Wikipedia talk:Username policy

IPv6 addresses

We have a new guideline about IPv6 addresses that have already started to (slowly) show up. A new notice has been placed in user's Watchlists saying: "Editors are advised that users with names of the form 2001:718:1E03:5184:8CA3:8DDA:38D5:6D2B are actually anonymous editors editing from an IPv6 address". Shouldn't we add something to this effect here, maybe in the "Confusing usernames" or "Internet addresses" subsections? -- Alexf^(talk) 16:53, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Also, how to handle usernames intentionally duplicating IP addresses? - jc37 16:56, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I think it's already prohibited to have usernames resembling IP addresses, therefore I think such usernames are already not allowed.--Jasper Deng (talk) 17:45, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

• To echo Jasper, the policy already prohibits 'usernames which can be confusing within the Wikipedia signature format, such as usernames which resemble IP addresses or timestamps' under the misleading usernames subheading, but I would not be opposed to adding a short note about the up-and-coming IPv6 form. However, I'm also at a loss about where the most rational place to add that would be. NTox · talk 18:25, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I just had read the watchlist notice, and I immediately had that sense of WP:BEANS after reading it : ) - jc37 18:50, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Not BEANS. See here; it's unfortunately necessary. Nyttend (talk) 13:20, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

To clarify: I meant BEANS in terms of my comments above: people actually creating account names designed to look like the new IPs. - jc37 07:41, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

As Nyttend's link shows, we will have a mess in our hands and a flood of UAA reports from users unclear on the issue. I think we should preemptively make some kind of note in this page, as I suggested above, though I'm unsure how the text should read and what subsection. I see that UAA already has a visible note to alert potential patrollers/reporters. -- Alexf^(talk) 13:48, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

• Comment I have filed a request on its talk page for the title blacklist to be updated to prevent such usernames being created. It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 20:19, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Article title policy

Is there a clear policy about usernames that are confusing, because they are similar to article titles? Or is it a case-by-case thing? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 07:35, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

• There's nothing specific I know of; I imagine something like that would follow under the existing 'misleading' criterion of problematic usernames. NTox · talk 07:40, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Thread of interest

People who are familiar with the application of this policy might be able to comment usefully at Wikipedia:Changing username/Simple#Secretary of the IPA → PatriciaKeatingIPA. Victor Yus (talk) 10:44, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

RfC: user names containing organization names

Should user names that contain organization names, but clearly refer to an individual, be allowed? Examples (from the policy as it stands): WidgetFan87, Mark at WidgetsUSA, LoveTrammelArt; (from the thread referenced just above here) Secretary of the IPA, JohnSmithIPA, JohnSmith at IPA? Are some, all or none of these acceptable? Why? Victor Yus (talk) 09:42, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

• Yes, they're acceptable. Such names kill two birds with one stone; they make an editor's affiliation clear, but they also underline that it's a specific person rather than a shared account. bobrayner (talk) 12:24, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
• All but one - "Secretary of the IPA" is a title, which could be held by any of dozens of people. That one would not meet our standards; but the others would, under our current consensus, as BobRay explains. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:34, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
• I agree with Orage Mike. The secretary of the IPA one doesn't identify a person. The other ones are beneficial because they identify the COI. Ryan Vesey Review me! 16:09, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

The goal of the username policy is not to avoid names of organizations, the goal is to make sure that we can uniquely identify that this account belongs to a particular person -- that it is not being shared, even shared over time sequentially by a different officeholder. There are exceptions, but for the average accountholder, this is the goal. -- Avanu (talk) 16:33, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

• Comment: the point about believing a conflict of interest is being revealed assumes the editor's name is accurately reflecting an association with the organization. In general, I'm wary of assuming this to be true, and don't think it can be relied upon. isaacl (talk) 00:18, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
• Yes, they're acceptable, with the possible exception of the "Secretary of IPA" username. There are titles that could be acceptable because they're unique ("Founder of Wikipedia") or at least expected to be held by one person longer than the average account remains active ("Queen of England" or "Owner of Widgets, Inc."). In such cases, a friendly note to point out that the account is not transferrable to any future holders of the office should suffice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:49, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
• I agree with OrangeMike above. If they show that one specific person is editing, but still identify a COI, then that's fine. --Nathan2055^{talk - contribs} 16:16, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
• I think the challenge is in identifying the problem we are trying to avoid in the first place. Some don't like organizational usernames because they look like they are shared; others think they are promotional. My own opinion is that these are both legitimate issues to avoid. What we should be looking for is that (1) the name sufficiently suggests that the account is held by one person, and (2) that it doesn't contain a blatant intent to advertise. On these counts, I believe 'WidgetFan87', 'Mark at WidgetsUSA', et al. are okay. They are held by 'Mark', and 'a' fan, and neither are these individuals instructing anyone to do business with the company. NTox · talk 09:12, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
• Another thought: Because of WP:SUL, we may need to make exceptions for usernames that are created to match a legitimate name at some other WMF website. It's not okay for people at the English Wikipedia to tell someone that he has to change the username he's used for years without complaint at Commons or some other project because we don't like it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:20, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

• I disagree, if a username on commons blatantly violates our policies but hasn't been noticed elsewhere, we shouldn't allow it. It would be easy enough to find an obscure wiki and create something like User:Order pizza from Bert's 867-5309 then use the unified login to say it is acceptable. Even an account age and edit count requirement on the other website couldn't stop all instances. Ryan Vesey Review me! 18:26, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

• But we could presumably fairly easily distinguish such bad-faith instances from any good-faith ones. (I don't even really see why people worry so much about these promotional names - have they ever been a real problem? After all, they are not normally visible to the general public, and the behind-the-scenes Wikipedians who do see them will presumably react by purposefully not ordering their pizza from Bert's.) Another conceivable situation is where someone's name is a coarse vulgarity in some other language - should they be allowed to use it on that language's wiki? But that's a quite different topic, which is perhaps not worth discussing until it actually comes up. Victor Yus (talk) 20:23, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

• (ec) I think that is why there is an "Ignore All Rules" rule. I have yet to see such an account name, but I don't pay that close of attention either. My own username is technically a violation of the orgname policy, but its age and obscurity prevent it from being a problem, obviously the username you mention is blatant and so it wouldn't be quite the same. -- Avanu (talk) 20:23, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

• Let me give an example: Commons:Commons:Username policy permits company names with verification that the users are the "official representatives of that company or group, via e-mail to info-commons-at-wikimedia.org." They give User:Microsoft as an example of a username that is permitted at Commons (if you verify the identity through e-mail). We don't normally accept such a username, with or without e-mail. However—and perhaps you will disagree with me—if someone is an active contributor to Commons (which we will determine using our Best Judgment rather than possibly game-able rules) under a name that Commons explicitly permits in their username policy (e.g., not a username that simply hasn't been reported as a violation elsewhere), then I think we should accept that name here, as a courtesy to our sister project's users. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:43, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

• All okay but "Secretary of the IPA", per the obvious reasoning of BobRay and Orange Mike. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 02:51, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

RfC - Handling promotional usernames

When should usernames in the form of a company, organization, group, website, product, or internet address be blocked from editing? Should they be blocked immediately? Should they be blocked only when they have edited in the topic area connected to the name (constructively or not)? Should they be blocked only if they have made promotional edits in the topic area connected to the name? Sometime else? Why? Issues to consider:

• Alternatives to blocking include a username change and creating a new account.
• Whether or not adding external links to avoid automatically constitutes promotional editing.
• The appropriate times that a username block should be a soft block [1] or a hard block [2].

NTox · talk 21:16, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

This is already covered by policy, and I think in a more than adaquate way. Blocking only should happen for editors who are making problematic edits. No one is supposed to be blocked for a non-offensive username alone. Just because I name myself "Nike" doesn't mean it is a company name or a danger to the encyclopedia. I could very well be a fan of ancient Greek mythology. People shouldn't have to change their username if they aren't being a problem, and *especially* shouldn't be blocked. -- Avanu (talk) 21:53, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

The policy already specifically covers this. We only block if they are making overly promotional edits or vandalizing. If it's just a username problem, then we just direct them to WP:CHU to have them rename their account. Simple as that. Why would you block someone otherwise? That would be a severe WP:BITE violation. Silverseren^C 02:20, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

What if they don't get it changed? Do we just let them go? --MuZemike 17:19, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Have actually we had a significant problem with this? I don't recall a single report of a problem with someone persisting in a truly inappropriate username after being advised to change the username and/or start a new account, but perhaps I've just missed it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:06, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Like I've said in some of the threads above, I don't even think there's any problem with people using such names. They certainly shouldn't be blocked, but I would say they shouldn't even be told to change their user name. It might be good to advise them of our policy regarding sharing of accounts, but even that's an unnecessary and pointless rule (again, as explained somewhere above). Victor Yus (talk) 05:46, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Basically, we shouldn't care that accounts are shared, correct? Then, if so, what is the purpose of having a username, then? --MuZemike 17:19, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Various possible purposes that I'm sure we could both list, most of which don't stand in any contradiction to the sharing of the account between more than one person. What is the purpose of caring whether other people's accounts are shared? The argument given previously was that one joint user may not be aware of messages that have been previously supplied to another joint user, but that's hardly a major issue - enough people here stick their fingers in their ears and pretend not to have heard something they've been told before, and we don't block them for that. Victor Yus (talk) 08:25, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

I like the existing policy: people with potentially promotional usernames are blocked only if they have made promotional edits in the topic area connected to the name. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:06, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

The problem is: What is considered promotional? I mean, a company who creates a Wikipedia account and then creates an article about their own company is likely not going creating that article just to share knowledge. --MuZemike 22:22, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Usually, people seem most concerned about peacocking and removal of negative information. Something that seems fairly plain, like a simple list of products produced (without saying that they're the best widgets ever produced, etc.) is fine. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:29, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

• There are many examples of company officials who have been able to accomplish honorable, neutral writing about themselves that is consistent with our policies. After all, there are ways that both of us can win; a verifiable, comprehensive, neutral article makes both the encyclopedia and the company look good. You are certainly right, however, that many companies (probably most) show that they are not capable of this. My rule of thumb is this: if the edits from the company username are predominantly concerned with advancing subjective opinions connected to itself, the account should be given some kind of block. IMHO, so-called 'spam links' qualify under this rule if the content of the website does exactly that. If the edits and/or links from the company username, however, are predominantly concerned with what we recognize as objective facts, the user is much closer to behaving consistently with our goals and thus should not be blocked but told to discontinue their username. NTox · talk 22:46, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

• Existing policy is fine, per much of the reasoning above, and because the RfC is using confused/confusing language: There's no such thing as a username that should be blocked for user actions like CoI editing. Usernames, in the abstract, are subject to username policy, which has nothing to do with users and their actions, only with appropriateness of names, while users are about by user editing policies like WP:NPOV, which has nothing to do with usernames. This RfC mixes apples and oranges. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 02:54, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

I think you are mistaken. The username policy, as it stands, specifically says that promotional usernames should be blocked only when promotional user actions, as you say, exist. See ORGNAME. Let me know if I've misunderstood. NTox · talk 04:58, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

• We've discussed this before. The policy is clear. The project has a problem with administrators who clearly understand the community's wishes and the policy but choose to ignore both. See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive235#Orange_Mike and its sequel Wikipedia talk:Username policy/Archive_18#WP:ORGNAME. An RfC on user behaviour is required but, as far as I can recall, nobody (including me) can summon up the motivation or is willing to donate the time. So Orangemike will continue biting because no admin has the balls to block him, and no one else can be bothered with the hassle of an RfC/U. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 08:08, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

This is just one instance of the systemic problem at this project. Of course we should address these CoI editors with respect and an assumption of good faith. Most of us think so and our policy says so. But there are admins here who choose not to, and we do nothing about that. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 11:26, 7 July 2012 (UTC)