On Sat, Jan 4, 2014 at 8:32 PM, Jared Zimmerman <jared.zimmerman@wikimedia.org> wrote:
What are all of the things that could need to be changed about a user name?

rather than getting to an error state could we just prohibit the user from creating incomptible input in the first place with something like this? http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3199291/block-some-characters-from-being-typed-in-a-text-box

Automatically capitalize the first character when entering text in the box, strip consecutive double spaces, and ignore when there is input of invalid characters?

It's a bit weird, because you don't actually have to change your username. The normal state right now is basically this...

- User enters 'abarfmonster' as username
- MediaWiki checks if that is available and not too close to another username
- If it's available, account is successfully created, but silently in the background, it's changed to 'Abarfmonster' because usernames are page titles technically speaking and thus must start with a capital. 

The same happens with trailing whitespace, etc. What's being proposed is that we warn users and make them confirm their choice. 

--
Steven Walling,
Product Manager