At the suggestion of Essjay, I'm trying to publicize the [[Wikipedia:Usurpation]] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Usurpation proposed policy; it's a useful extension to the current user renaming system which would allow beaucrats to rename active users in good standing to already existing but totally unused (no edits or actions of any sort) accounts.
There are probably hundreds of thousands of usernames which have never been used in the slightest, and a lot of good short names have been locked up because we don't allow them to be deleted or renamed to something else (thus freeing up the original name). Quite a few users have specifically asked for this despite the dim prospects; something like 30 by now, I think.
Anyway, the proposals has gotten a fair bit of support, but it doesn't seem to have been commented on by a lot of people, so the bureaucrats I've talked to, like Essjay, aren't willing to simply declare it policy or guideline because they are worried the community doesn't really know about it. It'd be pretty good if people would go read it and comment; it's rather unfortunate when good, consensus approved proposals stagnate and die just because they don't reach whatever magical number people are waiting for.
--Gwern I've posted a version of this message to some other places to try to drum up some interest or discussion. My apologies if you see this multiple times.
A much simpler solution would have been this: http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6614
I'm not really sure why it was rejected. There doesn't seem to me to be a lot of value in keeping "unused" accounts, and it shouldn't be too hard to come up with a workable, implementable definition of "unused" that everyone is happy with.
Steve
On 12/4/06, gwern branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
At the suggestion of Essjay, I'm trying to publicize the [[Wikipedia:Usurpation]] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Usurpation proposed policy; it's a useful extension to the current user renaming system which would allow beaucrats to rename active users in good standing to already existing but totally unused (no edits or actions of any sort) accounts.
There are probably hundreds of thousands of usernames which have never been used in the slightest, and a lot of good short names have been locked up because we don't allow them to be deleted or renamed to something else (thus freeing up the original name). Quite a few users have specifically asked for this despite the dim prospects; something like 30 by now, I think.
Anyway, the proposals has gotten a fair bit of support, but it doesn't seem to have been commented on by a lot of people, so the bureaucrats I've talked to, like Essjay, aren't willing to simply declare it policy or guideline because they are worried the community doesn't really know about it. It'd be pretty good if people would go read it and comment; it's rather unfortunate when good, consensus approved proposals stagnate and die just because they don't reach whatever magical number people are waiting for.
--Gwern I've posted a version of this message to some other places to try to drum up some interest or discussion. My apologies if you see this multiple times. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 12/3/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
A much simpler solution would have been this: http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6614
I'm not really sure why it was rejected. There doesn't seem to me to be a lot of value in keeping "unused" accounts, and it shouldn't be too hard to come up with a workable, implementable definition of "unused" that everyone is happy with.
Steve
You need to register an account if you want to set your preferences - Wikipedia has more readers than writers, there are probably a number of people who are familiar enough with the site to know this, but have no interest in editing.
The other issue is one of authorship. We can't re-use an account that has made any edits, so what's the benefit in deleting accounts which haven't been used in a while?
On 12/4/06, gwern branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
At the suggestion of Essjay, I'm trying to publicize the [[Wikipedia:Usurpation]] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Usurpation proposed policy; it's a useful extension to the current user renaming system which would allow beaucrats to rename active users in good standing to already existing but totally unused (no edits or actions of any sort) accounts.
There are probably hundreds of thousands of usernames which have never been used in the slightest, and a lot of good short names have been locked up because we don't allow them to be deleted or renamed to something else (thus freeing up the original name). Quite a few users have specifically asked for this despite the dim prospects; something like 30 by now, I think.
Anyway, the proposals has gotten a fair bit of support, but it doesn't seem to have been commented on by a lot of people, so the bureaucrats I've talked to, like Essjay, aren't willing to simply declare it policy or guideline because they are worried the community doesn't really know about it. It'd be pretty good if people would go read it and comment; it's rather unfortunate when good, consensus approved proposals stagnate and die just because they don't reach whatever magical number people are waiting for.
--Gwern I've posted a version of this message to some other places to try to drum up some interest or discussion. My apologies if you see this multiple times. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 12/4/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
You need to register an account if you want to set your preferences - Wikipedia has more readers than writers, there are probably a number of people who are familiar enough with the site to know this, but have no interest in editing.
Do we have any numbers? Can we count the number of people in each of these categories:
1) Never logged in 2) Logged in but never changed anything 3) Set preferences, but never edited 4) Edited, but not in main articlespace 5) Made at least one edit in main article space
To my mind, those in categories 1-3 should not be hogging valuable user names if those in 5 want them. Exceptions of course for people protecting established user names from other wikipedias, but they can edit their own user page to solve that...
The other issue is one of authorship. We can't re-use an account that has made any edits, so what's the benefit in deleting accounts which haven't been used in a while?
Reattributing edits is primarily a technical problem.
Steve