[OWW-SC] usernames

[Austin Che]

    Redirecting to oww sc list from extensions list.

"Jason Kelly" <jasonk at mit.edu> wrote:

> ugh.  The point is that everybody has already solved this problem for
> themselves - we're not the first site that has asked them for a
> login/password.  When I have to log in somewhere that has a lot of
> people I have a backup username that is usually available -- mine is
> JKelly555.  If it's some place that is a smaller community then I'll
> check my primary username, mine is jasonk.  I mean if FirstLast is so
> easy to remember then why isn't everyone using it already?  I'd rather
> let people choose whatever username they think will be easiest to
> remember, rather than assuming FirstLast16 will be easier to remember
> (keep in mind there will be duplicate names).

    The reason most places aren't using longer usernames is probably
    due to several factors. There's the historical accident of unix
    and the mail system. Unix systems are limited to lowercase
    usernames with up to 8 characters (much too short for full names)
    and don't allow spaces. Same with mail. Google doesn't let me use
    "Austin Che" for a user name because putting spaces into my email
    address would cause me to never receive any mails.
    
    Secondly, for most websites which require a user name, they aren't
    using the user name as a unique 1-to-1 mapping with a real
    person. It is rather a mapping to an account. One user could have
    multiple accounts and the issue of registering is less for person
    identification and more because a database needs a unique
    identifier. For example, one can have multiple google, aim, yahoo,
    or amazon accounts and they wouldn't care.

    The next reason is that for most sites, people want anonymity. The
    purpose of a username is to hide the real person.
    
    Note that for sites like facebook and myspace where an account is
    equal to a physical person, there isn't a made up user name. You
    log in with your email address which is a substitute for a
    personal identifier. In general it seems like sites which want a
    single person behind an account don't have user names at all.
    
    Now on OWW, it appears the goal has been to have each account
    associated with a real person and to not allow anonymity. We could
    go with the email address as login approach but this requires
    software changes. Thus, why not use something for user names which
    actually is more associated with that person like their real name?
    
> Not clear that RealName+number will be easier to remember.  Do you
> have some proof of that?

    I'm not suggesting that people use RealName+number. First, we have
    no evidence that there's a single name conflict on OWW as it is
    and people can't just use Real Name. People have been creating
    wiki pages of the form "Real Name" indiscriminately and
    redirecting to their user pages anyway. This would be equivalent
    if we just encouraged them to get User:Real Name in the first
    place and this would not pollute the main namespace with user
    pages. I'm suggesting we encourage people to use their real name
    instead of things like streptomyces, plasticsurgeryresearch, or
    even austin and if conflicts arise, they just pick something else
    based on their full name. I would guess most people either stay
    logged in or the user name is saved by the browser so no matter
    what it is, it's just as easy to remember. But it makes it much
    easier for me when looking at the recent changes to remember who a
    particular user name refers to. It also makes it much easier for
    me to remember what the user name is of *another* user. How am I
    supposed to remember that Tom's user name is his initials, Drew's
    user name is his last name, Ilya's user name is his first name,
    Jason's is his first name + last initial, Reshma's is first
    initial + last name, etc?

    BTW, here's wikipedia's extensive user name policy:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Username_policy
    Note the section on username disambiguation.
    
> So then practically, everyone on the site has a valid, unique email,
> right?  I'm not sure why a link that emails you your username and
> password wouldn't solve all these problems....

    Someone needs to write that code. And at least for me (and I would
    say for most people), I have more email addresses than names. So
    when I need to enter my email address on a website to recover my
    username, I would have no chance of getting it right if not for
    the fact that I store the email address I use for every site on my
    computer.
    
-- 
Austin Che           <austin at csail.mit.edu>          (617)253-5899