[Wikipedia-l] Celebrity users

Tue Jan 11 13:12:03 UTC 2005

I suggest that the existing procedures are adequate for this.  If someone
seems to be trying it on then we can tell them to change their username
because misleading or disruptive usernames are not allowed.  If they say
that is their real name we block them anyway.  No appeals.  No trivia
questionnaires, they're pointless because the celebrities in general know
rather less about such silly details than their more obsessive fans do.
I've seen two or three celebrities on Usenet use their real names online,
amid thousands of people who thought that a username like "Washington
Irving" marked them as real l33t d00dz.   It isn't likely to be a major
problem as long as our readers are aware that author identity is (as
elsewhere on the internet) a rather fluid concept.