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(a)Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l