Wikipedia talk:Username policy/Archive 22

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Proposed change to "Confusing usernames"

This is meant mainly as an alternative to the "Proposal to set a limit on characters in a user name" proposal above, but it is not meant to be mutually exclusive with that proposal.

The current text reads:

Some usernames appear problematic without fitting clearly into any of the above categories. This is often the case with confusing or extremely lengthy usernames, which are highly discouraged but which are not so inappropriate on their own as to require action.

Confusing usernames can often be a red flag for other problems. An editor with a confusing username or signature may be blocked sooner than usual for other inappropriate behavior such as disruption or vandalism, if their confusing username contributes to the disruption.

I propose something like the following:

Some usernames appear problematic without fitting clearly into any of the above categories. This is often the case with usernames that contain long words, usernames visually almost-indistinguishable from existing usernames, usernames which look like a domain-name, and the like, as well as usernames that are "borderline cases" under any other criteria, particularly those which are "borderline cases" in more than one other criteria. Such usernames are highly discouraged and in some cases may be so inappropriate that action is required.

Confusing usernames can also be a red flag for other problems. An editor with a confusing username or signature may be blocked sooner than usual for other inappropriate behavior such as disruption or vandalism, if their confusing username contributes to the disruption.

This change adds some specific criteria to what it means to be "confusing" while leaving it open-ended ("and the like"). It also makes a substantial change by saying that in some cases action is required. It also makes it very clear that "borderline cases" in other criteria - especially more than one other criteria - may also qualify as "confusing" and therefore require action. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 18:21, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

  • Many usernames are confusing. Often, it is the audience that is stupid, not the user. I have misread usernames many times. That shows I am stupid. Sandra opposed to terrorism (talk) 18:51, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose this change, if action is required the
    WP:NOTFACEBOOK applies here methinks: as long as your edits are within policy, and as long as your allegedly-confusing-to-some-beholders-username has some kind of reason, then blocking you BECAUSE your usrname is allegedly confusing... and nothing beyond that... is very much Not Wiki-Kosher. p.s. Having seen some of Sandra's edits elsewhere on the 'pedia, I will say that *I* think she is smart, not stupid.  :-)     75.108.94.227 (talk
    ) 03:50, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Proposed change to "exceptions" to allow case-by-case handling of people who started outside of :en

The existing wording doesn't provide for exceptions when people create a :en-rule-breaking name on another WMF Wiki then start editing here under their unified login. On the other hand, a blanket exception is ripe for abuse.

The section currently reads:

Some usernames that appear to be in breach of this policy have been allowed to stand by consensus because they were created before a change in the policy that would now prohibit such names (see

requests for comment on usernames, before deciding to take action as described below
.

I propose adding the following paragraph:

Editors who first edited under the same username in another Wikimedia project should be given

broad leeway
with respect to their usernames. If the use of their name in their signature is the only thing causing problems, ask them to consider changing their signature. In severe cases, administrator action may be required. Only in very extreme cases or in cases of editors creating a username elsewhere "in bad faith" should such an account be sanctioned merely for violating the local English Wikipedia username policy.

davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 18:51, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

There is a proposal higher up this page to permit company accounts as usernames where they are operated by a single person, but a number of issues have been raised as to how that could work, and it does not seem likely that consensus for a change will be reached. JohnCD (talk) 16:31, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose - This clause is too strong; and would allow wiki-lawyering by creating an account on an other wiki, doing a few edits there, and then coming here and laiming "You can't block this account just based on the user name, it was used elsewhere". That having been said, an account which was cleaerly established in an other wiki before coming here should be given significant leeway beyond what we would allow a complete newcomer to WMF wikis. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 06:56, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 October 2015

Hansberry2015 (talk) 01:34, 14 October 2015 (UTC) {{db-user}} please delete this account

I will follow up with the editor on his talk page. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 02:33, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Confusing/multiple usernames

We have some editors who have an official username but often sign with another. This is obviously confusing, especially when they do it on the same talk page, and even worse when it's on ArbCom case pages. I can't see anything covering this in our policy. We can deal with it on ArbCom pages simply by asking the user to stick to one name, but I'm raising this as a more general issue. Doug Weller (talk) 15:10, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Wouldn't that be a
open channel
) 15:15, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
Of course, thanks. Doug Weller (talk) 12:34, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Proposal to set a limit on characters in a user name

Encountering User:1Wiki8Q5G7FviTHBac3dx8HhdNYwDVstR, I'd thought initially it was some sort of bug or spam message. Nobody needs a user name that long and incoherent, it's really offputting for other editors. I propose that we set a formal limit on user name length and add it to the guidelines. I propose we add No single word in a user name should be over 20 characters in length to the guidelines here. That's 33, absurd.♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:34, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I see User:slakr has already shown concern about it.♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:37, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

  • Honestly, I'd be much in favor of a proposal requiring usernames to be intelligble. In many aspects of Wikipedia, we require that editors be identifiable. We object to socking not necessarily because the edits of sockpuppets are objectionable or in of themselves violate policy, but because they prevent us from attributing them to the sockmaster editor. We ask those who edit on multiple accounts to disclose this, so that we can readily ID them.

    A username that's a string of nonsense characters defeats that purpose, and it really ought to stop. Ravenswing 11:42, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes we should also add A username that consists of nothing but a string of nonsense characters defeats the purpose of a user name and is also to be avoided.♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:44, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
I don't think length is the problem; coherence and an ability to swiftly verify an account on sight is the important bit. In this case, this particular username is not easy to parse in one view, and in my opinion is inappropriate. Lankiveil (speak to me) 12:16, 5 September 2015 (UTC).
In cased like this it would be very easy to swap a couple of characters and either impersonate the user or, more of an issue, for a single person to split their contribution history I doubt many people would notice 1Wiki8Q5G7FviTHBac3dx8HhdNYwDVstR and 1Wiki8Q5G7FviTHBac3dw8HhdNYxDVstR and 1Wiki8Q5G7FviTH8ac3dx8HhdNYwDVstR are different contributors and would just gloss over them as 'that long nonsense username'. JbhTalk 14:35, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
Or they could just use a dynamic IP address. Also, by your logic, you'll need to get ready to retroactively ban I9Q79oL78KiL0QTFHgyc. This proposal is a complete waste of time. (I see Andrew beat me to making the same point below.)  — Scott • talk 15:38, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

My problem with the name is that it is not gibberish, it is a

Chillum
14:40, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

  • Note This username was also discussed above:
    Chillum
    14:41, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
  • This is already policy per
    WP:UAAI
    #5: "Six types of usernames are prohibited on the English Wikipedia: ... Confusing usernames, which confuse other editors, including those that are extremely long, inordinately difficult to remember, etc.". Some existing examples, fyi:
  1. User:QTxVi4bEMRbrNqOorWBV
  2. User:Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry
  3. User:The Fat Man Who Never Came Back
Of course, people can freely use IP6 to edit, e.g. User:2601:5C6:8101:732:E579:85A6:C3EE:9727 and that makes the policy look silly. Andrew D. (talk) 15:30, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
What you are quoting is only an instruction page. They don't always stay in line with policy. Users should refer to the policy page. -- zzuuzz (talk) 07:30, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

I think @I9Q79oL78KiL0QTFHgyc: might have something to say about this, and I think he may be the person Dennis mentioned at the ANI thread. Long user names of like 20 characters or so aren't necessarily that problematic so far as I can determine, because, well, people can always do what I just did for Josh's name above and check the page history and copy of the name listed there. But, at the very least, if you're going to have a=some sort of name like his, or User:2601... above, maybe we could have this say something along the lines of such names can be permitted, but it would really be a good idea to have as a signature something more comprehensible. John Carter (talk) 15:44, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

This form of a user name is the best way to dodge the off-wiki harassment that I will not be sharing more about on-wiki. Putting a limit to the length of the user name is unfair to users with accounts considering the IP6 situation. Trying to make the usernames "intelligible" is opening a can of worms no one wants. jps (talk) 16:11, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Why not just shorten it to User:1Wiki8 for convenience to fellow users? What is the point in Q5G7FviTHBac3dx8HhdNYwDVstR ?♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:20, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Ping
WP:DOPPLEGANGER known as User:1Wiki8 which is a soft-redirect to the cryptographically secure one. Unlike the points being asserted below, the main reason to use a bitcoin address as one's username is that it is possible to mathematically prove that you, and nobody else, actually performed your mainspaced edits, your talkspace changes, and so on (without involving a checkuser or indeed even being on-wiki at all iff need be). Furthermore, much like re-using your facebook-handle as your wikipedia-username, it is also a way of simplifying one's digital persona, since the same identifier for your on-wiki and your off-wiki efforts is utilized in both digital spaces. True, not many people have cryptocurrency identifiers, at least as compared to how many people have facebook-handles, but I expect that will change, over the next decade. 75.108.94.227 (talk
) 02:39, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
The point of the string is that it is an address that one can receive bitcoins too, it is like a link to send money to someone. The history of the address can be seen here: https://blockchain.info/address/1Wiki8Q5G7FviTHBac3dx8HhdNYwDVstR .
Chillum
20:47, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
(ec) Exactly. The more I've thought of this over the past few days, I have brainstormed several main points:
  1. While 1Wiki8Q5G7CplBibef7jz9ThdUbxYnstR is an identifier, imagine, for a moment, if 1Wiki8Q5G7CplBibef7jz9ThdUbxYnstR became an admin—or an admin switched nicknames to a bitcoin wallet. What would that tacitly say about that admin's priorities when it comes to editing the encyclopedia?
  2. While the points raised about IPv6 users are valid string-length-wise, they're not valid combinatorially or in signal-to-noise ratio of the information conveyed, as the organization of IPv6 lends itself to prefixes having meaning (whereas bitcoin/wallets are arbitrary; the 1Wiki portion of 1Wiki8Q5G7CplBibef7jz9ThdUbxYnstR, for example, was trial and error).
  3. What if there are multiple users who take the same approach? And edit the same pages? Would you even easily know which is which? Or be able to address them on talk pages without a script or something? Case in point, for this post, I've used the wayyy wrong username (1Wiki8Q5G7CplBibef7jz9ThdUbxYnstR) to refer to the user we're talking about, and I'm fairly confident the vast majority of people reading this comment didn't notice.
  4. Anonymity and randomness can be obtained similarly without being confusing or disruptive to other editors. The English language has thousands of words, and you can achieve a fairly random, anonymous username with something like "Golden monkey stutter blue" and nobody will ever confuse you with "Vehement hat publisher read" or "Vicious ocelot clown hamster." You have to interact with people on Wikipedia and they have to interact with you—usernames aren't there to create a high-address-space public key for people to refer to you by otherwise you'd be hacked and your money stolen or whatever. :P
--slakr\ talk / 07:24, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
Using random intelligible words is not an acceptable alternative for me as this is more easily associated with off-wiki outing than random strings. The issue is when people google my IRL name, random strings associated with my current account prevent unwanted connections between it and my CV, for example. And that's all the more I'm going to say on the matter. jps (talk) 21:47, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
WP:UNCONF discussion here. p.s. Note that any 'money' in the form of bitcoins being sent to that admin, would be visible to all wikipedians, and indeed, to all other people on the internet. You cannot use a bitcoin account to hide the fact that you are receiving 'money' from anybody, quite the opposite in fact. Plenty of admins post their full legal name, a hyperlink to their off-wiki homepage (which in turn often has an email-me button or in some cases a cellular phone number listed), and so on. It is easier to covertly bribe *that* sort of admin, than to send bitcoin covertly to a cryptographically-strong-username admin. 75.108.94.227 (talk
) 02:39, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
  • This is about as silly as a proposal to ban usernames lifted from music lyrics, tv dramas, cartoons, and of course...spy novels. Tarc (talk) 13:30, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Somewhat off topic but I guess relevant, it's a very bad idea to reuse the same address over and over in bitcoin, it's kind of an abuse of the bitcoin protocol, and compromises security. Gigs (talk) 06:29, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
Yup, if privacy is ones main concern, then reusing the same address is a bad idea[1][2]. If privacy is not a main concern, and one accepts the risks involved, then reuse could have advantages.-- 1Wiki8Q5G7FviTHBac3dx8HhdNYwDVstR (talk) 07:28, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
  • The idiocy of a policy limiting a username to 20 characters is that while we would disallow 1Wiki8Q5G7FviTHBac3dx8HhdNYwDVstR, it would allow 1Wiki8Q5G7FviTHBac3d. That doesn't accomplish anything. Besides, when you hash it out 1Wiki8Q5G7FviTHBac3dx8HhdNYwDVstR probably gets decrypted to "User:Username Dr Blofeld will object to". I oppose this.
    talk
    ) 17:43, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
Also, accomplishes a de jure ban of all
USPE, 2016 there are four anons using IP6 'usernames' which have clocked more than five edits from the IP6 address. There are also two somewhat-long-usernames that have made at least 5 edits to that page (one of whom I've seen personally make good edits) with 21 and 24 characters in their usernames. Besides these six humans, there are 186 other editors with at least five mainspaced contributions, so the policy of banning 20+byteUsernames would get rid of around 3.2% of reasonably-active editors, assuming that page is typical. (There is a third registered-username with exactly 20 characters so the percentage might be higher.) Of course, 16% of *all* edits to the page in question are made by anons, often single-edit folks, and as time goes by those will increasingly be IPv6 anons, as the use of IPv4 is phased out of consumer ISP and consumer cellular networks. Stiff price to pay, methinks. p.s. Average username-length for the top ten editcountitis on that page is 8.9 characters long, and average username-length for the top hundred editcountitis editors is 9.5 chars... whereas by contrast the average username-length for the second-hundred folks is 12.5 chars. So there *is* some evidence that shorter usernames edit mainspace more often; not sure that high edit-count correlates with high edit-quality, of course. 75.108.94.227 (talk
) 04:33, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
Please also see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User names#1Wiki8Q5G7FviTHBac3dx8HhdNYwDVstR. Cheers! -- 1Wiki8Q5G7FviTHBac3dx8HhdNYwDVstR (talk) 12:56, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
I normally sign with 8 Ms but showed the whole thing this time for the sake of this discussion. MMMMMMMM (talk) = User:ManymerrymenmakingmuchmoneyinthemonthofMay (talk) 10:53, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Username-related discussion on WP:AN

There is a discussion on

WP:AN about an editor, one aspect of which concerns their username. Since there are other aspects as well, I suggest that the discussion be kept centralized there, but those interested in username issues might like to participate. The discussion is here. BMK (talk
) 22:40, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Defunct
WP:CORPNAMEs

Is there any guidance on what to do when an account uses the name of a defunct company? I ran across this situation for the first time with

WP:SOAPBOX purposes. Would the name be allowable in this case? --Drm310 (talk
) 06:37, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

I would like for us to help me so i can go to google translate who do i do at— Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.140.49.214 (talk) 20:21, 13 January 2016

Limits, again

Wikipedia:Usernames for administrator attention/Instructions, item 5, is not policy, so I can't really block on the basis of it (begs the question of why it's there...), but now I am looking at User:12345789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123w and User:12345789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123z, and I don't know what to do. I really see no reason why we shouldn't limit user names. You've got to, in a collaborative environment, be able to call someone something. These names are so long and my eyes so old, it's just gibberish to me. Drmies (talk) 18:04, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

  • And User:Awertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm. But that's different. Drmies (talk) 18:05, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Oh, 12345etc comes in w, x, y, and z. Drmies (talk) 18:06, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

No RTV?

So there's no RTV? I just edited this to match

WP:VANISH, but then I realized this is policy and that isn't. (Sorry!) Seeking input. Considering self-reverting and editing VANISH. --Elvey(t•c
) 22:28, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

This is rather in flux at the moment, due to the change to global renaming. See discussion at WP:Bureaucrats' noticeboard#About "courtesy vanishing" and unvanishing. JohnCD (talk) 22:36, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 February 2016

92.22.141.49 (talk) 14:56, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

 Not done as you have not requested a change, but I suspect you are in the wrong place, as this page is only to discuss improvements to Wikipedia:Username policy. - Arjayay (talk) 15:34, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 February 2016

prakash ms — Preceding unsigned comment added by Prakashmysore (talk • contribs) 12:56, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

 Not done as you have not requested a change, but I suspect you are in the wrong place, as this page is only to discuss improvements to Wikipedia:Username policy: Noyster (talk), 12:20, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

New policy proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

On

vandals, should we implement such an addition to our policy? Thanks! <<< SOME GADGET GEEK >>> (talk
) 14:57, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

If they're vandals why not block them as such regardless of username? --
fisto
16:09, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
Because not all of them are. See the block list on NLwiki - many of the blocked users have not made any contributions at all, while the other have made purely disruptive edits. <<< SOME GADGET GEEK >>> (talk) 18:01, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
@
open channel
) 18:09, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
Actually, we do have a version of that rule here. See
#Confusing usernames in the policy. —C.Fred (talk
) 19:47, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Amendment to our Username policy

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Amendment to our Username policy. <<< SOME GADGET GEEK >>> (talk) 21:12, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Username length limit, redux

Interested parties, please be advised that there is a discussion ongoing on meta to limit usernames globally to 50 characters: meta:Talk:Title blacklist#Excessively long usernames. –xenotalk 20:17, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

RfC: Is it time to relax a bit on
WP:NOSHARE
?

The outcome of the RfC was this edit to the policy per the

WP:BRD and a formal RfC.

Cunard (talk

) 04:11, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

As is well known, our rules are supposed to codify existing practice. The existing practice for

WP:NOSHARE
currently reads:

Any user account should represent an individual and not a group (and an individual should normally only have one user account; see next section). Sharing an account – or the password to an account – with others is not permitted, and evidence of doing so will result in the account being blocked. For accounts being used to represent a group or organization, see Promotional names and Usernames implying shared use above.
Exceptions to this rule can be made for non-editing accounts approved to provide email access, accounts approved by the Wikimedia Foundation (see list), and bot accounts that are maintained by more than one contributor, provided the existence of such an arrangement is made clear and has consensus.

Here is the proposed change, based on what may be new practice. I've bolded the changes just to highlight them for this RfC, I'm not proposing that they actually be bolded in the text of the rule.

Any user account should represent an individual and not a group (and an individual should normally only have one user account; see next section). Sharing an account – or the password to an account – with others is not permitted, and evidence of doing so may will result in the user being asked to stop the practice and change their password, or in sanctions (up to and including the account being blocked), depending on circumstances. For accounts being used to represent a group or organization, see Promotional names and Usernames implying shared use above.
Exceptions to this rule can be made for non-editing accounts approved to provide email access, accounts approved by the Wikimedia Foundation (see list), and bot accounts that are maintained by more than one contributor, provided the existence of such an arrangement is made clear and has consensus.

Herostratus (talk) 01:02, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

  • Neutral. I'm not an admin, a WMF person, or a copyright maven, so not sure I'm qualified to weigh in. Herostratus (talk) 01:02, 29 April 2016 (UTC) Changing to support on these grounds: 1) I guess I'm convinced that its not a copyright issue, and if its not a copyright issue, its not necessarily that big a deal. 2) and Floquenbeam's story about the married couple about made me we weep, and 3) in cases of honest mistake there's no reason to have to be so draconian, I guess, besides which 4) this describes the actual practice anyway, and rules are supposed to describe actual practice. Herostratus (talk) 16:13, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose any relaxation. However, I do have a change to suggest. See below for comments. BethNaught (talk) 11:05, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Support. Maybe people who share an account don't know that it's against the policy. An "only warning" should be given before any shared account is blocked. epicgenius (talk) 14:03, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose This policy as is has served us well for years. I see no reason to change it, particularly not in response to a single event of no real significance. We can always unblock if they can prove they are in sole ownership of the account, and any admin has the discretion to not block in any circumstances anyway. In addition to concerns about who is responsible for the account, we also have the issue of who their edits are attributed to. I am not sure how this effects our license. HighInBC 14:46, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Of course. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:53, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Support, we should reserve immediate blocking for serious crimes. If a shared account demonstrably causes no harm, we should be able to let these people do what they do. Aren't there other Wikipedias that encourage shared/role accounts? —Kusma (t·c) 18:37, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

N.B. it was as this point that I changed "may" to "will" per suggestion.

You're right about the "asked" bit, I addressed that in a comment below. As to the rest, the proposition is not to allow share accounts -- they would still be forbidden, and sharing stopped when detected -- but just how draconian the response should be when they are detected, particularly in cases of innocent error. Herostratus (talk) 00:43, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
  • strong support per Floq. We should encourage people not to share accounts, but we should not force people. We really, really shouldn't be blocking people for this without evidence of both (a) it being a problem and (b) the account owners refusing to stop the problematic behaviour. Thryduulf (talk) 09:44, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Support - this issue on its own does not really require immediate no-questions-asked blocking. Such heavy handed approach on good-intentioned users will most likely just result some potentially productive editors leaving for good.--Staberinde (talk) 15:59, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment: When I wrote "asked to stop the practice" I of course meant "required to stop the practice. "Asked to" is a polite way of saying "required to" in many instances of civil discourse; it's the equivalent of "may I please" in "May I please see your license and registration", if you see what I mean. Of course I didn't mean "asked" in the sense of "asked to, with an acceptable response being 'no, I'd rather not'". I think everyone understands this, and I call upon the person closing the RfC, if they consider the proposition to be accepted, to change "asked" to "required", and I believe that no people who have commented to this point would consider this a substantive change rather than appropriate firming up of the wording. Herostratus (talk) 00:38, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Neutral I'm still not sure why an account would need to be shared for any reason, but I also am not sure how shared accounts harm the encyclopedia (they normally don't). — Music1201 talk 04:02, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Support per Floquenbeam. PaleAqua (talk) 18:52, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose -
    open channel
    )     19:06, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
  • Support - This is entirely sensible, and should give admins necessary flexibility. A reflexive, instantaneous perma-block is a heavy-handed measure that is not always called for. Oftentimes a friendly welcome message explaining Wiki's policy and asking the users to create separate accounts will go much further. I'm thinking of the well-meaning museum staffer, historical society volunteer, etc.—these people should be welcomed and informed, not harshly dealt with. Neutralitytalk 15:10, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
  • Support allowing for a warning first, and blocking if they don't respond. In fact that is my practice. Personally I have never insta-blocked anyone for this. I HAVE posted individualized explanations like this, and I think that is the preferable approach. If they don't respond after a few days, I block them then (although often I find someone else has already blocked and templated them because that's what the policy says to do). --MelanieN (talk) 23:24, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Extended discussion

I don't know as we need a "Support" vs "Oppose" type of discussion here, as there are various other wordings (probably better than mine) that could be proposed, and so we could talk about that. Anyway, the point is, the current wording imposes a straitjacket on the admin corps: "will result in the account being blocked" is a direct prescription for a single action, blocking the person, which is pretty harsh.

The admin corps, understandably, does not like being straitjacketed, so they are probably not going to be. So the new wording has two possible merits (as I see it):

  1. on the merits, the admins should not be straitjacketed to be forced to block people in all circumstances, including innocent error, and
  2. they're probably not going to anyway, so might as well change to rule to follow actual human nature and practice

The argument against of the proposed change is probably something along the lines of: multiple users using a single account and pretending to be one person is a nightmare on several levels, and needs to be dealt with extremely harshly in all circumstances -- most particularly because it completely screws up the copyright status of the contributed material and so pollutes downstream use; how bad this is depends on how seriously you take copyright issues that, to be honest, are mainly theoretical. It also makes it hard to communicate when you don't know which person you're talking too. And there are other reasons. I guess the question is, how big a deal is really, if there's no intent to cause problems? Can we not give an innocent offender a break, here? Herostratus (talk) 01:24, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

There's also the downside of discretion, of course, such that it might devolve such that fellow admins or wikifriends would be allowed to share their account and others not. (Sharing an admin account is another problematic thing, now that I think of it). Herostratus (talk) 01:50, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Recall that we allow IPs to edit most pages without restriction, and we have no idea who is using an IP, if they remain the same person, or how many people are using it: Noyster (talk), 07:10, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
  • First, about straightjacketing. No admin is required to do any admin action. However, with hundreds of active admins, surely one will be found who is willing to block a shared account. (Example: me.) Therefore I do not see the current wording as inconsistent.
  • Second, about whether we should block shared accounts. Yes. Depending on the context it may present various problems, including copyright. Note that although IP users are non uniquely identified, they implicitly agree to this because of the "Warning: edits will be logged under your IP address" banner. Now: there is no legitimate reason, according to either the current or proposed policy, to share an account used for editing. To prevent policy violations the account should be blocked. This does not mean that the people using it cannot continue to edit. This leads me on to my
  • Third point. If all users of a shared account are behaving themselves, then any block should not prevent account creation, in order that non-shared accounts may be created. We already block accounts with e.g. corporate usernames and ask them nicely to register a new name because the old one isn't allowed. The block template used for that is very friendly and polite. Why can't we do the same here? BethNaught (talk) 11:05, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

First, I can't resist saying what I've said elsewhere: there is really no copyright-related reason for prohibiting shared accounts, that's a red herring. There's not really any reason to share an account, either, and I suppose I can understand behavioral concerns (don't necessarily agree, but I understand). But seeing that even the completely common sense change proposed by Herostratus is being opposed (we immediately block shared accounts because... well, because we immediately block shared accounts), it seems this is just another example of Wikipedia's love of the idea of Enforcement. The good news is that what Herostratus proposes is what sensible admins will do anyway. But treating people, especially newbies, with a modicum of respect shouldn't be technically against policy. Herstratus, if you change "may result in..." to "will result in...", you might gain more support from those who think this practice must not be allowed at all costs. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:48, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

(continuing rant) I've run into this myself twice:
  • Once, many years ago, it was an old married couple who were causing no problems - who were just writing, helping, editing in peace - but made the mistake of saying in passing that they were sharing their account. They were immediately indef blocked, and when they said on their talk page they had been married 50 years and shared everything and didn't want separate ones, it was not looked upon as a harmless endearing quirk, instead it was explained to them in no uncertain terms that if they didn't want to get separate accounts they weren't welcome here. I suggested they just say they weren't going to share it anymore, but they didn't want to lie. They stopped editing, and the article they were working on has lain dormant ever since, so I'm sure they didn't follow the command to get separate accounts. I was pretty new at the time and lacked any mojo, so my complaints about this fell on deaf ears. It was a long time ago, but the insight it gave me about the strong tendency to Enforce made quite a lasting impression on me, as you can probably tell by the strength of feeling that is undoubtedly leaking into my writing.
  • Last week, when a relatively new account (who appeared to be productive, though it wasn't my subject area) was instablocked when someone noticed the user page said it was shared. pace Beth, there was no "friendly template", no statement that they were free to create new accounts, just the typical "you have been blocked indefinitely..." template we leave on vandal's talk pages. When I modified the block to allow account recreation, and left a message on the user talk page saying they were welcome to create new accounts, the blocking admin accused me of "getting on my high horse".
It doesn't bother me too much that this rule exists, there are a lot of rules I think are pointless. But I don't understand why it has to be worded to so directly cater to the Enforcement wing of the admin corps. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:14, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
"pace Beth"? I don't understand. Wiktionary didn't help either. BethNaught (talk) 18:23, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
It's me being too fancy. I guess I should have italicized it (or, better, not used it). --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:28, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
Thanks. Template? BethNaught (talk) 18:45, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
@User:Floquenbeam... that's odd, about "Last week, when a relatively new account (who appeared to be productive, though it wasn't my subject area) was instablocked when someone noticed the user page said it was shared" because around the same time I brought an identical situation to ANI, and the admins were all "why are you even bothering us with this?" and allowed the guy to just agree to stop doing it and change his password -- which might be reasonable.
As to the copyright thing, it says right below (emphasis added)
By clicking the "Save page" button, you agree to the Terms of Use and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL with the understanding that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient for CC BY-SA 3.0 attribution.
And while I recognize this is meaningless argle-bargle in reality, in theory the work remains under copyright, just also available for anyone to use (with attribution required, in theory). And copyright has to devolve to a person or an organization, it cannot devolved to an account. And if we can only trace it back to an account and not an individual, the situation is muddied. I mean, in theory the owner of the account could make a userpage saying "My name is Joe Smith of Akron Ohio", and then a person who made a contribution under the account who is not Joe Smith could claim he's not getting proper attribution. Or whatever. But of course in real life this is not going to happen, true. But people at the WMF may care about arcane stuff like this -- they can get super noodgey about copyright at the WMF, is all I'm saying. Herostratus (talk) 19:21, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
Explain how it is meaningless? The point is that we want to make a free encyclopaedia. For it to be free, we need it to be copyright-watertight. Just because fangirls on Tumblr can get away with shit doesn't mean we can do it. Also if someone writes a serious article, say GA quality, and then claims that they aren't being attributed properly - eg their account partner is stealing their credit - that could cause significant problems. BethNaught (talk) 19:27, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
@Herostratus and BethNaught: This is off topic, but: The terms of use Herostratus cites aren't incompatible with a shared account, any more than they are incompatible with editing from a shared IP address. In practice or in theory. Every copyright-related concern I've ever seen would, if true, forbid edits from IP addresses. And I note that all this concern about licensing is thrown out the window if the WMF approves the use of a shared account (which they have done in the past). It's not a copyright issue, it's a social construct. If we choose to have this rule, we should be honest and say we're doing it because we want to, not because licensing issues have forced us into it.
If you want individual credit for your GA article or other work, don't share an account. Just like: If you want individual credit for your GA article or other work, don't edit from a shared IP address. I'm not forcing anyone to share an account - I doubt more than 0.001% of people would ever want to, as there's no real benefit. I'm saying it's crazy the way we react when we find an account that's been shared, and the copyright rationale we use to forbid it is spoken out of rote, because we're told that so often, but is really an "Emperor has no clothes" kind of thing. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:56, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
Fair point, but I was also questioning Herostratus's general attitude to copyright on Wikipedia. From their comments it appears they think we should allow ourselves some laxity in ensuring correct copyright and licensing information. Free licensing is not "meaningless argle-bargle". BethNaught (talk) 20:05, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
Herostratus, to your other point: The reason this was handled differently than the case from last week I mention is that two reasonable admins, User:Liz and User:SQL, got to it first. Wikipedia is only one full moon away from anarchy most of the time, so you never know how something is going to be handled, and it strongly depends who gets to it first. Also, the account that was blocked was new, so it had less mojo. I would imagine if you re-ran this scenario 10 times, Groundhog Day-like, Doctor Papa Whatever would have been indefblocked by a passing admin 7 out of 10 times, the new account 9 out of 10 times. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:17, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
Well, first, I should acknowledge that I didn't stumble upon Jonas' user page, the fact that he stated that he allowed his account to be used by a few friends (how often? how long ago? we don't know) was publicized at Wikipediocracy so I think this particular situation was bound to get a lot of attention especially given the animosity some editors have towards Jonas.
My thinking in this situation was,
  • a) I was surprised that Jonas stated this sharing openly. If someone admits a problem they didn't know was a big deal, it's a matter of education and letting them know that it is a problem and the behavior must be stopped. It is much more complicated when shared use is just suspected and one has to search for evidence, accuse an editor of hiding this fact and prove one's case.
  • b) blocks are preventative not punitive. The goal is for Jonas (or any editor) not to have shared use of their account. So, they change this behavior and we can either accept that they are being truthful (which I did because Jonas was open about the previous shared use) or one can keep watch on an editors' contributions to see if they were lying and, personally, I don't like to spend my time editing on Wikipedia monitoring editors for misconduct that might never happen. If Jonas had said he would not change his behavior and would continue to share his account, this would warrant a block.
  • c) somehow this shared use of an account got all mixed up with editors' opinions of the articles Jonas edits and views of different political opinions he has expressed which they take issue with. But I don't remember any diffs being offered that demonstrated additional misconduct, it's just that editors accused him of being pro-Nazi and who is going to defend a Nazi? The situation became emotional and soon got completely off-topic. This prevented a discussion of how Wikipedia should handle shared use of computers in the future which this conversation tries to address.
I know that there are admins who think misconduct should be slapped down, and swiftly, but I strongly prefer the spirit of policy over wikilawyering. I think we block too frequently and I think there is a strong possibility that we lose editors who are the lifeblood of the project. I'm not talking about vandalism, I'm referring to otherwise productive editors who make mistakes. We all have made mistakes and if we expect perfection from editors, well, we might as well hang a  Done sign on the main page and close the project. Liz Read! Talk! 21:19, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
Well, really, if the rule is that "it strongly depends who gets to it first", then I guess we should say that:
Sharing an account – or the password to an account – with others is not permitted, and evidence of doing so will result in some random thing happening depending on who spies it first"
That is not my idea of a good rule normally, but it that is the actual truth of the matter, the rule should say so.
As to the copyright stuff, hell no, I personally take if very seriously indeed. I'm just trying to be agreeable. User:Floquenbeam said it's not a problem, and fine, maybe its not if he says so. I raised this question in a hair-on-fire manner about corporate accounts, on the grounds that the material is work done for hire and the copyright resides with the hiring person (unless the contract specifies otherwise, which such contracts never do), not the person pressing the "Save" button, even though it says "By clicking the 'Save page' button, you agree to the Terms of Use...."; the point being that the person clicking "Save" cannot agree to the terms because she doesn't own the copyright, and it is very very unlikely that hiring person has agreed even verbally, let alone in writing, to release the copyright, which he probably believes he still holds with full rights. I was told, by copyright mavens: Christ, stop whining about this, nobody cares about technicalities like that. So I dunno. It's above my pay grade. Its a WMF-level issue I guess. For my part I would consider it a problem, though. Herostratus (talk) 01:13, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
I came across the issue from AN/I - and again made the decision not to block the editor (and agreeing with @
in this case, it did not seem to be something that would make the encyclopedia better. As Liz said - the user in question was up front about the sharing - and once they became aware of the rules - they promptly promised that they had remedied the situation. Having no reason to believe that the user was lying - I saw no reason to block. Shortly thereafter I received a threatening message on my talkpage regarding the whole thing. SQLQuery me!
01:23, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
@SQL: I was surprised to see that the incivility on your talk page didn't draw a block, especially as it came from someone who seems to believe quite passionately that sysops ought to dispense blocks generously and without prior warning. I don't have a stake in the matter, and I'm not familiar with the two players from the ANI thread—just making an observation.  Rebbing  12:52, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Regarding the attribution issue: two years ago when this was discussed, the Wikimedia Foundation legal department gave their opinion that the prohibition on role accounts was not necessary to satisfy the attribution requirements of Wikipedia's licenses. isaacl (talk) 04:32, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Yes but that says "institutional accounts can receive and give proper attribution under the GFDL". There's a huge difference between "Exxon-Mobile, Inc." and "The British Museum" on the one hand, and "anybody that comes through my flat since I leave my computer logged in to Wikipedia" on the other. AFAIK the latter group of people cannot hold a copyright as a collective entity, the former can. Herostratus (talk) 03:39, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Endgame

I (purposely, but perhaps mistakenly) didn't frame this as a formal RfC, so no one is going to come along to close it. And it's died out. So let's see where we stand. Here's how I'd close it if I were closing.

Looking at headcount, we have 9 Support against 5 Oppose (and one neutral). That is 64% in favor of the change. That's a reasonable quorum and just on the edge, or over the edge, of a supermajority. One more vote for or less against and we would have supermajority.

As to strength of argument, I'm not going to say and I can't say. But I will make the following observations:

  1. Given the overall gestalt of the situation -- with 9 Support (some of them admins), and the history of the how this has been handled in the past -- it seems clear even if we don't change the wording, some admins are going to "vote with their feet" and decline to block people who have innocently and harmlessly broken this rule, per
    WP:ANI
    or their interpretation of WP:ANI.
  2. And having a rule in place that is not going to be followed is a bad thing. Our rules are supposed to codify actual practice. You can argue that what this rule says should be actual practice, but what I'm saying is, it's not, and it isn't going to be (see #1 above).
  3. And
    WP:NOTBURO
    is a very important rule. We don't have a bunch of stupid rules lying around that we don't really follow (or at any rate, we shouldn't). That is a recipe for unfairness.

Given all this, and since this (informal) "RfC" isn't going to be closed, and speaking as someone who sees both sides of the issue (although I did change from Neutral to Support, eventually), I see my way clear to adding the proposed change.

This is of course subject to revert per

WP:BRD, and if someone reading the results differently wants to do that, that's fine, and we can then have a formal RfC. Herostratus (talk
) 18:08, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Bizarre

Bizarre how much spam this page gets... It's almost as if they're trying to draw attention to themselves. Intelligentsium 20:50, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

I wondered at this as well. What makes them think a page dealing with username policy is an advantageous place to advertise?  Rebbing  21:22, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

I disagree with your "one person, one account" policy

You claim that, "Sharing an account – or the password to an account – with others is not permitted, and evidence of doing so will result in the account being blocked."

I disagree with that; I think my user account should be open to all. I am for a democratic Wikipedia, that is why I will share my password with anyone and every one. Wikipedia should be free, and so should my user account. My password is "password". 70.128.113.22 (talk) 21:20, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Legally it is not allowed, because of our content license's attribution rules. Plus, it would allow for
easy evasion of blocks or other sanctions. So we're not changing this anytime soon. You may disagree with the policy, but if you choose to do so, you may not edit Wikipedia, which constitutes agreement with the policy. Sorry.--Jasper Deng (talk)
21:24, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
@Jasper Deng: How does our copyright license forbid shared-use while allowing shared IPs? This seems like a false argument. I also fail to see how this has anything to do with sockpuppetry.  Rebbing  23:43, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
I thought it was pretty clear why. How do we attribute the author if multiple people use a given account? Also, any sockpuppeteer could just login using the account to evade a block or other sanction. For shared IP's, I believe that it is far from an ideal situation, and that everyone should have their own account in a perfect world, but don't count me on that.--Jasper Deng (talk) 00:16, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
Well, how do we attribute the author if multiple people use the same IP? It might not be ideal, but it is legal. Unlike the case with a shared IP—which won't be going away anytime soon—shared accounts are done by the consent of their users. If a shared IP user can be forced to share attribution with others, there is no legal reason why people cannot willingly choose to do so. Legally, the license only requires that the relevant usernames or IP addresses be attributed, not that they be linked to specific individuals. I think Floquenbeam explained the legal ramifications of this better than I am.
I'm still not understanding your point about sockpuppets. As it is, a user can sockpuppet by making another account, correct? This is only about admitted shared use; this policy does nothing to stop undeclared sharing.
Anyway, an account can be blocked as a sockpuppet whether or not it admits to being shared. Similarly, if I'm blocked, and my little sister creates an account and starts editing from our home network, she could be blocked as my sockpuppet even though she's a separate person using a separate account; a separate person using the same account would be blocked even faster.  Rebbing  01:20, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
Re-read the sockpuppetry policy. Using another person's account, or using any alternate account in general, for bad-faith purposes, is sockpuppetry. Giving out the password amounts to giving sockpuppeteers a free account to use, bypassing account creation-enabled blocks on IPs. It's as simple as that. As for attribution, well, just because shared IP's attribute edits to shared users doesn't mean it's technically admissible under CC BY-SA 3.0. Technically speaking, page revisions which include copyvios from non-free sources aren't eligible to be under CC BY-SA 3.0 but are still often available in our page history, but that doesn't make it technically permissible to do so.--Jasper Deng (talk) 08:08, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Question about blocked user

I just saw that a user with the name User:Can'tTrustHillary was blocked with reference to this policy. What was the rationale – "referencing controversies"/"imply personal attacks" because of the obvious allusion to HRC? Frankly, it appears a bit excessive to me to block a user immediately because of such a username. (And I'm rather pro-HRC and have never encountered the user before; I realise I might well be defending a person with rather nasty attitudes here.) It's a borderline case at best, IMHO. Now I don't find political opinions particularly appropriate for Wikipedia usernames, either, but still not worthy of an immediate block. I just wouldn't feel comfortable with the decision, myself. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:06, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Hmm, OK, I didn't think of the third point. I suspect my problem is my tendency to interpret the username as a mere statement of opinion in good faith (one that I'm even inclined to half agree with), not trolling. (But then, I guess I feel I can't trust any politician, especially one in her league, so in my case the statement is actually rather pointless.) Though I agree it's still distracting and inappropriate as a username on Wikipedia, and I guess I'm just naive and it was meant to stir controversy. Thanks. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:47, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
  • There's a distinction in the phrasing where it says "seem" instead of "are". We don't try to guess the intent of the person making the username, but rather take the view that if it reasonably could be concluded that it seems to be that way, we take action. Regardless, as you note, the username has no place on Wikipedia. We're not here to make clear our opinions on various topics in the real world. We're here to write an encyclopedia. If we assume good faith, that the person is simply saying they don't trust Hillary, the username is still inappropriate as it does not track with our purpose here. See also item 1 of
    WP:SOAPBOX. --Hammersoft (talk
    ) 14:46, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 August 2016

AVIK NAGAR (talk) 12:42, 19 August 2016 (UTC) please input one village name .that is BHANDORA POPULATION IS 3000

Not done: @AVIK NAGAR: I don't see why singling that village out for mention as an invalid user name is justified. No change will be made to the username policy. —C.Fred (talk) 12:53, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
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