[Foundation-l] Commons Usurp issue

[Thomas Dalton]

>  After a short discussion in IRC with a Commons crat, I was told that
>  despite the inactivity of this account there exists a Commons policy
>  disallowing Usurption as long as an account has ever had any
>  contributions. I was urged by some fellow editors and administrators
>  that I should bring up this issue on this email list. My apologies if
>  this is not the appropriate place to discuss it.

I think this is the right place to discuss it, since the policy isn't
unique to commons.

It's a difficult issue. The policy was a good one before SUL was
introduced, and the reasons for it still apply, it's just the gains
from usurping a name are so much greater now. The question is whether
the gains are great enough to warrant forcibly renaming a user and
reattributing all their contributions (and the licensing concerns that
go along with that - I doubt anyone can say with absolute certainty
whether such usurpation is even legal, although the chances of anyone
contesting it are minimal unless a username happens to be their real
name, in which case, someone else having the same username is unlikely
- this case is borderline, as it appears to be a real initial and
surname). I think, at the end of the day, it is worth it, since the
benefits of a fully migrated global account are significant (at least,
potentially), and the harm is minimal. Appropriate lengths should be
taken to contact the user and give them a chance to choose a new name
and if they don't reply a new name similar to their old one should be
chosen ("USERNAME 2" perhaps).