[WikiEN-l] Re: Jeezis needs a name change

Wed Oct 8 20:10:52 UTC 2003

[Note: this email contains some rude words]

Thus spake Jimbo:
 >What's our exact policy on this?  I'd be happy to issue a ruling, but
 >I'd prefer to stick with exact precedent.  But I don't remember what
 >that is.

[[Wikipedia:Username]] contains some recommendations to avoid certain types 
of username, and also states "Wikipedia *does not allow* inflammatory user 
names" (it also says some weird stuff about voting and sysops being able to 
ban people with offensive names, but I'll pass over that as it isn't really 
relevant here).

As for precedents: User:Throbbing Monster Cock was deemed unacceptable (by 
your good self, if I remember rightly), and was forcibly changed to 
User:TMC. He later returned as Swollen Cock of Doom and Throbbing monster 
cock - these were also banned. More recently, User:Saddam Hussein was 
forcibly changed to User:SH. User:Fuck and User:FuckingFucker have also 
been banned, no doubt partly due to their username, but they also did a 
spot of random vandalism. I don't think there have been any other cases 
where a user has been forced to change their name.

As far as I know, there has not yet been a case where somebody has 
suggested a name is unacceptable without said name later being forcibly 
changed. In that sense, no limit has been established on what is considered 
"unacceptable".

A parallel which might be worth considering here is the article originally 
titled [[AIDS Kills Fags Dead]]. After some debate, the page was moved to 
[[Slogan 'AIDS Kills Fags Dead']] lest people should see the name of the 
page in search results or on Recent Changes and think we were making a 
statement.

Just to be clear: I don't necessarily agree with decisions which have been 
made in the past (nor do I necessarily disagree with them), and I'm not 
trying to suggest a course of action which should be taken in this case. 
I'm just laying out what's been done before.

Lee (Camembert)