Brion Vibber wrote:
Oliver Pereira wrote:
If I
recall the earlier case of Throbbing Monster Cock correctly, a developer
just changed his name to "TMC", and there were no further problems.
Couldn't the same thing be done again?
If by "no further problems" you mean to say "the person made several
attempts to use similar usernames, such as the same thing with different
capitalization, ended up with their ip banned for a while, and never
came back under the officially sanctioned or any other recognizable
sanitized nick", then your recollection is correct.
As much of a pain in the neck as this was, I think that the outcome is
perfectly acceptable. We don't need contributions from every jackass
in the world.
The idea that there might be a perfectly reasonable person with great
values to contribute to Wikipedia, but who will refuse to participate
unless allowed to use a juvenile and offensive username is farfetched.
The idea, on the other hand, that there might be a perfectly
reasonable person with great values to contribute to Wikipedia, but
who shows up and *initially chooses a juvenile and offensive
username*, for a joke, for the hell of it, whatever, is not so
farfetched.
So it's no big deal to reach out (as we already do, to an absurd
extent) and say "Hey, be our friend, stop being a jerk with this
annoying name." But it's also no big deal to lose someone if they
refuse to co-operate.
There's a billion nice people on the Internet; we can afford to lose
the jerks.
--Jimbo