florida? Wikipedia does respect US laws over others in matters of copyright due to the necessity of the servers being there. This restriction on usernames is not for the legal protection of Wikipedia, but simply our own policy. Thus, in this case, we should not limit ourselves to the legal interpretation of one country. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 21:08, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

This discussion grew out of a discussion at

Now having said that, I agree with HighInBC that we should re-evaluate that line for the reasons he cited. As a starting point, perhaps we could discuss changing the line to Names that promote or refer to violent real-world actions or organizations. This would cover terrorism, organized crime, street gangs, etc., which I think most Wikipedians would agree are inappropriate in usernames. Another issue to consider: should names referring to martial arts (e.g. User:Karate Master) be restricted as well? --Ginkgo100^talk 00:48, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Your "starting point" suggestion also covers legal forms of real-world violence, such as those practiced by the police, the military, and other state apparatus. It's also vague enough to cover many widely practiced (and widely accepted) forms of violence against non-human animals, such as butchery. Do you propose to ban usernames which indicate or imply that the user supports or is a member of a country's police or armed forces? How about usernames which indicate or imply that the user supports or practices vivisection? meat processing? animal husbandry? —Psychonaut 01:10, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I think Names that promote or refer to violent real-world actions is plenty fine. As for any ambiguity, it can be solved via

WP:RFCN like all the rest of the ambiguity in this policy. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me}

) 02:20, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I have been bold and changed it, if you disagree revert and discuss. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 17:00, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I reverted an undiscussed change from "potentially inflammatory username" to "inflammatory username" by Kaldari (talk · contribs), there is no need for users to adopt a "potentially inflammatory" username, indeed a username is not inflammatory until it offends someone, but we do not and should not allow a user to call themselves User:N*****c**t and wait until someone objects. Self-expression is fine, but there is no reason to give yourself a potentially inflammatory name to identify yourself while building an encyclopedia, and we should be firm in asserting this. Deizio talk 08:21, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

What's wrong with the name User:Nonfascist? Simply stating in your username that you are not a fascist is somehow inflammatory and should be disallowed? Shall we also disallow User:Nonracist to avoid hurting the feelings of all the racists who visit Wikipedia? —Psychonaut 17:09, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Such questions are handled at

WP:RFCN. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me}

) 17:11, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

You do realize that every word in the English language is "potentially inflammatory"? "Jewhater" is inflammatory. "Nonfascist" is potentially inflammatory. We should ban the former, not the later. Kaldari 18:38, 16 January 2007 (UTC)