On Thu, 2002-11-14 at 13:50, The Cunctator wrote:
On 11/14/02 4:11 PM, "Brion Vibber"
<brion(a)pobox.com> wrote:
>> The Cunctator wrote:
>>> As you can see at
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/TMC%27s_sysop_request
>>> I basically agree, but I'll ask you to consider a more scalable
resolution;
>>> that is, have the Recent Changes etc. display the nickname only, and
enforce
>>> innocuousness of the nickname.
[...]
Showing the
nickname *everywhere* would make the independent existence
of the username both pointless and confusing.
That's its sole current purpose, but why should the nickname only appearing
on talk pages be any less confusing?
The tagging of RecentChanges and revision edits with the username can be
seen as equivalent to signing comments on the userpages. I don't think it's
inherently confusing.
People can sign their edits in-page however they wish or not at all. The
tilde-signing is a labor-saving convenience feature to automatically put
in a link back to the user page, which is common in such signing; the
nick is a convenience feature for those who wish their signings to
appear differently from their user name, but still want a simple
labor-saving method to link back to their user page. If we didn't have
it, we'd still have people making manual links to their user pages whose
text wasn't identical with their usernames.
Tagging on RC and page histories, on the other hand, is automatic
tracking. Its sole purpose is to be clear and informative. It's not a
signature; it's a return address.
The majority of people don't use a nickname, so
this change wouldn't even be
an issue for the majority of the people.
I'm not saying this is a perfect idea; I just don't think its consequences
would be mass confusion, and it certainly wouldn't be pointless.
Why not? Because we can't perfectly adjudicate the inoffensiveness of
usernames. People have even thought that my username is vulgar.
Then what makes you think that we _can_ perfectly adjudicate the
inoffensiveness of nicknames, or that if we could there would be any
reason to do so separately from hidden usernames which would never be
seen by anybody (so why do they exist?)?
-- brion vibber (brion @
pobox.com)