[WikiEN-l] unbanned name

[Jimmy Wales]

Oliver Pereira wrote:
> However, I still think that reverting someone's edits for any reason other
> than the quality of the edits themselves is counter-productive.

Usually, yes, I think you're right.

> Couldn't there be a list of offensive user names in the system
> somewhere, and a mechanism to prevent people from signing in under
> these names? That way, any user who makes valuable contributions can
> still do so anonymously, or they can get a new name that isn't on
> the disallowed list, and everyone's happy(ish)!

Well, such a list will always be incomplete.  And pattern matching
will lead to funny results.  So automating the determination of what's
offensive is not likely to be very effective.

"ThrobbingMonsterCock" -- hmm, we might ban 'Cock'.  But what about
someone named "Cockburn"?

I've basically declared open season on these things, so there's not
going to need to be a lot of mailing list discussion about them,
except when something odd happens, as is bound to be the case sooner
or later.

--Jimbo