[OWW-SC] usernames

[Jason Kelly]

So what is the policy for duplicate names in this scheme?

I also like the idea of seeding the userpage, creates incentive to
edit your page...

Thanks,
jason

On 4/19/07, Austin Che <austin at csail.mit.edu> wrote:
> "Reshma Shetty" <rshetty at MIT.EDU> spake sagely:
>
> > I'm confused on two points ...
> >
> > 1) Austin are you proposing that we move to encouraging use of
> > FirstnameLastname as the username for all future accounts or also try to
> > move current account holders?
>
>     We can do both. The first is trivial and requires no work. The
>     second is technically quite easy for single accounts (not sure how
>     difficult it'd be for many accounts). Note, I'm actually
>     suggesting Firstname Lastname with the space so people's user page
>     would be User:Firstname Lastname which could be a direct
>     substitute for the many Firstname Lastname pages that currently
>     exist in the main namespace.
>
> > In general, I thought that we had been trying all along to have people's
> > username reflect their real name in some way.  I consider the usernames that
> > don't reflect a person's real name to be a failure of our ability to check
> > username requests.  I don't see how moving to a more uniform username scheme
> > like FirstnameLastname addresses this problem?
>
>     Sure better checking of usernames is necessary and that's not the
>     problem I'm suggesting we deal with (in fact, with a uniform
>     scheme, we could just auto generate the user name). But as far as
>     I know, there's not a stated username policy on OWW at all. And
>     there's a difference between using a username that reflects their
>     real name in some way and their actual real name.
>
> > 2) Wouldn't an alternative approach be to seed the person's user page with
> > their name and affiliation automatically upon account creation.  (Presumably
> > this is doable with some coding effort?)  Thus, every user page would be
> > seeded with some information about the person?  Is this an acceptable
> > policy?
>
>     Seeding a user page is a great idea but I think a different issue
>     than the actual username.
>
> --
> Austin Che           <austin at csail.mit.edu>          (617)253-5899
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