Wikipedia talk:Username policy/Archive 13

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Not-so-promotional names

The discussion above and elsewhere now seems to be saying that blatantly promotional names are highly discouraged and are blockable if a username change is refused and edits continue. Names with "Inc." and "Services" and "Corporation", etc. I can live with that. If bots can make this easier, even better.

So how about not-so-promotional names? Names that only come to WP:UAA after the user edits? Take a look at these names before looking at their contributions: User:Jcbowman2i, User:Heroes Delay, User:Cicgfquinn, User:Chialphadeltaucla, User:Eohippus Jazz, User:Ep915. To me, none of these have any business being at "Usernames for administrator attention. These are not spamming every time they use their signature. Each of them should go through the usual three or four spam warnings followed by a report to WP:AIV. Do we need a Wikipedia:Spam for administrator attention? (Don't we already have one of those somewhere?) Jcbowman2i is the one that started me on this crusade in the first place. He managed to get one edit in before being squashed - apparently forever - with no warning whatsoever. Because the name of his company was in the last two characters of his username. Like anyone would ever notice that there was a company name hidden in there... Wknight94 talk 11:57, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

This seems a fair summary. We should probably have a special warning for those where it's obvious from a combination of their username and edits that they might be seen as a COI problem, but they should be notified of the relevant policies (warned) and given a chance to improve (or desist gracefully) just like any other spammer. The usernames are not suitable for immediate blocking at UAA. Persistent spammers should be reported to AIV like normal. -- zzuuzz (talk) 12:10, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
I think these are good examples of usernames that should not be disallowed, places where {{spamusername}} would give the wrong message. In cases of blatant advertising abuse, I have no problem with an immediate block, but it should be explained properly that it's for spamming, or as a spam-only account (much as some accounts are blocked as vandalism-only accounts after only one or two edits). Though, I do think these users could stand to be given one warning in almost all cases. If those users respond to an unblock request by apologizing for the promotion and agreeing not to continue, I would not insist that they change username; in the case of something as clearly acceptable as Jcbowman2i, I might even decline to accept their offer to change usernames. Mangojuicetalk 14:37, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
As for them being reported at WP:UAA rather than WP:AIV, I think those reports do belong at WP:AIV, and users misreporting them could be gently reminded that UAA is only for inappropriate usernames, not for all cases of spamming. But I wouldn't kick up much of a fuss, because it is correct to report them somewhere. Mangojuicetalk 14:39, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm afraid I have to disagree with two of these. Eohippus Jazz only existed to created an ad for the jazz group Eohippus, whose website is eohippusjazz; chialphadeltaucla only existed to create an article about the sorority Chi Alpha Delta at, surprise, UCLA! Those are spam user names, to me: they are role accounts, and only serve to promote the organization whose name they bear. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:46, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
I guess my test would be "would you raise an eyebrow at the account name if it never edited". For Eohippus Jazz, I'd say "no", for chialphadeltaucla, I'd say "maybe a bit but lots of college kids would be inclined to do that without being spammers". For clear "no" cases, I'd say flag with {{UAA|COI}} and move on. Wknight94 talk 15:07, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
But the problem with those users is not their username, it's their contributions. "Eohippus Jazz" is - on its own - a perfectly acceptable username, and it shouldn't have been blocked with Template:usernameblock as the block reason. Template:Uw-soablock should have been used instead. I know that I'm nit-picking here, but we should be more careful about this. Usernames like these can only be a problem in the context of their contributions, and if there are problems, they should be blocked for the latter, and not for the former. --Conti|✉ 15:29, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
But it's not nitpicking. For a poor username, we don't need a full set of warnings, just a "change your name or you will be blocked". For an okay username and poor edits, a full set of warnings should be given as though they were an IP. Wknight94 talk 15:54, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Wknight94. Blatant names are blockable on sight, borderline, we wait until they edit. On bordeline names we ask them to change. Everything else is a case for AIV as vandalism or habitual spammer, after the proper vandal/spam warnings are issued and disregarded. -- Alexf(talk) 18:54, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure we even ask borderline cases to change. We just ask them to stop spamming. But I expect some pushback to that. Personally, if User:Eohippus Jazz started editing Canadian Prime Minister articles, I'd be perfectly happy. I'm sure plenty of people use their own music group's or small company's name as a username, and make legitimate edits, and we never even know that they're kinda sorta advertising their group/company. Hell, lots of people use some little nickname or catchphrase as their small company name, i.e. it may have been their username before it became their company name. Point is there's a fine line between cracking down on godless spammers (</sarcasm>) and ruining everyone's ability to choose a fun name that they can identify with. Wknight94 talk 19:24, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Had Eohippus Jazz in fact edited Canadian Prime Minister articles, I'd never have quibbled; but in fact like all of the names we're talking about, they came in and started by creating articles promoting the Eohippus jazz group and website. There were no contributions to preserve or welcome; they were only here for the opportunity to self-publicize. --Orange Mike | Talk 13:54, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm absolutely fine with blocking spammers and self-promoters, and those who do it do a great service to the project. But I still have a problem with how things are currently done: we should block them for being them being spammers and self-promoters and not because of their username. These days this policy is largely used as an excuse to block promotional accounts quickly and without the 'hassle' of giving adequate warnings.
If people writing FUCK across our articles get four warnings before being blocked, I don't see why we should treat promotional accounts more harshly. Perhaps some other policy needs sharpening to deal with them more effectively, but WP:U isn't really the right place. This is a relatively unimportant policy, and blocking people because "your name violate our username policy" when we really mean "you're blocked because we don't want promotional articles and edits" is confusing, hard to understand and gives us a poor reputation for being overly bureaucratic.
As I said, I'm all for discouraging spammers and self-promoters: we just need to find a better way of explaining and justifying it so it is easily understandable and causes minimum amounts of biting of new users. henrik•talk 21:06, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Experience has dictated that people who vandalize are often merely experimenting to see if they really can edit the Encyclopedia. So it is good that we don't block them right away, or we'd drive away new users who might become valuable assets to the Encyclopedia. Spammers, on the other hand, arrive here and immediately start misusing the project for their own goals. There is no reason to tolerate them; I have unblocked lots of them and only a couple have gone on to do any other editing at all. I feel we don't block people because of their username, it's just how we detect the situation. This situation is the reason why I created the {{spamusername}} template, which is meant to clearly explain the problem with the user's edits and to mention but not emphasize the name issue. Mangojuicetalk 12:46, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
In principle, I don't mind these users being blocked as {{spam6}} (spam-only) accounts but then when they appeal the block we always have to explain and deal with the username issue. Mangojuicetalk 12:50, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Bot naming policy

A discussion has begun on whether to change into a suggestion the current requirement that bot accounts incorporate the word "bot". Please comment at Wikipedia talk:Bot Approvals Group#BAG and bot policy with regards to names. Thanks. Anomie⚔ 12:20, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Question

If a user was an administrator, would it be okay for that user to be User:Administrator or something along those lines.--Launchballer (talk) 18:21, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

  • I'm not positive, but my gut says no. Seems like it would still violate policy, as could be seen as implying an authority beyond other admins. They would have to submit a request at WP:CHU like everyone else anyway. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:30, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
If you're not positive, do you want me to make a request on the administrators noticeboard?--Launchballer (talk) 12:14, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
  • I would imagine you would get a similar answer there. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:58, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
Okay. I'll go anyway.--Launchballer (talk) 05:37, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Template to consider for deletion

The template Template:Rlname was nominated for PROD deletion. However, WP:TFD states that templates that relate directly to specific policies, then their deletion should be discussed on the appropriate talk page. This template tries to encourage users to register their real name or a real name. Further, it directs people to contact the template creator rather than coming to the Username policy forum to request advice on usernames.

I do not believe that this template can be deleted under WP:CSD#T2 as it doesn't intentionally (in my opinion) misrepresent policy.

--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:17, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

  • ooh, delete Maybe it doesn't intentionally contradict policy, but it certainly isn't supported by policy, or by consensus as is obvious by the fact that the vast majority of editors do not use their real names. Except me, I really am the President of the Galaxy. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:46, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Delete. This does misrepresent policy because Wikipedia does not encourage the use of real names, in fact, it specifically cautions against it, and for good reason. I do want to point out, though, that the template does not direct the user to discuss with the template creator, it directs the user to discuss with the user who leaves the message with {{subst:Rlname}} ~~~~ on your talk page. Mangojuicetalk 23:54, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

While I am not going to vote for deletion on the username policy talk page, I would recommend it be nominated for deletion in the proper venue. I will certainly support the deletion of a template giving such foolish and dangerous advice. I am not sure why Ceyockey recommended it be taken here when it seems to be a matter for WP:TfD. Chillum 23:57, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I see, it says "Templates that are associated with particular Wikipedia policies or guidelines, like the CSD templates cannot be listed at TfD separately. They should be discussed on the talk page of the relevant guideline." I don't think that applies here because there are not policies related to using your real name on Wikipedia. This seems to be a common sense issue more than a username policy issue. I am going to nominate it for deletion and put a link here. Chillum 00:01, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2009_May_10#Template:Rlname. Chillum 00:06, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Although I created this template, I no longer support its use. I'm not sure whether it's safe to use your real name on Wikipedia or not (I haven't had any problems so far), but I no longer feel comfortable recommending it to others. If it's not safe, that's a sad fact, but a fact's a fact. I would like to note that it was never intended to express policy, although I suppose new users might misinterpret it.—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 00:25, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Based on that remark I have tagged it for speedy deletion at author request. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:26, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Account deletion

If the reason for not being able to delete your account is because others can re-create it, than I disagree with that. On Youtube, for example, once your account is deleted, it is impossible to re-create it - your actions (like leaving comments) will be left, but your account will be closed. Why can't we do the same thing on Wikipedia? Majopius (talk) 02:34, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

What precisely is the difference between what you describe above and an indefinite block? YouTube does not delete accounts, by the way, they suspend them.--Dycedarg ж 03:53, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
The reason no one may delete their account is because their contributions must remain, and they therefore need an author for the purposes of attribution under the GFDL. I have no problem in principle with accounts that have never edited being, simply, deleted, but these accounts can already be usurped if other people want to use their username. Mangojuicetalk 20:32, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
To .--Dycedarg ж 03:53, 6 May 2009 (UTC) On Youtube, there are two types of messages that can be displayed for such an account: "This account is closed" and "This account is suspended". This means that these are different things. Closed means that it is permanently disabled, suspended means that it is temporarily disabled. Majopius (talk) 01:41, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Holidays

Are holidays allowed such as User:Mother's_Day_2009?Smallman12q (talk) 16:21, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes. -- zzuuzz (talk) 16:54, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
No politically powerful clique has emerged who's offended by people naming themselves after holidays, so it's OK right now... should somebody with lots of clout in WikiPolitics suddenly wake up on the wrong side of the bed and start foaming at the mouth about how referring to Mother's Day is derogatory to father's rights, that could change. *Dan T.* (talk) 17:07, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Can it be explicitly stated in the username policy then that holiday names are appropriate?Smallman12q (talk) 19:19, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't think we need to bother, and it could lead to the page becoming an absurdly long list if we try to specify what is ok instead of what isn't. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:21, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Well some holidays can be considered events such as easter, halloween, and christmas. At WP:ACC, it says Your username must not: contain names of celebrities, notable world figures or events, or known Wikipedians Something should be added to the policy to reflect this.Smallman12q (talk) 23:50, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
Although it's probably good advice, it's probably not policy. -- zzuuzz (talk) 23:58, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
I can't see any reason for prohibiting holidays as part of usernames. We forbid using names which would confuse other editors, but I don't see how a holiday in a username would confuse anyone.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Will Beback (talk • contribs)
I don't know the origin of the text in question, but there may some circumstances where a username like User:FIFA World Cup 2010 could be seen as problematic. It's an event, but not a holiday. -- zzuuzz (talk) 00:10, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I suppose that using a specific event, especially a commercial one, has the same problem as using a commercial name directly - it would give readers the impression that the user is an official representative of the event's sponsors. I don't see that problem with a holiday.   Will Beback  talk  00:22, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Usernames based on real living person

Don't see it in the rules... what's the consensus on user names based on a real living person - in case there's little doubt that the user is not the living prototype (i. e. User:Arshavin_the_Gunner is not Andrei Arshavin the Gunner)? NVO (talk) 20:37, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

  • It's in there somewhere, but the crux of it is this: if your name is the same or similar to a notable person, you should make it clear on your user or talk page that it is not you, in order to avoid the appearance of deception. If you are a notable person, you may be asked to prove it. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:00, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
  • I've left a note detailing this on that user's page. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:10, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 Done He's modified his talk page to clarify that he is not Mr. Arshavin. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:47, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposed addition

"Accounts that represent a group or company are not permitted; see Sharing accounts below." to "Accounts that represent a group or company are not permitted; see Sharing accounts below. However, note that marginal similarities between a username and a company name do not necessarily constitute a violation."

I think something like that would, to an extent, suppress the hordes of inappropriate UAA reports, where the username only contains a similar abbreviation. Thoughts? –Juliancolton | Talk 18:35, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Seems reasonable. –xenotalk 18:37, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
Sounds good. --Conti|✉ 18:38, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
My concern is that there is no other streamlined and specific forum for the very common scenario of "Obvious group/company/shared username, creating an article about group/company, and editing a few related articles to add mentions of the company". WPSPAM seems more interested in widespread linkfarm or otherwise spamming, and the COI Noticeboard usually handles more complex content (rather than account/user) issues, and AIV ... well promotional material isn't really vandalism. User:Tourdeforceff is a perfect example (well, was, they had created a promotional article which has now been speedied). I hesitate to post that on UAA now because of concerns that have been raised about what belongs there. What do you think? Where is the best place to report Tourdeforceff and accounts like them? Gigs (talk) 03:04, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
The core issue is whether the problem lies in their actions or their username. If the name is so obvious like "Global Intertech, Inc" or something, the name violates policy. If there name is not obviously representing a company, then it comes down to their actions, which if they are spamming, should be reported to WP:AIV. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:32, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
So do we want to allow usernames which represent companies and groups, as long as it's obfuscated enough? If the purpose here is to force users to create individual accounts instead of corporate/group accounts, then User:brpaint should be blocked just as fast as User:BobRossPaintCompany, once it's clear that the user is making promotional/COI edits. We often wait for a user to make an edit to see what their intentions are. The string that makes up the username isn't as relevant as the intentions behind the username, or we wouldn't be waiting for users to edit to judge usernames, right? Gigs (talk) 03:41, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
I think it's important that we clarify this once and for all. For example, two recent reports to UAA come to mind. Roars123 (not blocked) and Gdjb (blocked). Both had a clear COI involving companies. However, I wonder whether these are username violations. I can't tell what these usernames are supposed to promote. My stance on usernames is to look at the names in a vacuum. If I can't determine a problem/COI from the name, then the issue is the user's edits, not their name. If the issue is with their edits, then they should be reported somewhere else. TNXMan 11:59, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

(unindent)I definitely agree that clarity is needed. Right now the policy states:

  1. Accounts that represent a group or company are not permitted
  2. User accounts must only represent individuals. Sharing an account – or the password to an account – with others is not permitted, and doing so will result in the account being blocked.
  3. Use of Wikipedia for promotion of a company or group is not permitted, and accounts that do this will be blocked.

All of these policy statements are not about the literal string that makes up the username, rather, they are about the intent (and the flesh) behind the username. If we want to strip the policy down to only dealing with usernames in a vacuum, then these statements are probably where we should start. I don't think that appending a statement like Julian suggested will really reduce the core problem that the current policy is addressing user issues rather than username issues. My other concern, as noted above, is that we ensure that we don't make it too hard to get promotional accounts blocked. I wouldn't want to see this policy weakened and then see AIV refusing to deal with promotional accounts because it's not technically vandalism. And on a technical note, do we want to require the multiple levels of warnings and repeated behavior that AIV requires, against obvious corporate usernames? Gigs (talk)

I certainly agree that promotional accounts should be blocked. As you said, "Brpaints" would be a concern, but something like "Brp" isn't really blockable in my opinion. When you have to squint your eyes to see it, it's not worth it. :) –Juliancolton | Talk 13:50, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
This is a good case. I'm not faulting Closedmouth, this rejection is very common practice. But I question that practice, why not block what is obviously a corp/org account? Why aren't we enforcing the "User accounts must only represent individuals" rule, on UAA, when the account is clearly an acronym for a corp/org? Why do acronyms get people off the hook sometimes? Gigs (talk) 15:01, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
I think this goes back to my point. Looking only at the username, HRAC could mean anything (Harry Reid's Apple Cart? Human Race Antique Collection?). If there is a problem with the user's edits, then it's a problem for a different board. I think any block would not be for the username, but rather, blatant advertising/promotion. TNXMan 15:07, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Right, and if we had HRAC with 0 edits, I'd say, fine, wait and see. But once HRAC starts making COI edits for the Human Resource Action Center, is there any doubt that the account violates the username policy against corp/org group accounts? Gigs (talk) 15:11, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
I agree that a username should be identifiably promotional to lead to blocking, even if the user's edits are promotional. Looking at the names Roars123 and Gdjb, I have no idea what they might be promoting. HRAC I'd say is more of a marginal case, only because all caps acronyms usually stand for something, but as Man points out, it could be anything. Even if they do start editing Human Rights Action Centre, the name itself is still not blatantly promotional. Exploding Boy (talk) 15:22, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
But when HRAC makes COI edits, that's a COI issue, and not a username issue, right? The username is just another indication that it is a COI SPA (hooray for TLAs!), but if the acccount will be blocked, the username should not be the main reason for the block. --Conti|✉ 16:00, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Tnxman307; we have WP:COIN for a reason. –Juliancolton | Talk 15:54, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
COI edits on a "company name account" solidly indicate a violation of the "no shared accounts" username policy. COIN is geared toward complex cases of COI, often involving good-faith and established editors, and disputes thereof. The complex and borderline cases should go there, I agree. But just because they used an acronym rather than their full company name, I don't think that warrants a long drawn out process when the account is clearly shared and being used for promotional purposes. Gigs (talk) 17:29, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
As I noted above, we have other means of dealing with spam. If you saw a user by the name of "ESA", would you instantly assume they were promoting the English Speech Academy? –Juliancolton | Talk 17:37, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
If they had created the article English Speech Academy in the main namespace, filled it with promotional copy, and then added external links to other articles for English Speech Academy, then absolutely. Context is important, and I don't think we should blindly ignore it. Yes, they violated other policies, but primarily, they are no different from a user who registered the User:EnglishSpeechAcademy and did the same edits (and would be quickly dispatched at UAA). I would say if there is any serious doubt then we should assume good faith, but we also shouldn't be just looking at the literal string that comprises the username itself without context. If you want to start operating on literal strings without context, then I suggest that you advocate removing the promotional username clause entirely. I would even support you if there is consensus to take all such reports to another forum where simple cases can be dealt with quickly. (such as AIV, not something geared toward complex investigations like COIN) Gigs (talk) 17:52, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
But the name itself is not blatantly promotional, and surely that's what this page is supposed to deal with. For instance, we currently have a WP:UAA listing for the username Sureshh1234, which is claimed to be promotional because the user created the now-deleted article Suresh Sellathurai. In this case, the user's edits may be promotional, but the name isn't. I can't see how a username block would be appropriate in such a case. Exploding Boy (talk) 19:24, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) The key in the case of Sureshh1234 is that the account does not violate the username policy of being an account that represents a company or group (I am assuming that Suresh is an individual). In the above mentioned case of the refusal to block HRAC, the username, while not obviously promotional as a username without context, still violated the username policy by representing a group/organization rather than an individual. I am not saying that UAA should become a forum for all COI and self promotion, but rather, that a name that when taken in context of its edits obviously represents a group/corp/org shouldn't be directed to any other forum, since it does indeed violate the username policy. Gigs (talk) 19:44, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Can we also define limits on what constitutes an abbreviation worthy of AGF? Three- or even four-letter groups I could see. But what about syllable groupings where the connection's more obvious? An account named "CI" could get away with editing Communist International, for instance, but I'd block a User:Comintern for editing that same article. Daniel Case (talk) 15:20, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

(Replying to Gigs) What I'm saying is that we already have mechanisms for dealing with promotional editing. In the case of imaginary user AAAW who creates or adds promotional edits to the Armenian Association of Arm Wrestlers, their problem edits should be sufficient to deal with them as necessary, whether by blocking or other means. The username AAAW is not blatantly promotional and does not immediately call to mind the organization whose article they created or edited, and in my view isn't sufficiently problematic to be the basis for blocking. Exploding Boy (talk) 19:52, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
If the consensus is to allow shared group user names that represent corporations and organizations, as long as the connection is not immediately obvious, then we should change the policy to reflect that. Gigs (talk) 20:06, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
The policy is rather unclear on that point:
"Use of Wikipedia for promotion of a company or group is not permitted, and accounts that do this will be blocked."
but
"Use of a company or group name as a username is not explicitly prohibited, but it is not recommended, and depending on the circumstances may be seen as a problem. Similarly, editing with a possible conflict of interest, such as editing an article about your employer, is not prohibited, but anyone wishing to do so is advised to read the Business' FAQ."
but then
"Accounts that represent a group or company are not permitted."
Exploding Boy (talk) 20:11, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Exactly. I think we all agree that it could be clearer, and that's what we are working toward here. My take is that we should go all the way to one side or the other. Either the username policy (and UAA) should not deal with promotion at all, or it should act to block obvious corp/group accounts that might have usernames that are not obviously promotional, but taken in context of edits made, obviously represent a group. Gigs (talk) 20:19, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
There is one more line in the current policy that is relevant (on list of forbidden names):
  1. Promotional usernames are used to promote a group or company on Wikipedia.
This one is seems to imply it doesn't matter what the username is, but rather how it is used. If we change the policy, we'll need to update this one. Gigs (talk) 20:30, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Well, that's as clear as mud. I say we go with something like this to replace it.
"Use of Wikipedia for promotion of a company or group is not permitted and accounts that do this will be blocked. Explicit use of a company or group name as a username will result in your account being blocked. Accounts that edit with a clear conflict of interest will be reported to the appropriate noticeboard, where further action may be taken."
It's really just a first draft and may be overly harsh, however, I do feel that it draws a brighter line on what is/is not permitted. TNXMan 20:27, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
That still leaves a gray area around the above debate. Where on the spectrum of DiscountPaintCompany, DisPaint, DisPa, DPC, does it no longer qualify for UAA? All those names are still corporate/group names and can be assumed to not represent an individual once they create a corporate promotional article. I don't like the answer being "somewhere in the middle". I think as long as it is, we'll have confusion. Gigs (talk) 20:41, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Only the first one ("Explicit use of a company name. . .") would be a UAA issue. The rest would go to COIN, assuming they are editing the Discount Paint article. However, I should point out that no matter what the guideline reads, there will still be cases that require discretion by admins, which leaves room for disagreement. Where I see DisPaint as non-blatant, another admin may see it as blockable. TNXMan 20:46, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
So, just to be clear, you have no problem with group and shared corporate accounts, as long as they don't make COI edits?Gigs (talk) 20:51, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Let me rephrase that. Is there any doubt in your mind that User:Dispaint who edited Discount Paint Company is a corporate/group account? If there isn't, then why not just block it on the basis of being a corporate/shared account? Do you think corporate/shared accounts should not fall under the username policy? Gigs (talk) 21:01, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
No, they should fall under the conflict of interest policy. The username is not the problem, and username blocks fail to address the problem appropriately. As far as I can tell, the only reason to ever go after corporate accounts with the username policy is that sometimes having one's company's name in the history logs could constitute advertising. So the username policy should only apply to names that clearly contain a company name (applying common sense). Everything else is better handled by COIN. rspεεr (talk) 21:42, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
So, we should completely remove WP:NOSHARE? Or maybe change it to say that sharing is "discouraged" rather than forbidden? Gigs (talk) 21:46, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
The username policy is written for two audiences: those who are creating accounts, and those who are dealing with violations caused by newly-created accounts. When creating an account, you should keep in mind that you won't be sharing it. When looking for violations, you have no way of telling whether the account is being shared.
So sure, account sharing is forbidden, but it shouldn't be something we routinely block people over. And it is certainly not the case that we forbid "usernames that sound kind of like the account is being shared, if you're a jaded username reviewer". We may need to rewrite the paragraph to stop people from coming to that conclusion. rspεεr (talk) 03:20, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
  • The proposed change allows for a far less stringent application of the username policy, which (in my opinion) is always a good thing. Master&Expert (Talk) 01:47, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposal: Remove administrator instruction

I propose the removal of administrative instructions from the "Dealing with inappropriate usernames" section, and moving it to one of the administrator instruction articles (suggestions?). It already mostly exists at Wikipedia:Usernames_for_administrator_attention/Administrator_instructions. This will make the article shorter and more comprehensible to the new users who will be the majority of the readership. Gigs (talk) 20:39, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

This I support entirely. WP:U is nearly impossible for new users to understand, because most of it tries to explain to administrators and username patrollers what the heck it's about, instead of explaining to new users what it's about. I've even come across a blog post from someone who tried to register for Wikipedia and follow all the rules, and remarked about what a ridiculous pile of gobbledygook WP:U is. rspεεr (talk) 00:14, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
Done Please review my work. This change shouldn't be controversial so I went ahead. Gigs (talk) 18:10, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Summary of promotional username and WP:UAA discussion so far.

Since it's getting long and hairy for newcomers, here's what I think we have so far:

Background

UAA sometimes rejects blocks of usernames that some consider to be less than blatently promotional, when taken solely as a literal string without editing context. If a company is named "Discount Paint Company", then "DPCo" might be rejected, even if it has apparently COI edits and apparently is a corporate/group/organizational account. Editors may not be aware of a more appropriate place to file these, or even what the line is because the policy has confusing statements on the matter. Often, these cases are still obvious promotion and do not require deep investigation or debate.

Relevant statements currently in the policy

  1. Use of Wikipedia for promotion of a company or group is not permitted, and accounts that do this will be blocked.
  2. Use of a company or group name as a username is not explicitly prohibited, but it is not recommended, and depending on the circumstances may be seen as a problem. Similarly, editing with a possible conflict of interest, such as editing an article about your employer, is not prohibited, but anyone wishing to do so is advised to read the Business' FAQ.
  3. Accounts that represent a group or company are not permitted.
  4. Wikipedia does not allow usernames that are misleading, promotional, offensive or disruptive. Promotional usernames are used to promote a group or company on Wikipedia.

Points of agreement

  • WP:UAA should block usernames such as "DiscountPaintCompany".
  • UAA should not handle subtle or complex WP:COI cases, rather WP:COIN should.
  • A corporate/group username does not necessarily imply a violation of WP:NOSHARE

Questions remaining to discuss

  • Where is the most expedient place to deal with obvious promotion that is not an explicit company username, but rather under an obvious abbreviation/alteration/subset of the company name?
  • What should the policy say about group/shared/org/corporate accounts?
  • What should the username policy say about promotion?
  • What is the meaning of obvious in the first question?
  • What does this mean for WP:NOSHARE?
  • How should the policy change to be made clearer for both account creators and editors monitoring usernames?

These are not necessarily independent questions, as the answer to one implies the answers to others.

Proposed policy wording

  • Proposal: "Use of Wikipedia for promotion of a company or group is not permitted and accounts that do this will be blocked. Explicit use of a company or group name as a username will result in your account being blocked. Accounts that add promotional material with a clear conflict of interest will be reported to the appropriate noticeboard, where further action may be taken." - Proposed by Tnxman307.


  • Proposal: Strike all mentions of "promotional" and "promotion" from username policy, and change to "shared by a group" where appropriate.
    • Rationale We don't want to weaken WP:NOSHARE for legal reasons, but at the same time we want to remove COI judgements from the username review process. A promotional username that makes no COI edits does not unduly harm the encyclopedia. This proposal would remove "promotional" as one of the main 4 reasons to nominate a username for review. Such nominations would be redirected to another forum (likely, WP:COI/N).
    • Concerns The main reason I didn't propose this initially was because I'm not sure that we have an appropriate forum to quickly deal with obvious COI/promotion that isn't necessarily done under an obvious username. Gigs (talk) 18:55, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
    • You can't tell whether a username is shared by a group by looking at the name. rspεεr (talk) 00:12, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
      • Are you proposing we move WP:NOSHARE to some other policy document? Gigs (talk) 14:26, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Rejected Proposals

Further Discussion

I hope this summary helps focus things. Also, feel free to hack it up. It's nice having section edit tabs. :) Gigs (talk) 22:18, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Regarding weakening WP:NOSHARE, I stumbled on WP:BFAQ#ACCOUNT.
  • For copyright reasons, it is against policy for two or more people to share an account for any reason.

If this is truly the rationale behind it, it may not matter if the consensus is to allow non-blatant, but still obvious upon inspection corporate/org group accounts to remain though a UAA, since legal issues for the foundation generally trump consensus. What do you all think? Gigs (talk) 00:48, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

    • Could you provide an example of a group account that is "obvious upon inspection" within the time-frame of UAA? I'd think it would take days or weeks to accumulate actual evidence that an account is being shared. rspεεr (talk) 03:23, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
      • If an account is named after a company or organization (in any form, even abbreviated), and then makes edits in that company's interests, it is clear to me that the account does not represent a single individual. Per above example: HRAC edits page on Human Rights Action Center. I think an ideal outcome here would be to change the policy to explicitly say that company names are never OK, in any form, rather than the current policy which is vague and somewhat contradictory. Gigs (talk) 12:21, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
        • I'd say your assumption is false. The editor "HRAC" is likely to be a single person that the Human Rights Action Center told "hey, go fix our Web presence", not an account shared by the entire Human Rights Action Center. In my experience it is very rare for the same account to be used by multiple people within a company or organization; it's usually one person who works in PR. The issues here have everything to do with COI, and basically nothing to do with the copyright issues that arise from multiple people actually sharing the same account. rspεεr (talk) 17:44, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
      • I have added an additional policy proposal. This policy is clearer in that it removes some of the judgement of behaviour from the username policy, and puts the focus back on the names. Gigs (talk) 13:01, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

A Case Study

User_talk:Marcpage was rejected from UAA because it wasn't blatent enough that the "MARC" in the name stood for Mindful Awareness Research Center even though he added promotional material to that page. It was suggested that I post it on WP:WPSPAM, which I did. It is now days later and the account has continued adding promotional material to that article, and absolutely nothing has come of the WPSPAM report. I submit that WP:WPSPAM is not an appropriate place to report this sort of obvious promotional username, and rather is better suited for sharing information about wide-scale spam attacks. Wherever these reports end up, it needs to be a place that is monitored by administrators who can deal with obviously promotional user activity. WP:COI/N might be that place, I don't have enough experience with that particular process to make that call. This is just exactly the sort of situation I want to avoid, where we have an obvious case of abuse, and it's dragged out for days in the sake of "process". Gigs (talk) 15:31, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I think the decision that Marcpage was not blatant enough is correct. Your problem was with the lack of response at WT:WPSPAM. I think they are understaffed over there; anyone is welcome to go and help! I would be willing to block Marcpage as a spam-only account but the article it was working on has been deleted, so there seems to be no point. The account has no contributions other than to the deleted file. Flooding WP:COIN may not be the right idea. The decision on what to do with these accounts could be made right here, since a lot of admins concern themselves with user names. If a username complaint is declined by an admin here, there's not much to do other than watch the contributions. If they are only spam, then WP:AN will usually respond, and WP:AIV is worth a try, since 'spam' is listed in the WP:VANDAL policy. EdJohnston (talk) 17:27, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
Right, that's pretty much the current process, a mish-mash of various places to handle what amounts to a single (very common) problem: Clearly promotional accounts who have already made clearly promotional edits. My ideal outcome would be to designate one place to handle these. As you pointed out, WP:COI/N might be less than ideal, since it is often more used as part of the dispute resolution process, rather than a simple cleanup report board. AIV is the right type of venue I'd say, since it's set up for a quick response to obvious cases, however, if we go the AIV route, it may continue to be confusing to reporters since in reality, it's reports of obvious COI/promotion, not technically vandalism. Gigs (talk) 17:36, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
I think this shows that we currently don't have a place to deal with blatantly obvious WP:COI editors, and that the username policy is used to circumvent that problem, more or less. We just define blatant COI editing as a username issue and block based on that. It kinda works, but it's definitely not the right way to go. What about (yet) another noticeboard/page to report blatant COI editing? Or a subsection on WP:COI/N for the same purpose? --Conti|✉ 14:57, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
I think that is the core problem, is that there is no clear place to report obvious COI/promotion. A new UAA/AIV style noticeboard could work. I think that if we did a new noticeboard, then we should do my above proposal to remove promotion from the username policy entirely, to remove the overlap. Gigs (talk) 17:06, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
Persistent spammers can be reported to AIV. Having a COI is not in and of itself a reason to block, it only becomes an issue if they try to push a particular point of view or add spam to articles. I really don't think another noticeboard is the answer here. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:37, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
But this isn't about presistent spammers, it's about blatantly obvious spammers. I'm not too keen on a new noticeboard myself, but if we don't already have one to deal with such useres, then there's not much else we can do. If WP:AIV can take care of obivous spammers, then that's perfectly fine by me, of course. --Conti|✉ 20:12, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
Yes, this is not about COI in isolation, this is about using wikipedia for promotion in a way that falls outside of our current processes. Mainly we are talking about apparent single-purpose accounts, that often create or significantly edit an article about the corporate/organizational entity they are apparently related to, in a promotional way. They may or may not add external links or modify any other articles. We could put these into AIV, but it's really as inappropriate there as it is at UAA, since AIV is about recent and persistent disruption, and these accounts are still a problem that need to be cleaned up even if they are stale and isolated. It's really not that we don't have ways of dealing with these now, we do... it's just that there's no one particular correct place to deal with this common type of promotion, so it's going all over, sometimes into UAA sometimes into AIV, COI/N, etc... and none of those places are really the "right place". Gigs (talk) 21:23, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Company names

I see absolutely no reason to block a user simply for using the name of their company as user name. If they are disruptive or spamming, then block them for that. I know many such accounts do misbehave, but it is wrong to judge all. I have seen cases where someone working for an organization registers an account to correct an error in the article about them or to point it out on the talk page. Using the name of the organization is quite natural. --Apoc2400 (talk) 19:38, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

By definition, only individual human beings can have accounts here, and "Fred's Barbecue Specialties Corp." is clearly a collective entity, not a human being; so to me, the name needs a softblock IMMEDIATELY. (In my experience, it's also a clear warning sign of a conflict of interest; and in almost all cases, their purpose turns out to be PR/spin-doctoring/spamming to get their version of The Truth into Wikipedia, or just plain to advertise their company. --Orange Mike | Talk 23:27, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
It's probably only one person actually using the account, so what's the problem? For the second part: many cases yes, but not all. --Apoc2400 (talk) 12:46, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I have created an RfC based on the big discussion above, and the continued interest and problems surrounding this issue. Gigs (talk)

We don't allow role accounts and we don't allow advertising, there are two reasons. I would not condone a hard block on such a name, but a soft block to force them to pick an appropriate name is just fine. Chillum 01:22, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Some are a stretch

I posted the below message on the admin notice board for usernames. I know I am not an administraotr however I have been watching this board for a while and I have noticed a trend as of late that we seem to be finding more creative reasons why a username isn't a good one. For the most part I have agreed that some usernames are not appropriate but everyonce in a while someone casts a good argument for deleting one on what I would consider to be an otherwise good name. For example there is one on here now that appears to be a name but contains bich so it popped up on the radar and another that seems to mimic jack bauer. In regards to that one the editor that submitted it seems to think that people will think that the user condones the use of torture and although they might I think this one is a stretch. There are A LOT of other user names in WP that I would think would be far more offensive than that such as Thefeargod (could offend people who are religious) or Hydrogen iodide (because it could be associated with illegal drug use or production). Which is to say that I don't agree with eliminating them either but I wanted to present them as examples. Even mine could be offensive because it starts with what would appear to be a bodily fluid (but its pronounced koom). I just think that we should be wary of what we say is an inappropriate username and assume good faith or we may find ourselves on a slippery slope.--Kumioko (talk) 11:03, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

(This a copy of the reply I left at the other page) Just a quick point that our bot reported the username with "bich". While the name-watcher bot generally does a very good job, it does occasionally report false positives. As for the report concerning Jauerback, well, I've left a note about that. I'm glad you've taken an interest and would point out that WT:U is also a good place to discuss the username policy.
If you have other concerns, please feel free to post them. TNXMan 11:51, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
User:Rudolf Hess 46 is a very grey area. He's more than half a century out of the spotlight and dead since 22 years (what is the average wikipedian age? So he ded before everybody was born, was a pawn in his heirarchy and it is better we concern ourselves with his image than if we were guarding the name of Walter Rudolf Hess? pah!!). Hess is hardly Britney Spears, hardly Elvis Presly or Henry ford. I beleive that concerns over names that are not currently notable figures on their own or of fictional characters (Jack Bauer being a recent concern), are overly misguided. Elvis may be gone but bot forgotten. Names like Rudolf and Hess are common in places. Far too much else to worry about without chasing Jack Bauer and Rudolf Hess!! ~ R.T.G 18:52, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Multiple accounts and reassignation of edits

I have had a curious mishap. Seems like I've been inadvertently using two accounts with the same username, only diferring in capitalization (UKER and Uker), a problem that originated in Wikipedia letting me register two different accounts to the same email address, which I feel is an error. My point now is, I have been actively using both (two PCs, each logged in with a different user) and would like to move over to one of them, preferably the older one, but I obviously don't want to lose track of my edits. So, how do I request the edits in one of the accounts be reassigned to the other? Thanks in advance. uKER (talk) 12:16, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

WP:RENAME is the page you're looking for. - Dank (push to talk) 13:18, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Update?

Someone mentioned the "update" over at WT:UAA, but I don't think there is a monthly update for this page. WP:Update would apply if it were in Category:Wikipedia enforcement policies, and that seems like a reasonable fit. Thoughts? - Dank (push to talk) 14:28, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Sure, sounds good to me. On a related note, I did summarize the blatant promotion RfC for the WP:CENT archives. Wikipedia:Centralized_discussion/Archive#Process_issues.

(Consensus to:) Amend Twinkle to make reporting of blatant promotion to WP:AIV and subtle promotion to WP:COIN easier. Amend username policy to prohibit explicit company names. Amend username policy to avoid coverage of editing behavior, and rather concentrate on the username itself. (Relates to:) Wikipedia:Usernames, Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism, Wikipedia:Conflict of Interest

Gigs (talk) 15:45, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Note that there was a little more recent activity outside the RfC... The information on softblocking vs hardblocking was moved from the policy into the administrative instructions.. I think that was in late May. Gigs (talk) 15:57, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. Quick note: I just softblocked User:KGWD; we don't usually softblock a username based on company initials, but the userpage began "KGWD (Kevin George Web Design Co)". When either the userpage or the website suggests that the company initials are themselves an alternate name for the company, then I softblock, but if anyone disagrees, let me know. On a related subject: I decided at the end of June to stop editing any of the policy pages covered at WP:Update, but this page is an exception. - Dank (push to talk) 14:55, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

User talk:Fixreturn

I've run across names like this a few times. The sole edit was to their user talk page, "Get high return on your online investment.", blah blah. The name is undoubtedly meant to suggest you get a fixed return on your money if you invest with them. Although I don't know their company name, we're okay with softblocking usernames that are promotional slogans, right? - Dank (push to talk) 04:05, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

If I had a mop that is exactly what I would do. – ukexpat (talk) 04:15, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Eh. If they're so nonspecific in what they're promoting that we can't even tell what they're selling, I don't see what the harm of the username is. Fixreturn, for example, is not a slogan but a phrase used by a broad industry. Might as well blank the user talk page but otherwise, I'd leave it alone. Mangojuicetalk 06:01, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
So, does WP:U recommend against usernames that require that we understand exactly what they're promoting, or recommend against promotional usernames? - Dank (push to talk) 12:32, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Here's another one from today: User:Commercial-loan-expert. Not that I'm right, but the question I ask myself is, is it very likely that the username is intended to be used to promote a particular business, or is there a reasonable possibility, after looking at the text and the contribs page, that the name is intended to express interest in the general type of business? I try to balance "not born yesterday" with AGF. - Dank (push to talk) 13:28, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Maybe the person will promote a business, or maybe they will contribute valuable encyclopedic content on commercial loans. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that username, in fact, it's exactly the kind of name I would want someone like that to choose, because it describes them as a person. If you feel that name is borderline, you need to tip your balance more towards AGF. If the person does engage in inappropriate behavior, we can always block then. Unmerited blocks are not very helpful. Mangojuicetalk 13:43, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
How about User:LookYoungerNow? Maybe they're a prize-winning gerontologist, here to contribute useful encyclopedic information. How about User:MaleEnhancement? They might be a sports physiologist. What I work on a good part of most days is trying to keep Wikipedia from looking bad. Userpages and usernames come up in Google searches; what will the typical reader think of User:Fixreturn, who seems to be offering no-risk, high-yield investments? Are they likely to assume that Wikipedia has valuable encyclopedic information on how you, too, can get rich quick with no risk? Or are they likely to assume that there's no quality control at Wikipedia? - Dank (push to talk) 14:02, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Look Younger Now is a sales pitch; I wouldn't have a problem with blocking that one. MaleEnhancement: like FixReturn, it's not a personal name so it's suspicious. Wait for their activities. Maybe someone would just use that as a handle, and have interests completely different from what the name implies. It doesn't hurt to wait but it can hurt a lot to block. As for inappropriate pages, keep in mind that it's just like any other vandalism / inappropriate content: blank it or delete it. Be especially wary of imposing username blocks when the real problem is other behavior. FixReturn, for instance, could easily merit a 24 hour block if they were reposting vague advertising, but since their username isn't fundamentally inappropriate, just suspicious, it's best not to give a username block. If you want to block them indefinitely, block them for the behavior, not the name. Mangojuicetalk 14:13, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Using spamublock would put it on a slippery slope; I'd rather leave spamublock for cases where someone has recently been adding multiple promotional pages and/or links. If User:MaleEnhancement shows up in histories, then my guess is that 100 out of 100 readers who are aware that we haven't blocked them wouldn't come to the conclusion "Wikipedians are wonderful, patient people", they would come to the conclusion "Either it's okay to use usernames to promote products on Wikipedia, or else it's not okay, but they don't have effective quality control." We can argue with each other, but we can't argue with the readers, and appearances are important. - Dank (push to talk) 14:40, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
P.S. I meant, given promotional edits by User:MaleEnhancement. I only come across these if that's the problem. But I'm not talking about spamublock ... unrelenting, worthless, nothing-but-promotional edits, I'm talking about any edits that reinforce that the username is intended as promotional. - Dank (push to talk) 16:59, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
(ec) The simple answer is to assume good faith. Your examples are perfect ones in that they are not explicit violations of the policy and there are reasonable scenarios in which such user names might be used in a non-promotional manner. Unless there is evidence to the contrary (ie. unambiguous promotional edits) we must assume that the user is not here to promote a product. In the original example, User:Fixreturn, there was clear evidence of an intent to promote a "fixed return" product and they are no longer entitled to the presumption of good faith and may be safely blocked. Shereth 14:17, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. I wouldn't have softblocked User:Fixreturn if the text and the contribs (just the one, from a year ago) hadn't removed all doubt as to whether this user was here to contribute enyclopedic content. I check the contribs before every softblock (especially since not all taggers do). - Dank (push to talk) 14:53, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Somewhat tangential, personally I would have dismissed the report on User:Fixreturn as stale - I find it somewhat wasteful for people to be reporting old accounts, but that's neither here nor there. I do agree it was a good block per policy. Shereth 14:59, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
I only get to these pages if they show up in the db-g11 queue, and of course, even if it's a year old, the page is still showing up in Google searches so I want to delete the page if the page merits G11 deletion. I check the contribs whether I'm considering the softblock or not, and it's one keystroke for me to softblock-and-G11 and one keystroke to just G11. - Dank (push to talk) 15:16, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

User:Dj mohtaro

Page began "Born in rotterdam on the 28th of februari 1986, Devid meijer started his career back in his infant-years. afther played at some privet party`s he love`s to spin his own style ``hardcore music`` Mohtaro is the project name of Devid Meijer." An obvious G11 ... how about the softblock? - Dank (push to talk) 15:19, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I do not believe a professional pseudonym qualifies as promotional. Shereth 15:29, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Agree. Deleting the article should be sufficient, if they continue to use Wikipedia for promotion, they will be blocked for that. Although often when I see a user page like that if it's just a short bio, nothing too spammy, I just tag it with {{Userpage Blue}} so it's clear it's not an article and leave it at that. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:58, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Definitely do not block a pseudonym as inappropriate: we should probably assume that is a person using a pseudonym... which is actually exactly what a username is supposed to be. Dank -- I think a good idea would be for you to try doing some unblock reviewing. Think from that perspective, and you'll see the difficulty a block like this could cause. Mangojuicetalk 16:25, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
I just ask the questions, I don't make the decisions, and there is so much to do in clear-cut cases that I don't fiddle with judgment calls. We have consensus that Wikipedia is not the place to promote a business; the question is whether the username itself does that. WP:U currently says "Promotional usernames are advertisements for a company or group"; I'm fine with that, and I agree that under current policy this username shouldn't be softblocked. - Dank (push to talk) 16:32, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Company names clarification

So now that the policy has been amended to prohibit the explicit use of a company name, I have a question that's a slight grey area.

Let's say there is a company called SomeInternetBusiness. Per the policy, User:SomeInternetBusiness would be blocked without any questions asked. But what about the following hypothetical usernames, assuming they have edited articles pertaining to SomeInternetBusiness?

Also, I am wondering how the community would feel about the above if the users were also making unrelated, good-faith contributions - would this be a mitigating factor?

Thanks. Shereth 15:17, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I feel that the first and third are not blatant violations (and would probably need to go to the COI board). The second would be. This is not to say, of course, they couldn't be blocked for advertising/spamming. TNXMan 15:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Agree with Tnxman. IMO, the first and third are fine. Without the associated editing history these names are perfectly fine. Therefore this would be a conflict of interest issue, not a username issue. Consider this question: If the user changed username, would the problem be solved? The answer in this case is no, since the conflict of interest would still be there. Therefore, we should not warn User:SIB or User:MikeSIB of a bad username and suggest they change their name (which the username warning template does), instead they should be warned of a potential conflict of interest, watched for spamming and blocked if they do so. My opinion is that a user should only be warned of a bad username if the problem lies in their username itself and changing username would resolve the concern. Questwolf (talk) 18:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
I disagree completely with the interpretation of "explicit" to mean just "the company name". In many, if not most, circumstances SIB (to use this hypothetical) is just as promotional as the full name and should be dealt with accordingly. If we let company reps circumvent the policy (intentionally or otherwise) merely by using an obvious abbreviation, what is the point of having the policy in the first place? Yes, there is still a COI issue if the name is changed, but at least we will have dealt with the name issue upfront.  – ukexpat (talk) 18:43, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm comfortable with the wording as it stands, "the suggestion that the account is operated by a group, project or collective rather than one individual". "Suggestion" is just the right word, I think. I mentioned some examples of ones I blocked over at WT:UAA: User:Ulyssesreborn (created an article promoting the Ulysses Rebirth exhibit), User:Wimintern (created an article promoting World Internet Marketing Inc), and User:Intaid (created an article promoting International Aid, Inc.) As Julian says, the username is okay "if you have to squint to see it", but when you see these usernames editing those articles, squinting isn't necessary, and I don't think our reaction to seeing these at WP:UAA should be "take it elsewhere, that's COI". I appreciate the concern that UAA gets overloaded sometimes, but we are doing a good job on the db-spam queue these days, and when I do a username block, the report is automatically removed from UAA by the HelperBot. A name that appears to correspond to a group, editing an article on that group, creates an inevitable temptation for multiple people at the group to use that account, and creates unsolvable OWNership problems. - Dank (push to talk) 11:53, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
We can use common sense when the matter is clear, and discussion and/or observation with the user when it is not clear. We will never be able to draw a bright line in the policy by pondering hypotheticals. Most policies involve some sort of judgment call and we manage to carry on. Chillum 14:30, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
Here's a similar situation. An admin blocked the user Cabarrusnowmagazine, who had created a userpage that was essentially an ad for the magazine. Less than an hour after their block, User:Cnm2009 was created and posted similar content about the magazine to their user page. I blocked that user via the usernames for admin attention noticeboard, and placed a suspected sockpuppet tag on their page. The second user has been unblocked with a summary to the effect that the name shouldn't have been blocked. It seems pretty obvious to me that it's the same user; given that the content is on their userpage and not in article space, should it have gone to the COI noticeboard? Or is the unblocking admin right and we should just watch the user's edits? Or...? Exploding Boy (talk) 22:16, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
My personal interpretation is that "Cnm2009" does not appear to be explicitly promoting something unless "Cnm2009" is a common-use reference to the magazine. I tend to have a fairly lenient stance, however. The comments on the earlier examples lead me to believe it would probably have been safe to block but something like this is certainly not worth engagaing in a wheel war over and I'd just let it go at this point :) Shereth 22:26, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm not planning to reblock him, but I thought it was a legitimate block to begin with, given the circumstances. Even the second username in combination with the stuff about the magazine is pretty close to the line. Exploding Boy (talk) 22:32, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
It was a legitimate block, I think, but I don't see how it was a username block. The edits would have been just as problematic if the user would have been named "Lorem Ipsum". "Cnm2009" might have been an indication that there is indeed a WP:SPAM problem, but in the end it's still a WP:SPAM issue, not a username issue. --Conti|✉ 23:25, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

"Offensive Username" section should be removed

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
This suggestion seems to have been made to make a WP:POINT not actually related to username policy Beeblebrox (talk) 22:27, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not censored. 68.108.17.61 (talk) 20:04, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

No, but we are also civil. Shereth 20:15, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
Creating a page called "Oral Sex" and showing a graphic picture of two men is neither civil, or considerate. I don't see any of you doing a dang thing about that. 68.108.17.61 (talk) 22:02, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
We do our best to keep the article on oral sex to be as nice and civil as possible. :) --Conti|✉ 22:06, 8 July 2009 (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.

IP addresses and Username policy page

Hello, at present the policy doesn't mention having an IP address as a reason for being blocked. I'm pretty sure (after my recent experience) that consensus will be that blocking usernames that are IP addresses is correct. So, I'm asking here before being bold)if it's okay for me to add a specific reference to "Don't use an IP address as a username"? (Probably in the bit about email addresses.) thanks. 87.113.86.207 (talk) 00:35, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

See my user page, and the discussion above for reasons this is important. I was instantly, permanently blocked, even though policy does not mention use of IPs as usernames, and even though policy specifically says that confusing usernames cannot be so confusing as to require a block before being blocked. I am not asking you to change the policy. Several admins reviewed the block and were clear that it was valid. I am asking that you make the text of the policy clear - all it needs is a small line saying "Email or IP addresses are a bad choice for usernames and will likely be blocked". 87.113.86.207 (talk) 09:46, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
In case anyone is wondering, this IP's username about which they are complaining for being blocked was User:87.113.86.207 (talk). Yes, the "(talk)" is part of the username, too. They were told that because the username appeared to be an IP address that is was misleading and therefore violated WP:U. This has been standard practice for a very long time now, yet they refuse to accept that their username is misleading. Instead of registering a new username as suggested (or even requesting a new username change), they are now complaining even more about it (here, at Wikipedia talk:Usernames for administrator attention, at User talk:87.113.86.207 (talk), and in two sections at Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/User names: here and here. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 10:38, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
I am complaining that the reason given for the block is not mentioned in policy. Add a very small, very simple, line to to policy saying "usernames resembling email or IP addresses are likely to be blocked". You say I'm complaining even more about it here and there - that's because the policy says, clearly that no username can be so misleading as to require a block without trying to discuss it first. No-one tried to discuss the block first. Can you not see that a discussion "Hey, your username looks weird when you do THIS, would you consider changing it?" is a lot less fierce than an instant permanant block? Finally, the username blocks should not e used for poor behaviour has nothing to do with my username block. Hurr87.113.86.207durr (talk) 11:38, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
  • And, obviously, IP editors cannot edit policy, and I have to wait for X days before I'm allowed to edit. So, I'm trying to gauge consensus for the change until I'm allowed to change it. Is that the wrong thing to do? Hurr87.113.86.207durr (talk) 11:54, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
  • NihonJoe - the second link you give is not aimed at you. I am sorry. Looking at it now I can see how some people might think it is. It is not. The comment genuinely is no more than "a bunch of people might not like a name, but that's no reason to block if it is compliant with policy". (And here policy means "what admins actually do", not just "what is written in the text") I hope that clarifies things. I'll say again, I have no complaints about the admins involved in my username blocks. Hurr87.113.86.207durr (talk) 11:58, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
I've replied on WT:UAA. This is an example of why softblocks are bitey and should not be used. rspεεr (talk) 16:07, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

A tweak

I tweaked the first sentence of WP:ORGNAME (new shortcut). (See discussion below) to: "A clear reference to a company or group name in your username will result in your username being blocked". I think I'm seeing support for a block message in many of these cases that's short and simple, something like "Welcome to Wikipedia. We have a policy against usernames that point to a particular organization give the impression that you represent an organization. I have blocked this account; please create a new account. You may also ask for a review of this username block by adding the text {{unblock|Your reason here}} on your user talk page, or you can email me by clicking on "E-mail this user" on my talk page, and I'll respond there. Thanks." (plus the stuff at the end of {{uw-usernameblock}} that adds the page to a cat) tweaked 19:44, 17 July 2009 (UTC) I think we'll get resistance to making this one of the standard user warnings ... it's the old argument that the messages should be harsh and detailed, in order to minimize the chance that they'll be used in the wrong cases by taggers and admins who (it is assumed) don't know what they're doing, rather than crafting the message to have the optimal effect on the new users. I think deletion summaries and talk page messages should be optimized for the recipients, but I've lost a couple of rounds with that fight before. Still, I think the chances are good of getting User:Animum to either add something like this to the easyblock.js script, or giving us a spinoff script for just this purpose. Suggestions? - Dank (push to talk) 12:13, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

thanks for this. I agree about making messages fit the user. Some users with a bad name might like to be pointed to COI pages. hey need to know that it's n ot jsut the username, but the COI too that can be a problem. Hurr87.113.86.207durr (talk) 13:08, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Good. Be sure to show the avenue for review ("appeal" sounds like we are in a court) as that may be important in some few cases. Collect (talk) 13:19, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Sure thing, and I tweaked my suggestion above. To clarify, I'm not giving up on getting any changes to the standard warnings, we should do that, but based on past arguments, I think I'm not likely to be satisfied myself that the final result is as specific, short, and neutrally-worded as I would like, so I'm trying to get some support here for the shorter language. I would only use the shorter language in cases where the user has made only trivial edits outside of their deleted contributions, so that a name change wouldn't be desired or useful. - Dank (push to talk) 14:56, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Of course, there is certainly no prohibition against creating an alternate template for those of us who choose to use a block notice that is a little more .. to the point, and less bitey. Shereth 15:03, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
There's a part I object to in what you just discussed, but you already reverted it. Thanks for that. I'll bring it up just to be clear: We should not be blocking people for "referencing" their company in their username. Either the name is so spammy that you want to block them as a spammer, or it's just a pointer to a COI issue, which a username block will not resolve correctly. rspεεr (talk) 16:18, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Suggest changing "you're speaking for" to "you represent". Shereth 17:32, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Done. I've left pointers to this discussion at WT:WARN (right after the one by Beeblebrox) and WT:CSD. The current short version (for cases where there are no significant non-deleted contributions that might warrant WP:CHU) is at Template:Uw-shortublock. I'll go ask Animum if he can fit this into his easyblock script. - Dank (push to talk) 21:45, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Since we haven't had any quick objections, I took the liberty of creating User:Dank/tempeasyblock.js. It's a copy of User:Animum's very helpful easyblock.js, with the username blocks moved to the top of the menu, and "shortublock" added as a fourth username block option. Give it a try. Shortublock is intended for cases where there are so few edits that there's no point in a name change. Of course, shortublock is not in any sense "official", but now that we've discussed the general idea and notified the relevant pages, it seems to me that the next logical step is to start using it and see what reactions we get. Feel free to tweak. - Dank (push to talk) 15:44, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
P.S. "short" is intended to mean both that it's a shorter warning (and that that's the point) and that this is for cases where the user's edit history is short. - Dank (push to talk) 15:47, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I've added the option to EasyBlock. —Animum (talk) 18:05, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Does "promotional" include products and websites?

I regularly see usernames reported (and blocked) because they contain or reference an URL or a specific product. The use of website names and product names are not explicitly prohibited by the username policy. As a general rule, policy should follow practice and as the practice does seem to be to block these types of usernames as promotional, shouldn't the wording of the policy be expanded to reflect that fact? Shereth 15:33, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes. - Dank (push to talk) 15:35, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Yes. – ukexpat (talk) 15:35, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
How about this? "Explicit use of a name or url of a company, group or product as a username will result in your username being blocked." I've made the edit, but please feel free to revert or reword. - Dank (push to talk) 15:43, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Looks good. I added a couple of other tweaks to the page to this effect. Shereth 15:54, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Yes. "dot com" means "commercial" by convention. Other uses may be harder -- would "Jellolover" be an ad for Jell-O or would it just be a cute name based on a person's likes? Collect (talk) 19:08, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
The same problem applies to company names/band names, etc. "ThisBandFan" is probably ok, but "ThisBand" is not. "SomeProductLover" is probably ok, but "SomeProduct" is not. We should just apply the same good judgement to either case. Shereth 19:37, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
This will probably be a minority opinion. :) I never block someone just for a promotional username, because I rather like that they've chosen to so clearly define their COI issues. User:MyCompany has a hard time arguing they have no COI when they edit MyCompany; User:SomeMadeUpUserNameHere can and will argue it until evidence is overwhelming. So I'd prefer to see practice changed, not policy--Fabrictramp | talk to me 22:07, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
The problem being that you can't easily verify that they have any authority from MyCompany to be using the MyCompany name or acting using the MyCompany name when editing here. The policy is in place for multiple reasons, one of them being to protect the Foundation from any issues which might arise from someone editing MyCompany-related topics in a way that makes MyCompany look bad. It's just a bad idea all around to allow people to have usernames which are very clearly associated with a specific company, product, or service. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 23:44, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. Another problem is the inevitable OWNership issues when User:X edits the article on X. The worst problem IMO is, the main reason newspapers have been going out of business while Wikipedia has climbed to the world's top information source has been the reader's perception that Wikipedia articles are crowdsourced rather than bought and paid for. Seeing Mr. X all over article X destroys the thing that sets us apart. - Dank (push to talk) 02:26, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
But here you're talking about blocking a user (because of a name) for something that has not happened, and might not happen. Username blocks should not be used instead of other blocks for poor behaviour. If a person is OWNing an article that is the behaviour that needs to be addressed. I agree with NihonJoe above. I also agree with the general feeling that username:COMPANYX gives an impression of authority that may not exist. Hurr87.113.86.207durr (talk) 07:54, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
As a footnote, I don't want to discard Fabrictramp's idea that the original choice of username might be handy information in some cases. I wouldn't want to retain that information through a name change, because then anyone who looks at the record can see that the person editing X originally claimed to be Mr. X; other than that, I don't have any preference how we would approach the problem, I'm just saying I'm not discarding the idea. - Dank (push to talk) 12:31, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Gavelclub

This discussion could use more voices. - Dank (push to talk) 23:18, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

That looks like a user page issue to me, not a user name issue. --Conti|✉ 10:36, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
  • It's been brought up at that afd that maybe it's time to re-write the standard username block template. This seems a more appropriate venue for such a discussion. Personally I feel strongly that the template should have a parameter that says specifically which section of the username policy has been violated, as this may not be clear to some people. I think I've actually seen something like this, but usually it's just the generic {{Uw-ublock}}. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:11, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
I wanted to bring up a small point I also made at the mfd discussion. This user was blocked from editing while these users discuss what to do. This is very undemocratic, and users should not be blocked until a decision is made if it is an iffy case... Or in this case, more concerned with the content of the userpage than of the actual username. -- ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 03:38, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
User:Exploding Boy will probably be happy to revert his block while the MfD is going on; ask him. - Dank (push to talk) 03:45, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
I blocked the user some time ago via the usernames for admin attention noticeboard. I wasn't aware of this discussion (I found it by following Floydian's contribs, after he left a note of protest on my talk page). I must say, I'm still not entirely clear what the discussion is about; does someone think a block isn't justified in this case? Exploding Boy (talk) 04:17, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
I've just seen there's an MFD for the user's userpage. I'm not entirely sure why I wasn't made aware of it sooner, but I'll unblock the user so they can participate. For the record, I think the name is a fairly clear violation of the username policy, given the user's edits. Exploding Boy (talk) 04:22, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Wasn't trying to protest, just incite fairness. It is definitely a clear violation of G11 for the userpage, but the user could keep their name if they removed the advertising from their userpage. TBH, its quite unlikely that the user has even returned to know that they are blocked. -- ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 04:48, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

[undent]In response to Beeblebrox, above, I see you left a note on the user's talk page saying "Since the blocking admin did not bother to explain the reason for this block, I guess I will." I did, however, leave the user a rather detailed explanation in the form of the {{usernameblock}} template, which reads (in part):

"This account . . . has been blocked indefinitely from editing Wikipedia, because your username does not meet our username policy . . . In brief, usernames should not be offensive, disruptive, promotional, misleading, or related to a 'real-world' group or organization. Also, usernames may not end with the string "bot" unless the account is an approved bot account."

This covers pretty much every reason a given user might be usernameblocked. While it is possible to add a parameter to the template (in the form of {{usernameblock|reason}}), like many admins I often don't bother, since I expect that most usernameblocked users will know why they've been blocked right away (most of the ones I encounter via UAA are offensive, misleading or promotional), be able to see fairly quickly why they've been blocked by reading the template message, and can get more specifics by looking at the policy itself. Exploding Boy (talk) 04:52, 14 July 2009 (UTC)


Salient discussion about wording of the uw is on the MfD page = perhaps it should be copied here. Meanwhile, there was some odd claim that a user who does not even make any more posts clearly was there for just one post, even though he was blocked. As for unblocking being a cure -- it is not. Who, after being told that they can not edit again, will log in again to see if that is still true? As for wording of the template message being clear ... that is debateable. O proposed a change on the MfD page if anyone wishes to note it. Collect (talk) 13:45, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

  • We should be clear that Exploding Boy was acting in the way prescribed by consensus. Those of us who feel the procedure needs to change, also need to be clear that this doesn't mean Exploding Boy should be censured.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 15:58, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
    • Correct. I am personally not a fan of the policy (or more strictly the enforcement thereof) but currently there is a conensus that certain types of user names are blocked on sight. Our hands are effectively tied in these circumstances and there is no reason to go after someone for merely following the rules. Shereth 16:03, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
  • The block itself was certainly appropriate according to policy, and Exploding Boy didn't do anything that many, if not most, other admins would have done, and that is exactly the problem I have with this. Asking a user with one edit to read the entire username policy to find out where they crossed the line seems like biting. New users are often overwhelmed by Wikipedia's wealth of policies and guidelines, experienced users and admins therefore have an obligation to be explicit when explaining violations of these policies to them, and to provide specific links to the relevant section of policy . New users also often make the mistake of confusing "this is promotional" with "you are being paid to do this" so they may honestly not understand what they have done wrong if they aren't PR hacks in an office, but rather members of some club who simply slightly misunderstand how Wikipedia works. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:16, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
  • WP:UAA is extraordinarily bitey. Given that the majority of the reports there seem to be for "promotional" violations, I see no problem with the creation of a template that more directly addresses the problem. There is {{Uw-spamublock}} but it seems more geared toward blatant spammers rather than people with merely a promotional username, and it is a rather unfriendly template. There are a lot of ignorant new users who show up to write about their favorite garage band and thus use the name of said band, earning them a rapid block with little in the way of detailed explanation. Something gentler to explain the violation might actually encourage the user to become a productive editor rather than scaring them away ... Shereth 17:21, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
These comments are all very good descriptions of the problems, and I can't improve on them, but I want to talk a little bit about how things got this way. We didn't get to be the world's top information source because our articles always use just the right word or the very best sources or the prettiest images; we got to #1 because most people have become skeptical of their other information sources, which are full of products and opinions being pushed by individuals and companies. The appearance of being "crowdsourced" was essential to our success, and a lot of Wikipedians have understood that and reacted over the years by deleting things and discouraging contributors who smell even a little bit funky. But ... we won, and I don't think we need to be so uptight any more. I agree with the rest of you that simple explanations of what new users have done wrong and how to fix it would work best now. - Dank (push to talk) 17:35, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Since I also agree, I suspect we have the start of a consensus to make some changes here.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 17:37, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Sorry folks, but, as you might expect, I disagree that the policy should be watered down or that WP:UAA should be done away with for spamnames and replaced with a wishy-washy template (if that is indeed the suggestion). Maybe I am just cynical, or maybe I have worked in corporate capitalism for too long, but if we do that, the spammers will be back in force and we will be back where we started -- we need to block spam names on sight. You only have to review the user creation log to see that spamnames are still being created, as are blatantly promotional articles and user pages. I am all for assuming good faith where appropriate but in this case we should as quickly as possible discourage contributors who are only here to spam and I don't think that is bitey in the least. – ukexpat (talk) 18:47, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
One additional point, if we are going to seek consensus for a change in the policy, this is not the place to do it - it needs to be done where a lot more users will see it an be able to comment. – ukexpat (talk) 18:51, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Discussion on changing the template seems to be happening in several places, which is counterproductive, but I have a problem with some of the kind and gentle versions that have been suggested on the Gavelclub MFD page. Someone who registers the names "Killalljews," "Brad=faggot" or "AbortionClinicBombing" doesn't need to be treated with kid gloves. [ec] And I agree with Ukexpat's 2 posts above. Exploding Boy (talk) 18:52, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
An RfC can always be started to attract more attention. But before we do that, we should first agree on what we are actually trying to do here. The general idea to inform users of what part of this policy they violated seems quite sane to me. So sane, actually, that I don't see why we should not do it. --Conti|✉ 19:05, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

←Thanks, ukexpat and EB. In no particular order:

  • I think it's clear we're not talking about changing everything. I think there's broad support for using different warnings in some situations, especially for more more specific and more helpful warnings, when appropriate of course.
  • Fish don't know what water is, and it's hard to explain what we define as promotionalism to people who have grown up in a world where 95% of what you see in the media was created by people with an opinion to push or a product to sell. I don't think people who don't "get it" are evil, especially the newbies, they just need to be told what we need, without judgment. On the other hand, admins who have been active in deletion work longer than I have will all tell you that almost all of the people we're talking about here will keep trying to find a way around the system until we make it absolutely clear that there's no way around the system, by deleting their articles and blocking their promotional usernames quickly and without remorse. We can and should leave simple instructions as to how they can fix things and let them know that they're welcome to contribute.
  • The talk page of the policy page is one place where discussion needs to happen, but it would probably be a good idea to bring this up at WT:CSD (even though that's not specifically for usernames) and to do an RFC when it's clear what we're proposing.
  • I'm not as worried that the "spammers will be back in force". The ones I deal with rarely reappear, and I'm fairly gentle. - Dank (push to talk) 19:11, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
  • I'm not suggesting that the actual policy be changed, just the way in which offending users are informed. For obvious bad faith usernames, such as the "killalljews" example made above, there is little need to explain further as creation of such an account name is a clear demonstration of intent to harm or disrupt Wikipedia. On the other hand, in cases like the one that started all this where a person has used the name of a club they belong to you as a username, it should be made clearer to them that the only reason their username is being blocked is because accounts are for individuals, not groups, and that their name could be seen as promoting said group. Obviously, if they knew this username would lead to a block, they would have picked something else to begin with. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:31, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
That being the case, perhaps there should be some kind of message when a username is created explaining which types of names are unacceptable (or perhaps there already is; does anyone know?). Exploding Boy (talk) 19:34, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Personally I'd love to see a change in the policy with regards to "spamnames" - I continue to believe that much of what we currently call promotional usernames are not inherently promotional without editing behavior to the contrary. That said, I get the impression that I am of a minority opinion and am not going to expend too much energy toward trying to make a change in the policy. I am absolutely in agreement with Beeblebrox however, specifically with regards to how users are handles and notified. The standard method of "block and template" as it currently goes is not very conducive to fostering new users. Our username policy is still open to debate and interpretation, and expecting someone who knows little to nothing about the "culture" here at Wikipedia to be able to read through a policy page like WP:U and understand what they did wrong is at best naive on our part - and at worst, outright negligent. Shereth 19:37, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Do you really? I think WP:U is quite easy to understand. Exploding Boy (talk) 19:41, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
On its face it is pretty simple, but again the problem is one of interpretation. The fact that there are still cases where some admins will issue a block while others would let it slide is indicative of the fact that it is not always plain that a username is a violation. I will grant you that it ought to be fairly easy to understand why a username was blocked - surely User:MyNeighborsBand is not going to believe that we blocked him for having an offensive username. The confusing part for new users (and sometimes even experienced users) is in figuring out why the username is a violation, not merely that it is. That is the part that could do with some better explanation. Shereth 19:51, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Just for the record, you're not the only one who thinks that way about promotional usernames. :) Anyhow, using, say, three different templates ("Your username is offensive", "Your username is used for spamming", "Your username is too confusing") instead of just one ("Your username is inappropriate in some way") would seem like quite an improvement to me already. --Conti|✉ 19:48, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Good to know I'm not alone! Shereth 19:51, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Thence my tweakable suggestion: "This username does not meet the WP username policies. Please read WP:USERNAME and try using one which meets its requirements. Thank you, and we hope to see you editing on WP soon under a new name. If you feel blocking this name is in error, you may ask for it to be reviewed (see below)." Clearly tweaking would allow a sterner message for usernames which the user should not even have tried to get away with <g>. And note the use of "review" instead of "appeal" as much less threatening to most folk. Collect (talk) 19:59, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that goes far enough. "Please read Page XY to see why we blocked you" really shouldn't be in any kind of block message. If we block a newbie (who might as well act in good faith), we should clearly tell him what they did wrong. --Conti|✉ 20:18, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps not -- but it definitely is easier to read than the current boilerplate <g>. (noting post below) And even if only 10% are "real new users" ought we so willingly affront them? Cost of civility is zero -- cost of losing potential editors (noting the graphs of new editors over time) is substantial. Collect (talk) 20:24, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Re this comment above: Fish don't know what water is, and it's hard to explain what we define as promotionalism to people who have grown up in a world where 95% of what you see in the media was created by people with an opinion to push or a product to sell. I don't think people who don't "get it" are evil, especially the newbies, they just need to be told what we need, without judgment. On the other hand, admins who have been active in deletion work longer than I have will all tell you that almost all of the people we're talking about here will keep trying to find a way around the system until we make it absolutely clear that there's no way around the system, by deleting their articles and blocking their promotional usernames quickly and without remorse. We can and should leave simple instructions as to how they can fix things and let them know that they're welcome to contribute.
I think the second half of this represents the vast majority of cases. I would guess that over 90% (pulled that right out of thin air) of the spamnames are created by folks who know exactly what they are doing -- company reps, PR agencies etc, whose sole intent is to promote their companies, products and clients. The rest, only a small minority, are created by Joe User as an oopsie. – ukexpat (talk) 20:10, 14 July 2009 (UTC)


  • I'd like to make a few comments relevant to this tread.

This big chunk of text is supposed to let you know how blocked users feel. Try to image someone with a username like "fixedrateloans" or "webuycars" or some borderline promotional name. I say again, this section is not about *my* username The comments are not negative to the admins involved this is PURELY HOW I FELT AT THE TIME, and I'm using it not to say "These editors abused admin power" but to explain how I as a new user was confused.
I'd been editing as an IP. I wasn't particularly proud of those edits, and I wanted to move on to more productive stuff. Rather than fleeing my old ID I used my IP as my username 87.113.86.207 (talk), and then I put a linky on the IP page to the logged in page. I went off, came back to find I'd been blocked indef. so, some comments
i: Don't indef block when you have a userbox saying you're busy in RL and might not be around much, and might not return soon. (Is this actually important, or am I over-emphasising this?)
ii: People don't know the lingo, they don't know the jargon, they don't know the hsitory of why some things are seen as bad. A bit more explaining, and a bit less of the huge complex template would be good.
iii: Allow users to have a method to ask questions aout username locks - the unblock template isn't it. "What about this name? what about a hatnote?"
iv:Don't have a policy that says usernames are never misleading enough in themselves to deserve an instant ban without discussion if you, and unblock reviewing admins, are happy to block instantly, permanently, without discussion.
v: I found it really wierd that people were blocking me for something that was not in policy, but were refusing to unblock me because of that, (an understandable action on their part) OR to edit the text of the policy to reflect what actually happens. "we've blocked you, and declined your unblock, because we know the name is wrong, but we're not going to change the text of the policy page to reflect this" - it felt a bit Catch22.
I SAY AGAIN - THIS IS NOT A COMPLAINT ABOUT THE ACTION OF THE INVOLVED ADMINS, it is just the experiences of someone who has gone through the block/request unblock process. 87.113.86.207 (talk) 01:05, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

check these out

  • Just saw this:

{{Uw-spamublock}}

  • and this:

{{Uw-shortublock}}

  • Either of those seem much better than the old version. Beeblebrox (talk) 06:16, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
Both are noticeable improvements, to be sure. Collect (talk) 13:39, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Draft revision of the policy

Our username policy has gotten rather full of cruft since the last time it was overhauled, which was in December 2007. It really needs to be revised again. Try looking in it for advice on what to actually do with an inappropriate username, for example. It's scattered haphazardly all over the place, inconsistent, and some of it is missing. Try to compile a complete list of rules for choosing a new username, and you'll have the same problem. The policy is also written for three different audiences at once (new users, username patrollers, and administrators).

I have written a draft revision of the policy. The main idea of this revision is to have distinct sections aimed at the different classes of users who need to read the username policy. The part aimed at new users, of course, comes first. I also aim to clarify the possible responses to inappropriate usernames.

In writing the draft, I have been guided by the parts of the current written policy that make sense, the conclusions of recent discussions about the policy, current practices on WP:UAA that are uncontroversial, and years of personally observing how the policy can be misinterpreted or have unintended effects. I welcome comments and suggestions for how to revise it.

rspεεr (talk) 04:51, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I rather like it, at first blush. I will re-read it in depth later (right now my level of consciousness is on the decline) and if I see anything that I believe needs reworking I will be happy to provide feedback, but on the whole I like where you are going with this. Shereth 05:04, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
After taking a quick look, I think it looks good. Much more helpful to newer users. Malinaccier (talk) 05:49, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
I like it. Is it okay to make minor edits to it? ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:39, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
Of course. rspεεr (talk) 07:41, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
I have made some minor tweaks here, including a link to WP:BESTCOI instead of WP:COI. I think linking to guide that gives new users good ideas on how to edit with a COI would be better than linking to the policy and asking them to decide how to proceed. Also, kudos for the re-write, Rspeer. TNXMan 12:58, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
I really like it. I like the menu to other policies. I like the clarity of structure. I like the advice given. I have two points: A) Are email addresses prevented in software? Would a user with "mynameATsome_noncommercial_domainDOTcoDOTuk" be encouraged to change it / blocked? We know that sometimes people chose email addresses for names because of the few exisiting 'grandfathered' usernames. B) 'username patrollers' - should we perhaps dissuade people from patrolling usernames, and let them know about the bot that does it already? Hurr87.113.86.207durr (talk) 08:14, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
Good catch there on the e-mail addresses. I forgot about those.
E-mail addresses are prevented in software, so I think we can get away with just stating as fact that "E-mail addresses are not valid usernames" -- although someone could register an e-mail address if they really tried hard enough, perhaps by spelling out AT and DOT like in your example. That probably falls into "your username is a bad idea, please change it" territory.
I'm going to try not mentioning the grandfathered e-mail addresses. I've never seen one except when looking for "the oldest revision ever" of long-standing articles. I don't think these users are around anymore.
Our rules about Internet addresses -- e-mail addresses, domain names, URLs, and (indeed) IP addresses -- are kind of ad hoc. There's probably good reasons for them, but damned if I can think of a way to explain why an e-mail address is a bad username without the username policy going off on a tangent. But I don't just want to write "don't do this, and don't do this, and don't do this"; a good policy gives you a way to follow its spirit as well as its letter. So here's my attempt to summarize: User:Rspeer/Username policy draft#Internet addresses. rspεεr (talk) 09:52, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
Meanwhile, on the topic of patrolling usernames: it would do us no good to pretend that username patrollers didn't exist. They're part of how all of this works, and they are sometimes useful, because the bot does not catch every inappropriate username. Sometimes it seems that we may need fewer username patrollers, or patrollers who are content to not report any names if there aren't any names left that are actually problematic, but the culture of username patrolling is not something it makes sense to try to solve in the username policy. rspεεr (talk) 09:52, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
WP:NODRAMA (a voluntary 5-day focus on articles instead of discussion) starts today; I want to honor the spirit of that without leaving anyone hanging, so if feedback is needed, please let me know, otherwise I'll take a look in 4.5 days. - Dank (push to talk) 12:36, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
The text should really read "must not" rather than "should not" in sections discussing things not permitted; experience has shown that people will latch on to such vague terms to try to justify doing things they oughtn't do. Exploding Boy (talk) 23:33, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
Good idea. Changed. rspεεr (talk) 00:08, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
Then again, the opposite is true as well. I'm not looking forward to admins blocking a user named "Abbot" because his name ends with "bot", and the policy says that they "must not" end with those three letters. Or what about a user named "I'm not an administrator"? The policy should leave wiggling room for such cases. --Conti|✉ 00:13, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
Instead of having wiggle room in the policy, admins should be trusted to identify false positives that occur. The bot report also includes a reminder to that false positives may crop up. If an admin were to block a user named "abbot" as a username violation, I can imagine there would be at least a minor ruckus. TNXMan 01:03, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
I won't be taking part in NODRAMA -- particularly because I'd like to keep working on this policy revision -- but it is a good reminder to work on articles more. The discussion will still be here when it ends. rspεεr (talk) 00:12, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
I'd like to see some slight rewording of the section labeled "Usernames for Administrator Attention". Specifically, I would like to see the note about accounts with no edits expanded to include accounts with no recent edits. The prolific reporting of stale (and likely abandoned) accounts has, in the past, led to large UAA backlogs and addressing stale accounts here would help to circumvent additional, unecessary workload. Shereth 17:29, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. –Juliancolton | Talk 18:15, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
I also agree with this. Accounts with no edits in the last few weeks (or months) likely shouldn't be reported. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:13, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
..or blocked. Definitely agree as well. --Conti|✉ 19:43, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
I was on board until "or blocked". Conti, the plan to leave promotional usernames alone works if we're ready to spring into action the moment they start editing again ... but we can't know that we'll catch it, and anyway, it's more efficient for me to block the promotional username at the same time I'm deleting the promotional userpage, no matter how old the last edit was, it's no extra work for me and will save someone else having to do it. Also, the new {{uw-shortublock}} (which I'd be using 99% of the time with these) is pretty inoffensive. - Dank (push to talk) 19:57, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
P.S. I'm saying 99% on the assumption that if they made enough promotional edits to merit a spamublock, they'd probably be blocked already. - Dank (push to talk) 20:08, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
Alright, I see your point when it comes to promotional usernames. I was rather thinking about blocking a confusing username that hasn't edited in 2 years, or something like that. There's really no point in doing that, which is the point I was trying to make. :) --Conti|✉ 20:47, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, I follow now. - Dank (push to talk) 21:03, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
Personally I don't care that they are blocked; a blockable offense is a blockable offense and if an administrator wants to take the time to block them, that's no big deal. Bogging UAA down with stale reports, though, is not a good use of our resources. Shereth 20:03, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
Taking this into account, I've rewritten that paragraph to: "Except in very clear-cut cases, it is preferable that you report users to WP:UAA only when they have made at least one recent edit. This avoids spending unnecessary effort at UAA on blocking accounts that are never going to be used again, or used at all. Having at least one edit to examine also helps by providing some evidence of whether or not the user intends to edit in good faith." rspεεr (talk) 20:38, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
Excellent wording. Shereth 20:54, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
P.S. Very few taggers look at userpages with no recent edits, I'll inform the ones that do of this conversation. I personally think it's helpful to block promotional usernames whether they've edited recently or not, so even if these reports aren't welcome at UAA, they're welcome on my talk page. - Dank (push to talk) 20:39, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
I agree. Just because they spammed once long ago doesn't mean they won't come back to spam. Triplestop x3 21:02, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
That doesn't have anything to do with usernames, though. rspεεr (talk) 09:24, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
I think this is generally pretty good. Still, some parts of the wording seem excessively bureaucratic and prescriptive. I'll make some changes to your draft to soften it up a bit where possible and avoid creating the appearance of firm rules except where absolutely necessary. Let me know what you think! ⟳ausa کui × 06:09, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
I like this one. I didn't see any others. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 07:23, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm multitasking a bit right now, I'll get to some others in a few hours. Glad to know we're moving in the right direction though :-) ⟳ausa کui × 08:07, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
I generally approve of your changes. I backed out your change about hardblocks: it seemed to discourage hardblocks in general, but when you find someone who has an inappropriate username and is vandalizing, hardblocking is an appropriate and pragmatic thing to do. Also, just because the information is in WP:BLOCK doesn't mean it shouldn't be here also; we can't realistically expect, and shouldn't expect, admins to cross-reference multiple policies to decide what kind of block to use. rspεεr (talk) 09:15, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm glad we're on the same page. That point is one I've made on other policy pages as well. I don't view it as a huge deal, but I'll explain my thinking anyway. I dislike excessive crossreferencing of policy because it has a creeping effect; a lot of people who read policy pages tend to think, "Well there's this really important thing in the other policy that sort of fits in to this, and they may not have read that policy, so we should put a paragraph about it in here to make sure they know about it." This is problematic because there are a lot of policy pages that have very important information, and so when we tend toward cross-referencing important policies we'd wind up with policy pages containing all kinds of information and instructions that have only tangential significance to the actual subject of the policy. I think that can confuse the reader and cause the real meaning of the policy to be crowded out by all the extra information. It's usually best to "stay on message" and focus on communicating the most important points with the least verbiage possible, because that makes it less likely that people will miss those points or get bored reading the policy and go do something else. Some people have read he blocking policy, after all. Anyway, I'm willing to let it go, but I believe the policy could benefit greatly from some attention to simplicity. ⟳ausa کui × 11:16, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
It has been generally accepted (and usually enforced) as long as I've been here that usernames are not acceptable is they consist only of an IP address (or, as in the case of the username which started this discussion, an IP address followed by "(talk)", which could be potentially even more confusing). I think this ought to be mentioned briefly in the Internet addresses section. I suggest wording something like this:

E-mail addresses and URLs (including usernames consisting of only an IP address) are not valid usernames. Plain domain names are sometimes acceptable, such as when the purpose of the domain is simply to identify you as a person, but they are inappropriate if they promote a commercial Web page. Some users choose to make usernames based on their static IP addresses, but this is not recommended.

Thoughts? ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 07:21, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
I just tried registering a username consisting only of an IP address. It's prevented in software. Given that, I think the extra clause is unnecessary. rspεεr (talk) 09:23, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
What about usernames such as User:123.45.67.89 (talk) (this type of username is what caused this issue to arise in the first place)? ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:06, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
Well, a rule that's specifically about "usernames consisting of only an IP address" wouldn't apply to that name. I think that particular name was perfectly well covered, as a very minor case of being "misleading" by mimicking the MediaWiki interface, and we don't need to write special rules just in case we one day see another username that's the same flavor of weird. rspεεr (talk) 07:13, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
Okay, I just wanted to make sure people were in agreement that that type of username would be covered under "misleading" or somewhere in the policy. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:06, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Promotional names

The way the policy is currently worded seems different than in the past. It now seems that having the word 'Nike' in a name would automatically make it a blatant violation, even if the person has no interest in Nike or edited anything to do with Nike. What if they just like Nike shoes? Are we now blocking these on the spot? Nja247 12:13, 24 July 2009 (UTC) Update: I see this as being the cited reason for policy change -- is this still a preferred outcome? It's unduly draconian. Thoughts...

Okay so all names that contain anything to do with a company, ie Sony, Mac, or whatever should now be considered actionable violations of username policy? Does anyone else have some guidance or thoughts on this? Nja247 11:28, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
A relatively large number of users have "product names" within their name. IMHO, policy should not be a Procrustean bed (nor do I feel, in fact, that any policy or position which is a "gotcha" should ever be used on WP, nor should any position taken by any admin ever be such). The desire for WP to be such an innkeeper is ill-suited for the original intent of WP as far as I can tell. Collect (talk) 12:13, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
Where's all this about "containing"? Some editors at the blatant promotion RfC wanted a bright line, so the rule is that you get blocked if you use a company name as your username. I don't see anything that recommends blocking people who happen to have a company name within their username, so in this state of things, I don't even think the harmless User:GM Chrysler would have been blocked.
Also, if you're concerned about wording being different, you might want to look over and comment on my draft revision, because it's about to get a lot more different. rspεεr (talk) 16:26, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
Will do, and the issue is I'm hounded by users reporting at the one stop block shop (aka UAA) when I decide to not block a name that has a company within it, even if the name hasn't edited or has edited completely innocently because as policy is currently worded these names are to be blocked. The policy was worded better in my opinion before June 10th (when it was reworded). Nja247 17:27, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
You're doing the right thing at UAA -- it shouldn't be a one-stop block shop. I believe that this version is much less encouraging about blocking users that should really be handled by the COI policy. The UAA section, for example, points you to COIN when the problem is with the conflict of interest and not with the username. rspεεr (talk) 17:34, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

New version is live

Given that there's a clear consensus for the new version, which has been edited and discussed by many people here, I've gone live with it, merging the text from User:Rspeer/Username policy draft. Thanks for your support and help in developing this revision, everyone.

I'll let WP:VPP and WP:AN know about the change. Any other places we should notify? How does the monthly policy update thing work? rspεεr (talk) 17:07, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Please see my last comment about company names, and why I think even this redraft is troublesome. Instead of saying "is considered a form of promotion", possibly "it may be considered a form of promotion". With the latter wording, if the edit history of the account shows no form of promotional edits (or no edits at all) then an admin will not get queries from users who may have reported the name at UAA on why the name wasn't blocked per policy. Nja247 17:30, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
I made that change. I don't share your optimism that it will stop overzealous username patrollers from whining, though. rspεεr (talk) 17:58, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
Unfortunately you're probably correct, but anything that even remotely decreases that inevitably is welcome. Overall an exceptional draft, well done. Cheers, Nja247 19:43, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

I did a little tweaking at the Dealing with inappropriate usernames (Formerly: Usernames for Administrator Attention) section, nothing major, just inserting Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/User_names back into there as an avenue to seek consensus. diff. --Mask? 19:58, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Answering "how does the monthly policy update thing work" ... for major changes where the description of what's different would be longer than the page or section that was changed, I usually say that the page or section was substantially changed, and link to it. However, if anyone wants to describe in some detail what the changes are, please go ahead. I'd suggest that the comment here be moved to the talk page, the one that begins, "The main purpose of the revision ..." I don't think it's written in stone that the WP:Update has to be limited to only a bare description of the actual changes (instead of commentary, intentions, and other things that generally go on talk pages), but if we open that can of worms, there are a ton of things people will want to put in the Update, and it will probably morph into a second place to discuss the policy changes, which would be a lot of work, and messy, and probably counterproductive. - Dank (push to talk) 15:12, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Also ... is it time to insert Template:Uw-shortublock in the recommendations on this page and at UAA, and do we want to rename it to something like "verysoftblock" or "shortblock"? I've been using it consistently for softblocks when the user hasn't made many contribs, and haven't gotten any complaints, and I think that's probably significant, because I was getting the usual number of complaints when I was using Template:Uw-shortublock. It's been in Animum's easyblock for a while now. - Dank (push to talk) 16:29, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any harm in adding it. Which standard template to use - if any of them - is not something that the policy dictates (as it should not) so there shouldn't be any problems with adding that version to the list of available block notice templates. Shereth 16:31, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Actually, on second thought, the section is starting to get crowded with templates. Perhaps it would be easier to simply point to Wikipedia:Template_messages/User_talk_namespace#Blocks and add the new template to that list? Shereth 16:37, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
I think I agree, and that's also a nice way to finesse the problem. - Dank (push to talk) 17:22, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
I've gone ahead and done that. Shereth 17:46, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Pseudonyms/Professional names

I have noticed a recent uptick in the number of accounts using pseudonyms or professional names that are being reported to UAA as promotional. As such names are not explicitly forbidden by the username policy I have declined them when I come across them but I have noticed other administrators blocking them as promotional.

To make sure we are all on the same page, here are a couple of hypothetical examples:

  • User:DJ John Doe, who is a professional DJ and has a somewhat promotional bio to this effect
  • User:Juan L Fulano, owner of "Juan L Fulano Enterprises" and states so on his user page

There are clear-cut WP:COI issues involved with these kinds of users (and potential WP:SPAM issues depending upon the content of said user pages) but to me these are not violations of the username policy. My question (and point to this posting) is twofold. First, do these kinds of usernames qualify for blocking under the current username policy? Second, if they are not considered promotional names, is there any value in explicitly permitting them within the wording of the policy to reduce (hopefully eliminate) these kinds of reports? Shereth 19:37, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

  • I feel like we discussed this here not long ago. The examples you make are not blatantly promotional, so I would say no, they should not be blocked. If they are persistent spammers, they will be blocked for that as opposed to the username. If they are editing articles about themselves or their business, they should be warned about COI and maybe slap a {{COI}} on the article. There may be some value in working this into the policy in order to reduce the number of false reports. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:26, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
    In the first example, unless his actual legal name is John Doe, I feel that it's still a promotional name advertising his persona or brand name, and should be blocked. If I ran a mutual fund or newspaper called "Orange Mike's Fund" or "Orange Mike's Financial Truth", I'd expect to get hammered with a spamusernameblock the moment I edited anything to do with the markets or the financial press. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:12, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
Personally, I'm divided right down the middle on "DJ X" when their userpage says "Come see my show!" It's true that "DJ X" will appear promotional to some readers, and I'm sympathetic to Mike's and Calton's position, but I've seen a lot of "DJ X" online who weren't being promotional. But regardless of my personal opinion, I don't think we'll ever get consensus to softblock "DJ X", we'll have to settle for deleting their promotional pages and a spamublock if they persist. The username policy has said for a long time, and still says, "Promotional usernames are used to promote a group, company, or product on Wikipedia" ... note that it doesn't say anything about promoting an individual, and I support that, on the grounds that the most important goal here is to make the call as easy and consistent as possible, so that taggers don't wind up feeling confused and burned. (User:Mr. Crazy Auto Deals isn't fooling anyone; of course we could block that one.) - Dank (push to talk) 19:20, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
Come on, of course these things are promotional -- intended to promote one's personal services for profit -- and the two examples were blatantly so, Beeblebrox's characterization to the contrary, as the pages have been deleted, you'll note. Wikipedia is positively infested with these pages -- DJs, wanna-be rap stars, wedding planners, life coaches, psychics, and I just helped tag and bag 100 or so sockpuppets spamming for a dozen law firms and lawyers -- and adding loopholes doesn't help. These are professional names, often trademarked, for the purpose of drumming up business -- EXACTLY as User:Mr. Crazy Auto Deals is. If they're really intent on helping Wikipedia and not promoting their named business, let them pick another, non-spammy name.
And as far as consistency goes, that would be on my side, since I'm not proposing a special exemption to existing policy by class for blatant advertising: the {{db-spam}} template and accompanying deletion criteria explicitly says "entity" without excluding "persons", and the {{spam-warn}} template itself refers to "company, product, group, service or person". Speedy deletion policy recognizes that spam doesn't require an "Inc" after a name for it to be unacceptable. --Calton | Talk 00:06, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
Remember that username policy doesn't make other policies stop existing. Nothing here stops you from blocking a spammer for spamming. But the suggestion that "Orange Mike" becomes a promotional username the moment that Orange Mike has the gall to start a business is absurd.
There are two unrelated questions here, basically: is the username okay, and is the editing okay? OrangeMike's hypothetical example has everything to do with editing, and it's perfectly well covered under the conflict of interest policy. We all know there is nothing wrong with "OrangeMike" as a username no matter what OrangeMike does with his life. rspεεr (talk) 03:51, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Just a sec...

The new version reads "Explicitly using a name or URL of a company, group or product as your username may be considered a form of promotion." This is a problem, since "may" also suggests "or may not." Have we suddenly decided it's fine to use business names? UAA currently has a username which is a business name with a website of the same name for consideration, which has been marked "wait until user edits" with the note "A name like that is not problematic until they start editing promotionally." Surely the simple use of one's business name as a username is a form of promotion on Wikipedia, since it will be on every talk page the user posts to, and in the edit history of every page they edit. Exploding Boy (talk) 16:55, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

The wording endorsed by the Blatant Promotion RfC was:
  • Explicit use of a company or group name as a username will result in your account being blocked.
This has since evolved into :
  • Use of Wikipedia for promotion of a company or group is not permitted, and accounts that do this will be blocked. Explicitly using a name or URL of a company, group or product as your username may be considered a form of promotion.
I have to confess that I am of the mindset that the use of a company/group/product name as a username is not inherently promotional (it is more of an issue in being a role account), but the RfC was pretty specific on this point. May should probably be changed back to is until/unless a consensus can be found that it should be changed. Shereth 17:19, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm going to go ahead and do that. Exploding Boy (talk) 17:24, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
I support that. As is well known, my view is that a company/product/group/URL user name is inherently promotional and should be blocked without further discussion. – ukexpat (talk) 17:29, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
  • I do not agree in the slightest and I think we need to step back and reconsider things here, or at minimum we need clearer guidance. The RfC was meant to clarify things, but I personally believe it failed miserably. I have a big issue with this wording as it completely ignores WP:AGF. For example, this. The user did not edit in a promotional manner in anyway, in fact they never edited at all. What if a name has Honda in it for example -- are we blocking it? Okay, what if they never edit anything to do with Honda? What if they do and they're simply a fanboy of Honda products because they have a custom Honda civic or something, but their edits aren't really promotional, just adding specs, etc? Where are we drawing the line here folks? If I went through articles about companies or products with a lot of fans I think we could set a record for how many potential blocks we'd issue if we stay the course. I cannot believe we are at the point that we are blocking names that are not obscence when they haven't any edit history at all. It's not always clear a name is going to edit in a promotional manner, which is why we're to assume good faith. I realise the need for the policy, but the wording as it stands is way too ambiguous for my liking and something needs to be done to give better clarity. Nja247 19:38, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
    • In my perfect little world, a user name would have to be blatantly promotional (User:BuyFromCompanyX) or it would have to have promotional/spammy edits to back up the idea that it is a "promotional" account. The mere use of a company name as a username (User:CompanyX) isn't sufficiently promotional to warrant on-sight blocks, in my opinion. In that regard, I sympathise with you completely. However, it has been pretty much standard procedure at UAA to block these as promotional, and this was backed up by the recent RfC. I don't know that it would be very helpful to re-open the subject to debate so quickly, but for what it is worth, I would welcome a change in the policy that would be a little less reactive and a little more deliberative with accounts that are not actually making spammy edits. Shereth 19:57, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Well just because it's what's done doesn't mean it's correct. Looking over the RfC, I see it set out to address obvious examples of promotional names, but it didn't really cover my concern about us getting overzealous with such restrictive wording and blocking anyone who happens to have a company name in their name. I would like to see a consensus decision where it was said that we should be throwing WP:AGF out the window by blocking only questionable username violations where the user had not edited at all. On that alone I think I may draft a new proposal unless someone can explain to me what I'm missing. Nja247 20:10, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe it's an AGF issue. That someone creates a username that's promotional according to our policies doesn't mean they have malicious intent or even that they specifically intend to use it promotionally, just as peoploe who edit articles about themselves don't always intend to violate COI. But having a business as a username is without question a form of promotion on Wikipedia, since the name will not only appear on every talk page the user posts to, but also in the edit history of every page they edit. According to Alexa, on average over 9% of global internet users access Wikipedia every day; the Michael Jackson article has had nearly 15 million views in the last 30 days; we're not here to provide the kind of free publicity/advertising/promotion for any business that posting to a high traffic talk page or editing a high traffic article could create.

In response to Nja's example of a username containing the string Honda, it's a bad example since Honda is a common Japanese name. Nike would be similarly borderline since it's both a given and family name and a mythological being. However, we do have a User:Sony (who hasn't edited since 2 days after creating the username in 2004); this username should be blocked per the policy and common sense: 1. Sony needs no free advertising, and 2. the name is misleading as it suggests the user is connected with or editing on behalf of Sony. We also have a User:Sony Playstation 3 (0 edits); a User:Sony Media (3 edits since creation this month); a User:Sony Pictures Imageworks (1 edit in 2007); and a User:Sony Music Entertainment (indefblocked as a sock following about a dozen edits about Sony Music Entertainment company to their own user page). All of these are clearly inappropriate. On the other hand, we have a User:Sony Shetty, a User:Sony A Kurian, and a User:Sony Ashok, all of which appear to be real names and are therefore acceptable. Exploding Boy (talk) 21:01, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Well I will look for better examples as unfortunately I haven't time to do a thorough search tonight, but I will do soon. But are we saying fanboys are to be blocked? Anyhow I agree with you that a blatant company name should fall within policy, but my problem with your statement of them promoting with every edit is in regards to the increasing situation of accounts that are only possibly company names being blocked, even with no edits at all. Last time I checked the stats, a great number of registered accounts don't ever get around to editing. Are we not abandoning AGF in this case by blocking a name that isn't clear-cut when they have never edited at all? Nja247 21:22, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
I find the following comparison interesting : "That someone creates a username that's promotional according to our policies doesn't mean they have malicious intent or even that they specifically intend to use it promotionally, just as peoploe who edit articles about themselves don't always intend to violate COI." I find it interesting because we don't respond to these types of COI with an immediate block - so why should the username violation be an immediate block? Users who unwittingly run afoul of COI are given a chance to discuss the issue and make things right before blocking, but users who unwittingly run afoul of CORPNAME are rarely granted the same courtesy. Is there any reason that CORPNAME violations that do not have promotional edits cannot be granted the opportunity to discuss and rectify prior to slamming them with a block? Shereth 21:29, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Because users who have a COI can solve the problem by not editing articles about themselves, whereas a promotional username can only ever be promotional (although they can have an additional problem of COI if they edit articles about their own company). Promotional usernames are usually username softblocked, which means they can simply request a change of name or register a new account.
This specific case was about User:QinesisMarketing. Just from the name alone there's no possibility that this wasn't a company name (see also the website qinesismarketing.com), in spite of their lack of edits, yet the report was removed from UAA claiming consensus was to "wait until the user edits"; clearly this username should have been blocked. Exploding Boy (talk) 21:35, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
I am speaking in a more general sense. Usernames with no edits (or no recent edits) can be, in my opinion, safely ignored, but that is not really the point I am trying to get at. The point I am trying to get at is with regards to accounts that do have edits, but edits that are plainly non-promotional and often rather helpful. Take for example User:Bridgerecords, who was making well-intentioned edits that were not promotional of Bridge Records, and who has responded favorably to a notice on their talk page by requesting a name change to something less promotional. This is the way I believe it should work. For an example of how it should not work, see User:MarlboroCollege, a user who was making constructive, non-promotional edits but who was nevertheless blocked with a large template that has outright accused them of having an account "used for promotion of a company or organization" and of willfully spamming. A look at their edit history shows this is very much not the case. Is this really the best way to handle these kinds of situations? I think not. Shereth 21:42, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure that the number of readers looking at the history of articles (compared to the readers who read the actual articles) is quite tiny. Of course we should block people who try to promote something by, let's say, editing as many articles as possible to get into a lot of article histories. But a user with a seemingly spammy username who is making perfectly good edits should be encouraged to change his username, instead of being blocked on sight. I think this very much is an AGF (and WP:BITE) issue. --Conti|✉ 21:38, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
We could take the same soft approach to every violation. A user calling themselves BigTits (just as blatant a violation as XYZ Company) could be politely asked to change their name too, but we block them on sight. Anyway, wasn't there discussion of changing the usernameblock template recently? Did anything ever come of it? Exploding Boy (talk) 23:44, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
I see you're not going to budge on your position, thus at the end of this reply I've added some ideas on what could possibly resolve the concerns myself and others here seem to have. Though I will say first off that I fail to see why we couldn't make the policy a bit clearer, possibly with better guidance and some examples. And I still can't see how it's becoming the norm to actually block names that have never edited. I wish that would be addressed here. However responding to what you said about BigTits: that is clearly different because with a name such as that there's really little doubt that they were acting in bad faith when creating the name. However when it comes to some of the examples noted above it seems more likely the user was not acting in bad faith when creating the name, rather they were in ignorance of our restrictive policy. It's exactly non-AGF and BITEy to be blocking names with no edit history, as we've seen that some seemingly promotional names do in fact contribute well and have responded kindly to name change requests. However if we block on site with unwelcoming block templates, then I'm afraid we're scaring possibly good people off. I think I would feel better if it were made very clear that the {{uw-spamublock}} should only be used when there is an actual edit history showing bad faith promotional editing, ie spam or clear advertising. Otherwise we should be encouraging the use of the newer {{uw-shortublock}}. If we could get this message out I'd feel better. One idea of mine is to add a module to the new admin school on the handling of username policy violations, with examples of common scenarios and recommended actions. This would not only benefit admins, but editors active in UAA, just as the NAS module on rollback has benefited the wider community as a whole. I'd still wish to address the blocking of non-obscene accounts with no edit history at all, as I can't see how it's acting in good faith to do so. Nja247 07:07, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Personally, I never use {{uw-spamublock}}; I nearly always use {{usernameblock}}. I wasn't even aware of {{uw-shortublock}}, but it seems quite acceptable. Exploding Boy (talk) 07:46, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Mainly to Nja and Shereth, because you feel strongly about this and I respect your views, but also in general: I agree that there's a tension here between conflicting goals. I don't think there's any question that it would be better to sit down and have a nice, long chat with every new user who shows up, particularly if they've done something that conflicts with our needs, such as creating a username that makes it sound like they represent a group. And when we've got sufficient volunteers to do that honestly ... that is, the volunteers are actually interested in swapping information rather than taking some quick action that complies with policy ... I will push for that, but we don't. As crass as it sounds to talk about "volunteer management", as if Wikipedians were staff rather than people, we have to look at things that way sometimes. We have sufficient volunteers available to get new page patrolling done the way it's done now; we have very few volunteers, maybe no one, interested in having ongoing conversations with every new user with one of these usernames we're talking about, and interested in monitoring their progress to see which direction they go. Given our volunteer resources, I think catching these accounts early and applying {{uw-shortublock}} is the best compromise. After all, anyone who wants to edit articles about their own group or company has a lot of reading and a lot of negotiation ahead of them if there's any chance that everyone is going to be happy with the results; if they can't follow our instructions about this simple little thing and create a new account, which would take seconds, without storming off in a huff, then the odds we're losing someone who would otherwise become an asset to the encyclopedia are low. Conversely, the damage done by not blocking these accounts is very high, because the main reason 9% of the planet tunes in every day is because they trust our pages to be crowdsourced, and promotional names destroy that impression. - Dank (push to talk) 12:10, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the insight, but I still think good faith is being overlooked when accounts that have no edit history at all are being blocked. If we could encourage use of the newer short template that would atleast alleviate the BITE issue, though I think admins and those who report usernames could use better guidance on handling of policy violations as some (as evidenced above) are not even aware of the short block template. Either the policy needs to be more instructive, or we need to consider the NAS module, or both. Seeing how useful the rollback module was I'm wondering if there's consensus for the creation of one for the handling of usernames? Nja247 12:39, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
I totally agree that {{uw-shortublock}} requires at least one edit that suggests that the account will be used to represent a group. It might be easier to get consensus here if we can agree on a list of example names that deserve {{uw-shortublock}}; I'll go gather a list. - Dank (push to talk) 13:17, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
P.S. Excellent idea about presenting our recommendations at WP:NAS. - Dank (push to talk) 13:19, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. Personally I will be using the shortblock template except for if the name is clearly bad faith, e.g. obvious spam / advertising edits. If you use Easyblock, it's called shortname+indefinite. I'm unsure how to go about suggesting a new NAS module, so if anyone knows let me know as I'd like to get to work on it. Cheers. Nja247 13:38, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Personally I appreciate your work in creating the (much more civil) shortublock; I use a version of it regularly. I pretty much apply it to every account blocked per WP:ORGNAME, unless they are making egregiously spammy/promotional edits. I only hope that it catches on, as it would go a long way to reducing the BITEy nature of UAA. That said, I don't think it takes much more effort on the part of the UAA regulars to differentiate between users who actually are promoting and those who have unintentionally run afoul of CORPNAME - it only takes a minute to take a peek at a few of their edits and make a judgement call as to what their intent is. I'm not sure why you don't think we have the manpower to do this, as UAA is rarely backlogged (I don't think the current definition of 4+ reports really counts as a backlog). All reports are reviewed and acted upon in a timely manner. I certainly do not believe we have a shortage of manpower here at UAA and I don't think our being slightly more deliberate with the way we handle reports is going to cause any problems. I don't expect that to ever happen, though, as we certainly have no shortage of admins who are very firmly of the "shoot first" mentality and I do not expect that to change - so for now I will merely try to counterbalance this by being a little more deliberate myself. Kind of sucks when I still get bowled over and someone drops in and blocks an editor I'm trying to talk to, but thats neither here nor there ... Shereth 14:15, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. I think we're talking about two different things: what taggers and admins together can consistently accomplish at NPP, and what we do about admins who block the wrong accounts or block without discussing when they should discuss or who block using a less-than-ideal warning. Personally, I can't get involved in the solution here, but I think we have a perfectly good solution: if an admin does something wrong, another admin should fix it. If the first admin changes it back without discussion, that's a WP:WHEEL violation. It's true that in some cases, the first admin's action might mean we lose that new user, but not usually, especially if they're reverted fast. Some admins will change the way they do things if they're reverted often enough, some won't. - Dank (push to talk) 14:35, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Agreed on the mentality Shereth, but my hope is that a new NAS module will allow you and I to sneak in our balanced approach. As for UAA, I have recently updated its guidance, in the hope of making it clearer and more prominent. Any suggestions on how to encourage regulars to use their own judgement and common sense when reporting would be brilliant. As for the short template, it wasn't my template, but it's close to what I would have done had it not existed. I would also like for it to become the standard. I completely agree that it's less BITEy, particularly in situations as you described, ie when the account has not edited in bad faith (e.g. spam / advertising), or where they haven't edited at all. As noted, I am going forward with my plan to propose a new NAS module. I hope everyone will work together to create excellent guidance for admins and editors active in reporting usernames. I will update here when I figure out how to go about it, and I will likely start drafting sometime soon in a sandbox. Suggestions or drafts of what should go in it are welcome at anytime. Nja247 14:43, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
I support that 100%. Educating new administrators on how things are done at UAA is likely the most efficient way of seeing things become a little more sane here. Shereth 14:51, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
In most cases, "incorrect" decisions can be fairly easily overturned but for better or worse UAA is an extremely volatile process. In a hypothetical case where an administrator blocks an account that should not have been blocked (or uses an inappropriate template), the report is immediately removed by a bot and in all likelihood will never be reviewed by another user and simply pass unseen. The only time it will come up is when the blocked user takes it upon themselves to complain. I do not mean to insinuate that anyone is maliciously handing out bad blocks/bad messages knowing it will be swept under the rug, just that there is no way of catching mistakes. Conversely, I have in the past run into issues where an administrator declines to block an account and de-lists the report, only to see the same account get reported again (sometimes more than once) until an administrator with a more strict mindset finally blocks the account. Because of the way the process works, there is no way for that admin to know they are essentially "undoing" the actions of one or more previous administrators. I think, in the end, that is why I get so vocal on the subject; the transparent and volatile nature of UAA reports and actions means that the only viable solution to the problem is to get cooperation on the front end. And again, since I do not see that happening, I just do what I can to make a difference and keep my fingers crossed that I am not the only one with that opinion. Shereth 14:51, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Briefly, no you're not. I have had it where a non-blatant violation which I tagged as discussing was later (ie the same day) blocked by another admin. My hope was the admin didn't see my note at UAA and blocked from encountering the name elsewhere. I've caught a few overzealous reporters listing a name in numerous places, which may be a reason why my note at UAA wasn't noted. But then again, my {{Usernameconcern}} template on their talk page should have been noticed :/ My goal here is to do what I can to provide solid guidance in the future, and hopefully slowly people will slow down before pressing the button. Nja247 15:02, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
I've had the same experience too, Nja. However, I still disagree that blocking accounts that have no edit history is an AGF problem. It must be made clear that there's a difference between promotional editing and promotional usernames; a promotional username is still a promotional username if the account hasn't made any promotional edits. Exploding Boy (talk) 15:27, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Sure, the HelperBots will automatically remove an entry from UAA when someone is blocked, and I've done a lot of blocks from the CSD queue, without looking at UAA. But I do look at the user's contribs and also the user's talk page to see if anyone left a message. - Dank (push to talk) 17:58, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Issues with my NAS idea

As noted above there seems to be tentative support for adding a module to the new admin school for how to best handle username policy violations. I started to draft, but I noticed that a lot of very useful information (which would overlap) is contained here and here. Really the only thing that's lacking are examples of violations with suggested actions. We could pull the two together and add in examples and make a new NAS module, or we could work with what we have and add in examples there. The most common problem I personally encounter are names being reported at UAA that would have best been handled otherwise. Essentially the issue could be averted if the person reporting had bothered to read the guidelines noted at UAA, or read the section at WP:U on how to deal with inappropriate names. Thus I'm unsure of how to proceed. I think what is already there is what would essentially go into the NAS module (except for proper examples), and I don't want to draft something up that is essentially a repeat of what's already there. I seek some thoughts on how to proceed, and if the NAS doesn't go through, I'd like to know where you think example violations with suggested actions would belong? Would anyone help me with creating an useful example or two? Thanks, Nja247 16:29, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

  • Update: I think things are much improved with my two small expansions to the policy document itself. A little bit of clarity never hurts. The only thing missing is a relevant example or two, though now I think if one were to be provided it would be best to have it on the listing instructions page at UAA so as to keep the policy document clean. Nja247 16:50, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

One thing I'd like us to recommend is to add a personal note to uw-shortublock in those cases where there's at least a glimmer of hope that the user is reading some of the links we're leaving them, something like this maybe: ""Hi, I know you're getting overwhelmed with messages here :) I had to block this particular username because we don't allow usernames that represent organizations; your account name should just represent you. But please do create another account name and continue your work, it only takes a few minutes. Thanks." - Dank (push to talk) 19:40, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

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