Several contributors shared their thoughts with the Signpost about the evolution of our Username policy page over the past six months. Shereth describes username policy as "something of a specialized niche," generating frequent discussions on the talk page and at Usernames for administrator attention over interpretation and application of the policy. The discussion of the moment, which could conceivably lead to a shift in policy, relates to misleading usernames. For Phantomsteve, the policy page "fairly sums up the expectations for usernames", although he doesn't believe that hybrid names such as "User:Megawatt Inc., (John)" are appropriate, and prefers that blatant violations of the policy be handled before the account's first edit, when possible. Beeblebrox points out that it takes time to learn the many ethnic and racial slurs used around the world that people try to insert into usernames, and to learn how to handle borderline offensive names (a recent example: Nipple37). It also takes experience to spot search engine optimization techniques and other attempts to exploit Wikipedia's dominance on the web, and careful judgment not to step on the unintentionally self-promotional newcomers while blocking the hard-core spammers. Beeblebrox often uses the gentler {{uw-softerblock}} template, as well as the traditional {{uw-spamblock}} block notice. User:7 says that a warning such as {{uw-username}} is more appropriate for inadvertently improper usernames, while editors with promotional usernames who start out with promotional edits tend to be blocked "quickly but without prejudice" and encouraged to start over, following our policies.
7 adds that some discussions last for months or years before finally bearing fruit, such as this summer's Blatant Promotion RFC, which resulted in a prohibition on company, website, or product names as usernames. Gigs coordinated the RFC, and describes it as a "good example of how we can still come together as a community and resolve complex policy issues with consensus." Gigs, like most of the admins active at Usernames for administrator attention, believes that the WP:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard (WP:COIN) is a better venue for more complex problems with editors making edits that indicate a conflict of interest. Rspeer notes "constant discussion and compromise", year after year. In his view, new users are entitled to the same leeway and second chances for username problems that are afforded for violations of our other policies. The policy has improved over time: "When I started working with the policy, you could be blocked for all kinds of silly reasons, written or unwritten, such as: if you had seven of the same letter in a row in your username, if your username happened to be a domain name that a domain squatter had registered, if you had a Chinese character in your username, or if someone just thought you looked like you were going to vandalize in the future."
There's a lot more detail from all the respondents in the full survey. Next week's Policy Report will focus on Edit warring. Please join the discussion.
Discuss this story