Wikipedia:Username policy

This is a preliminary wording that needs review. It is not yet official, quasi-official, or whatever passes for official round here

The purpose of user names is to identify and distinguish contributors. This facilitates communication and record-keeping. Many software systems use neutral character strings to perform this function, such as XYZ123. No one has a right to any particular user name, or even to an expressive user name. That said, expressive names can help to alert others to an agenda or bias, and may even indicate the motivation for contribution.

Like all problems of ethics, it is a question of balancing two sets of rights: the right of those who wish to use the wikipedia's talk and change facilities without being constantly faced by an offending statement, and the right of those who wish to express their point of view as their fundamental identity to do so. The present consensus here in wikipedia is that the former is more important than the latter, but this could change. Here is a simple introduction to the arguments involved:

User names which offend other people are thought by most to needlessly distract us from our primary purpose - creating an encyclopedia with a neutral point of view. The username is not a forum to twist other people's tails or make a statement. This includes legitimate names and long-established Internet pseudonyms that can be misconstrued.

If you find a username offensive, please inform the user and politely ask them to change it to something more suitable to a collaborative encyclopedia. If it is not immediately obvious, please explain to the user the reason for your offence. Be patient. There are few phrases that say anything at all that are not offensive to someone, and there are sometimes legitimate reasons for users to pick a particular name, e.g. someone who found the wikipedia to have a particular bias might pick a user name reflecting the opposite bias, to alert others to the problem and highlight their edits as the solution to it. Such use of usernames is not popular, but it is nonetheless one of the many ways identity is used in wikis.

In general, though, there is no such discipline involved in names that offend. If you have no clear and present reason for choosing the name you chose, please accept some limits on your freedom of expression:

If someone has told you that they find your username offensive, please change it as soon as possible to something less offensive. If you continue to use an offensive username then it may be changed by the administrators. Ideally some means of consensus would be applied to such decisions, and there would be a chance for someone to at least record reasons for their choice of name, so that this policy could in future be changed - it's critical to consensus decision making that dissent always be recorded.

Fairly or unfairly, the line between acceptable and unacceptable usernames is drawn by the people who are offended, not by the creator of the name. That said, finding fault with names because of people's bias or opinions can easily become an oppression of its own. If you find that you have been asked to change your name several times and are genuinely confused about what is considered offensive by your peers on wikipedia, it probably indicates some clash of values of some kind, and should be discussed more extensively in other forums here on wikipedia.