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RfC: Allow group/role accounts, with OTRS verification

Proposal did not carry. Users who wish to declare affiliations are free to adopt the 'Name at Company' form (and if they wish to provide proof of identity to OTRS they could do that as well). –xeno^talk 01:04, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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• Per the recent statement by the WMF legal team, there are no copyright attribution reasons to disallow group/entity/role accounts in their official legal opinion. This has long been a central argument against allowing such usernames.
• The WMF has recently proposed a requirement of disclosure for paid contributions, which has gotten wide support and is on its way to being adopted in some form.
• Users who create a corporate or group username are attempting to disclose their affiliation in one of the most transparent ways possible, by making it their username.
• Allowing role usernames does raise the concern of someone suggesting an affiliation that they do not have. This is handled in the German Wikipedia by OTRS verification of role usernames, similar to the way we currently handle real names of high profile individuals.

Therefore, this RfC proposes that we amend the section on "promotional usernames" to allow role/group/entity/corporate usernames, with the same treatment as WP:REALNAME; if it is a high profile name, or misrepresentation is suspected, we will send them to OTRS for verification. Gigs (talk) 15:50, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Straw poll

• Support as proposer. This is becoming more and more of a "no-brainer". Gigs (talk) 15:50, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose Multiple users under a single account creates communication problems, as you are not sure that the SnertcoWikidesk you are responding to has the same level of competency and civility as the SnertcoWikidesk from two messages before. Perhaps allow SnertcoWikideskTed and SnertcoWikideskBrenda, so long as the accounts are linked in such a way that we can do a blanket block of the SnertcoWikidesk accounts should there be a general problem with Snertco edits. --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:27, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
• oppose officially enabling "my brother did it" is not a good idea. every person needs to be accountable for their actions. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 16:32, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
• oppose per TRPoD. No reason to create a ton of bureaucracy and work, and risk/drama, when the alternative is "use an easy to create free account". Gaijin42 (talk) 16:40, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
• Strong oppose. Every day we get a dozen or more "User:XYZcorp" accounts whose idea is to post on their user page extracts from their website, or descriptions in PR-speak with lists of "our services" "our specialities" etc. Most of them would indignantly deny that what they are doing is promotion: they think they are just using Wikipedia to "tell the world" about themselves, and don't see why that is a problem. For a recent example, see User talk:Lighting Design Lab#Help me!.

Allowing corporate accounts would be basically permitting this, and would involve establishing standards of what was or was not promotion, and endless pushing of the boundaries. Let us stay with the long-established rule of one individual per account: we know who we are talking to, the user page can be restricted to the individual and their contributions, and there is at least some hope that they will feel some loyalty to and respect for Wikipedia as well as their employer. The "Mark at Alcoa" form is available for someone who wants to make their affiliation clear. JohnCD (talk) 17:03, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Your argument is this: 'People doing X have also commonly done Y! Therefore, if we permit X, we are also "basically permitting" Y!' This is on the List of fallacies. We have already established standards for what is promotion. And, by the way, do you remember Mark at Alcoa's original username? It was plain old User:Alcoa. He's an example that disproves your assertion that the username determines the user's grasp of copyright law, maturity, encyclopedic style, and inappropriate promotion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:54, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

I asserted nothing of the kind. I don't know Mark at Alcoa's history, but I think it entirely possible that when editing as User:Alcoa he thought his business here was to push the company line, but becoming "Mark", an individual, made him feel more like a partner in our enterprise as well as an Alcoa representative.

Promotion is not so easily defined and prevented as you seem to think, and our idea of what is promotion is much more austere than most new users'. The allowable content of the user page would be one of the problems with organizational accounts. What is permissible? Not "Our widgets are uniquely marvellous!" obviously; but what about a neutrally-worded list of the company's products? "Our services, our specialities"? List of awards it has won? Copy of its blue-sky mission statement? If all that is allowed, is it restricted to notable companies? Before you know it, you have a WP:FAKEARTICLE, and Wikipedia is becoming a business listing directory. Then there are all the "good causes" who think that because they are non-commercial, boosting themselves is not promotion. Whatever boundaries we set, people would push at them, and there would be endless arguments. There is a real can of worms here, which is much better not opened. JohnCD (talk) 22:54, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Forcing the person to change the username is not going to affect the contents of the userpage. If you take User:Widgets Company, and you say, "What a bad name, change it to 'John at Widgets Company' so we know that you're just one person!", then you will still have the same problems with the userpage. "John at Widgets Company" could trivially say, "Hi, I'm John at Widgets Company! Let me tell you about our services, our specialties, and all the awards we've won!" I really do not believe that, if an account was set up to represent a company in the first place, that changing the username is going to change the operators' views of what their purpose is. CHU is not some sort of baptismal process that removes the stain of promotion sin from the user's soul and gives it a new name (more's the pity). It's the same people, with the same goals, only with a very slightly different name saved into their computers' login/password database. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:06, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

We are not going to agree about whether User:James at AcmeWidgets will feel and act differently from User:AcmeWidgets, but the user page is clearly less of a problem. If James puts lists of products and specialities on his userpage, he can be reminded of WP:UPNO: "you should avoid substantial content on your user page that is unrelated to Wikipedia... Your user page is about you as a Wikipedian... " It is more difficult to tell User:AcmeWidgets that their user page should not be used for lists of widgets or copies of their website: they say "But this is us as a Wikipedian, we are telling everyone what we do!" People are used to the Facebook/LinkedIn/Myspace model where your user page is indeed the place where you tell the world about yourself.

The user page problem could be solved by making a rule that the primary user pages of corporate accounts may contain nothing beyond "This is the Wikipedia account of Acme Widgets Corporation" and a link to their website; but fortunately there seems a solid consensus against allowing this new kind of user account. JohnCD (talk) 22:11, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose because it's the biggest no-brainer ever, as per OP. ES&L 18:02, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose as unnecessary. We already allow account names that reveal the affiliation of an editor, for example someone working at Exxon can call themselves "Bob from Exxon" without violating our existing policy. What we disallow through policy is any account that is shared between multiple people (because a single person needs to be held liable for the actions of an account), and the proposal above doesn't explain why it's necessary to change this. If an individual wants to officially represent a corporation (cleared by OTRS as suggested above) they can do that without violating our policy either. -- Atama頭 18:16, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
  • That exception has been ambiguously mentioned in the policy a while, but all our templates say things like "create a new account that only represents you as an individual". If the outcome from this is to encourage "individual corporate accounts", then we need to revamp all our communication so people actually realize that is an allowable option. Gigs (talk) 18:39, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
    • WP:ISU seems pretty unambiguous to me and even provides examples of acceptable variations that include the company name, and clearly "only represents the editor as an individual". Again, this is already handled in our policy (and has been this way for years) and if templates are misleading (I'd argue that they aren't and you should provide examples showing that they are) then the templates should be corrected. Again, your proposal is a solution is search for a problem. -- Atama頭 19:12, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. The benefit to this is that people with roles in organizations will be encouraged to edit clearly identified under that role. I don't see that as a substantial benefit because people can do that anyway, like someone else said, with individual accounts for each person with the name of the role in it. The drawbacks are substantial in my opinion. Bans count against a person and not an account, so if a role account is banned does that mean everyone who uses it is banned? That seems extreme, but I really don't know how you'd deal with problematic editing from a role account otherwise in a way that jives with the other policies. But then we don't really know who all has been using a role account, or if banned users have been using a role account, and the complications just seem to go on and on in my head. Current roles can be accomodated already with alternate usernames, and I just see no reason to do this and complicate things. Chuy1530 (talk) 18:45, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose - I am opposed to anything which weakens the principle of "one person — one account." This encourages the use of multiple accounts, making connection of potentially problematic editing between multiple iterations of the same individual difficult. It would be a big step in the wrong direction. Carrite (talk) 18:49, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose - Weakens the responsibility and legal ownership of the edits by the account to a person which puts on shaky grounds with the attribution requirement of our content license.--v/r - TP 19:12, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
  • I support role accounts of individualistic nature such as "Johnny at ABC, Inc."--v/r - TP 19:59, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
• Technical oppose, and counter-proposal - We need a way to tie an individual edit to an individual editor. One way to do it would be to have an account like "Acme President JS" where "JS" is President John Smith's, or "ACME President Dec2013" where the person's tenure started in December 2013. Later presidents of Acme Corporation might have usernames like "Acme President JD" if his name was John Doe or "Acme President March 2014" for the person who took over after this month's boardroom coup. These are legal usernames in Wikipedia, perhaps we can start explicitly recommending them? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 23:02, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose as per Chuy1530 argument about banning disruptive users, and as per NatGertler. Just because it isn't illegal doesn't mean that it is wise. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:05, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose as creates new problems while solving none. It's one thing to have an account that includes an affiliation name; in fact that could even be a positive with the potential revisions to paid editing. However, role accounts are those that are shared by definition, and enabling these creates a whole mess of problems that have been described by others above. -- Bfigura ^(talk) 00:27, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose Junk accounts to promote the wonders of Acme Co. are created every day, and helping them would do nothing to help the project. There was one recent example where an organization apparently insisted that they had to have a role account—what kind of basis is that for engagement in a collaborative community? There are good reasons for the current policies, and organizations need to adapt to Wikipedia, not the reverse. Johnuniq (talk) 02:19, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. It would divide users into two classes, with individuals on one side and groups on the other, and give the latter an image of greater influence or "importance" within Wikipedia. As an editor, I want to be sure that the person who operated Account X yesterday is the same as the one operating it today; an account with a name suggesting control by any number of nameless persons, with less individual accountability, is a barrier to establishing trust. As to the question of promotional editing – in my experience, anyone who signs up with a username of "X Inc.", "Y Business Solutions" or similar will, in nine cases out of ten, have little else in mind. Advertising in userspace (and in other namespaces) is enough of a problem as it is, and legitimising group or corporate usernames will do nothing to deter it. SuperMarioMan ( talk ) 02:25, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
• Support I really don't see the problem here. It's a counterintuitive policy that leads to a lot of welcomes in the form of "Welcome to Wikipedia. You're blocked!" TRPoD's argument is quite easily dealt with: don't put up with that shit. Everyone is responsible for what happens under his or her username, and there's no reason to treat shared accounts differently. If Jack can't behave himself and gets his and Jill's shared account blocked, Jill can always create her own. This would only "weaken responsibility" if we allow it to.

As for the claim about self-promotion by corporate entities, I really find that quite laughable. This is an ever-present plague that we deal with already, and there's absolutely no reason to believe that allowing shared usernames would lead to an increase in it (again, we block some of them on sight now, but that's not really addressing the underlying problem, and many of them make legitimate accounts thereafter anyway). If anything, this change would lead to transparency. If {{User|Fooco}} is editing Fooco, those promotional edits will be much more easy to detect and address than if {{User|Jack Smith}} were doing so. --BDD (talk) 17:45, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

• Strong oppose this really, really, really, really bad idea. Absolutely everything on Wikipedia, from simple talk-page interactions up to and including serious stuff like ArbCom, is based around the concept that one person is behind each account. Creating the possibility that a given account might have two, three, six, or dozens of people will complicate everything immensely, from "the intern did it!" scapegoating to complex situations where one person on an account might be legally able to release their organisations' images from copyright but another isn't, etc. And who exactly is volunteering to babysit these multi-headed corporate hydras when they inevitably start spamming and otherwise misbehaving? Our already overtaxed admins? This would create countless problems while solving absolutely nothing. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 22:09, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. I think I am correct in saying this RfC is arguing two things: (1) we should allow group accounts, & (2) we should allow "XYZ Company" style usernames. As per the first, all of our policies are based on the assumption of one person, one account. Allowing group usernames would complicate so many of our internal processes. How would we deal with a situation where an admin blocks an account with five, six, or seven operators? Are they all blocked? Only the person that made the edits? What if they all contributed? Think about RfAs. How would we discuss our trust in an admin candidate when there are 10 people on the account? Would some of the operators be allowed to use the tools and not others? These would be very messy situations. Then there is the argument in favor of "XYZ Company" style usernames. I don't think this is an inherently bad idea, but I do think it is a slippery slope. It's not inherently bad because simply having a name in the form of "User:XYZ Company" doesn't mean you are promoting your company or sharing your account. But when it is the norm in business for employees to use shared resources on behalf of the company they work for, the average person is going to assume that if they work for XYZ Company, they are completely fine using the account called "User:XYZ Company" their colleague created. This is going to lead to a lot of situations where people are sharing accounts. For these reasons, I cannot support the proposal. NTox · talk 00:13, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose per Nat Gertler and TRPoD. - Jorgath (talk) ^(contribs) 00:22, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
• Strong support I find the extent of opposition very unexpected. The purpose of this is to facilitate honesty. If people are in fact representing a company, and they are being honest and want to say so, their username should reflect this, and use the company name. Enforcement would be at the deWP does, by asking for private certification through an off wiki process. All too many reasonable editors have been removed for this because they are trying to do what would seem to them and to anyone not over-immersed in our peculiarities to be reasonable. . The purpose of this is not to increase COI in editing, it's to bring it out into the open so we can monitor it. I do a great deal of work with COI problems, and this would make it much easier--both to establish a good will with those who want to follow the rules, and ease in dealing with those who do not. DGG ( talk ) 02:02, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

• But DGG, they can have the company name within their username already, that's allowed (they just can't use the company name on its own as the username). What isn't allowed is for multiple people to share a single account, which is part of what this proposal is asking for. How is it facilitating honesty to allow any number of people to edit Wikipedia using a single account? -- Atama頭 03:44, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

• It looks like I may have conflated two related issues with the RfC framing, whether to allow names that are simply the unqualified name of a group, and whether we should allow such accounts to be shared. As NTox pointed out, allowing the former would probably cause many to assume the latter was allowed, but technically we could allow unqualified group-name accounts while still requiring them to be single-user. Gigs (talk) 18:18, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

• I don't think we can do so while preserving the community's confidence that such accounts belong to a single person. While this is technically true that there is no method (other than linguistic analysis, time-of-edit analysis, etc.) to give high confidence that any particular account is not being used by more than one person, lack of such confidence is in and of itself a good reason to not allow accounts whose names imply they are shared-use accounts. About the only way I can be sure a "company name" account like "Acme Ltd." is used by only one person is if I know that the company only has one person in it. For example, if "Acme Photography of Springfield" was known to be the corporate name of a particular photographer who had no assistants and who didn't outsource any of his public-relations, then we can assume that the account is being used by one person. Otherwise, we can't. Since we can't, and since the name implies multiple users, we can't allow the name without relaxing our "one editor per account" rule. Based on the comments above there is a strong consensus against relaxing this rule. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 18:53, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

• There is a difference between "I am Joe and I work at Acme and represent them", and "this is the Wikipedia account for the Acme Corporation". The first account is explicitly being used by a single editor (who may be editing by proxy for others, but we're still dealing with one person when working with that account). The second account is at least implying that it will be shared, and that is why I objected to the term "corporate account" and especially the term "group account". I don't even like a corporate account that belongs to a one-person corporation, because that can always change (the person gets an assistant, or a secretary). And this isn't just a matter of what is allowed, but it's also a matter of what is conveyed to people who are creating accounts. If someone makes a corporate account, we say it's okay because it's just one person, then this person expands, they can argue that we let them create an account to represent the whole corporation. This is complicated a bit by our language about "grandfather clauses". So that's where a lot of my concerns are coming from. -- Atama頭 19:42, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

• I'm not getting this line of reasoning. Okay, here we go:
  1. "I'm Joe, and I work at Acme" is good. But why can't Joe have a username of plain old "Acme", and state on the same thing on his user page? If we're reasonably confident that the account isn't being shared (e.g., if the OTRS e-mails to confirm that it's not a hoax include the name of the person who is assigned to deal with it), then why would we get hung up on the username? Most companies don't have the time or interest in training multiple people to deal with Wikipedia, after all: We've actually seen very few shared accounts over the years (not counting student assignments). If what we actually want is "no sharing", then why not keep the "no sharing" rule, and quit worrying about the username?
  2. If you require the username to be "Joe at Acme", and the company finds this inconvenient, then what makes you think that the company won't just make up a name and pretend that only one person is using it? Corporate history is littered with fake people: Betty Crocker, Franklin W. Dixon, Carolyn Keene. Do you want to push people towards accounts named "David at Acme"?
  3. What are you going to do with account names that have been explicitly permitted for years at Commons, and are now explicitly permitted at the German Wikipedia, if the editor happens to make an edit over here? Laugh at them for being so naïve as to assume that, having done a lot of paperwork to establish their credentials, and having been automagically logged in via WP:SUL, that they weren't going to be blocked on sight for not knowing the local quirks? If what they're doing is reasonable—say, a museum updating a description of artwork they own—is blocking them for having the "wrong" username actually helpful to anyone? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:19, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

1. We have a policy against role accounts. I'm not going to again go over why that is (I've expanded on it already as have others here) but we should discourage usernames that imply that they would be used as role accounts because it sends a clearer message to people that role accounts are forbidden, and it helps avoid misunderstandings where someone may assume that an account is a role account when it really isn't.
2. This goes back to the old argument about why we bother to block anyone, or ban anyone, or try to forbid sockpuppetry, when it's reasonably easy for someone to circumvent those rules. Or why we have a COI guideline if people can just lie about having a COI. Or even why we have this new disclosure requirement for paid editors, if they can just deny being paid editors. The answer to all of these is that we don't base our guidelines and policies on what we can easily enforce. We have policies and guidelines because they represent what is best for the project. If it is better for companies to avoid having role accounts, then we'll ask them not to use them. If they do it anyway, and we find out, we'll enforce our policy. If they do it and we don't find out, that sucks, but we have to at least try. Believe it or not, there are people (even at corporations) who actually make an effort to follow policies and guidelines, even if they're inconvenient to follow, even if they could probably get away with not following them. It's better to have a good policy that some people will follow than to get rid of a good policy because some people may get away with not following it.
3. Guidelines and policies change from project to project. We shouldn't be forced to allow behavior at this project that the community disapproves of because another project allows it. And keep in mind that username violations at the most lead to softblocks; they are allowed to create a new account that follows our policy, or they can request an unblock to change their username. And that is the most that should happen, often they are just asked to change their username and it is explained what the violation is. If the account is showing other disruption aside from the username, then they may be hardblocked, but in that case the username is a minor issue compared to their actual conduct and they probably would have been blocked even if their username did comply with policy. -- Atama頭 17:00, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

1. "We have a policy against role accounts": True, but utterly irrelevant. This is an RFC to stop having that policy. The fact that the policy currently exists is not an argument in favor of keeping that policy in the future.
2. "If it is better [for the English Wikipedia] for companies to avoid having role accounts": Is it? That's the question that's being asked here. I've not been impressed with the arguments presented.
3. "username violations at the most lead to softblocks": No, that's not true. Username violations should, per policy, lead only to softblocks on our end. But they actually do lead to hardblocks from sloppy and/or aggressive admins. They actually do lead to hard feelings and a poor reputation for Wikipedia. They also do lead to responsible organizations refusing to make good, non-promotional edits here because they don't want to mess with keeping different accounts straight. Now, you might say that you can't possibly be held responsible for someone feeling rejected and unwanted "just" because you blocked them. But I'd say that we need to take full responsibility for the consequences of our actions. It's possible that this policy, on balance, is worth it. It's also possible that this policy, on balance, is not worth it. But let's not pretend that there is no downside to blocking people who are doing good work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:15, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose, essentially agree with TheRedPenOfDoom and Carrite, above. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 20:34, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose per JohnCD's cogent argument and striking recent example above. Bishonen | talk 23:43, 26 March 2014 (UTC).
• Strong support I'm with DGG. This provides transparency (we know that the company itself is supposed to be backing this account's actions and can't claim that it's just one rogue employee) and we can set up rules that tell them that they need to make sure that anyone touching the account is fully informed about policies and any messages that were sent to any previous employee. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:54, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. "Joe at Acme Marketing" fulfills the requirements for transparency without introducing some of the problems (mentioned by others above) that "Acme Marketing Department" does. Yes I suppose sometimes "Joe at Acme Marketing" will be used by more than one person. It's still better for us if we can assume (or pretend, if you will) that it's a single person, it slightly simplifies our approach to administering accounts. Also, while the idea that everyone editing is, at least in theory, an individual person wanting to build an encyclopedia rather than an interest group wanting to build market share may seem quaint, there are those of us who are oddly fond of the notion. Herostratus (talk) 07:17, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. That's strange typo, I read it "Wikipedia", it seems I'm on Wikia now.--AldNon^Ucallin?☎ 15:24, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
• Support per DGG and OP. Companies are legal persons, and responsible for their employees' actions. Besides, many small but notable businesses register an account that's simply the business name, and there is a huge administrative overhead involved in blocking these accounts and asking them to re-register using a differently-named account that generally obscures the company relationship and any associated conflicts of interest. As a minimum, when a person who is blocked under the current username policy is asked to re-register, they should be told to re-register with an account name that includes the business name. It's a basic measure to promote increased transparency. Andreas JN466 13:25, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. One person, one account. This is simple, this has worked, there is no reasonable reason for this to be changed. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 21:12, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
• Strong oppose. Accounts need individual accountability. Also agree with Herostratus and AldNon. --TorriTorri(^talk/_contribs) 10:54, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
• Strongly support moving away from a blanket block-on-sight approach. Firm rules are good, certainly, but firm rules that don't start with "go away" are much better. This is the first and biggest barrier to any positive engagement opportunity with organisations, and we are instantly putting people off by it. If the accounts make bad edits, great, block them for that reason. But I don't think this approach actually benefits the projects overall. Andrew Gray (talk) 14:51, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

• Disallowing group accounts does not require a block-on-sight policy, nor do we have one. Normal practice at WP:UAA if new accounts have not made edits indicating a COI is to use {{Uw-username}} to explain the policy and invite the user to ask for a change of username or to set up a new account. Even where blocked, {{Uw-softerblock}} and {{Uw-causeblock}} courteously invite the user to "take a moment to create a new account with a username that represents only yourself as an individual"; the more drastic {{Uw-spamusernameblock}} is normally used only where there have been grossly promotional edits. JohnCD (talk) 15:07, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

• "Block on sight" may be a little dramatic, I grant (though it certainly happens!) but a policy that says "shared usernames are not permitted" more or less leads to an inexorable block. The practical result is much the same. Andrew Gray (talk) 16:42, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose as written Actually 'it is written defectively because (either deliberately or accidentally) there are two very different questions bundled together and that has made the discussion complicated.:
  • Allow a company etc. name as a part of a user name?; I'd support that. (Iisn't this allowed already?)
  • Allow a name to be held by a group. Very Very bad idea.....that would remove all accountability responsibility for actions. North8000 (talk) 16:49, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

North8000 (talk) 16:49, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

• • • I wouldn't call it accidental or purposeful, just that due to commons and German Wikipedia practice of allowing both, it seemed to me at the time that the issues were inseparable, but after further discussion, it's clear that isn't necessarily the case. Regarding your first question, it should be "should we allow accounts where the username is simply a company name", because as you note, usernames that include a company name as well as a unique identity, were already allowed, even though much of our templates and documentation did not communicate this accurately. Gigs (talk) 17:39, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
• Strong oppose - per many above, ...it's not broke. Mlpearc (open channel) 18:34, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
• Support in principle but we need to be sure that (a) the acount-holding party really does represent the group and (b) clarify that blocking / banning the acount-holding party really does ammount to blocking / banning the group, even in cases of multinational orgs and companies with tens of thousands of possible meat puppets. Stuartyeates (talk) 00:23, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose allowing role accounts. Collaboration requires communication, and communication requires that a username is associated with only one individual, just to make sure that you know that the user you are talking to now is the same person you were talking to yesterday. There are also concerns related to copyright and attribution, and responsibility for (mis)conduct.  Sandstein  20:10, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

• Just to be fair, the WMF legal team has stated that there is no longer a copyright or attribution concern with role accounts (see the top of this RfC). That's pretty much what started this RfC to begin with. I agree with everything else you said, though, we need to operate under the assumption that when we speak to an account we're speaking to the same person each time. I believe that's one of the reasons why accounts are given privileges not given to people who edit under an IP (because there is accountability and an edit history tied to one person). -- Atama頭 21:05, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose per many of the oppose votes above. Accounts representing a single person are a necessity. Sam Walton (talk) 20:19, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. It seems to enable the sort of behavior (for example, having an "official" account that sees itself in charge of an entity's "official" position at Wikipedia) that we want to discourage. Instead, people should not be editing on behalf of an organization to represent their interests, rather they should be editing on their own because they are interested in writing an encyclopedia. --Jayron32 22:31, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose There are two proposals here which are unrelated. One is for group accounts and the other is for role accounts. This proposal should not have put these together because now I have to oppose it all. I would oppose group accounts but support role accounts for individual users. The WMF already uses role accounts by having users put WMF after their names - other organizations could do the same thing. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:42, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Simply for understanding, how do you define "role account" and "group account"? The sockpuppet policy at WP:ROLE defines role accounts as "accounts shared by multiple people", but I don't think that's how everyone understands it. NTox · talk 23:59, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose — The general spirit of Wikipedia is that single-purpose accounts (SPAs) are highly frowned upon in pretty much everything. The real reason overt role accounts end up blocked-on-sight is that they inevitably start promoting something, and when it comes to company-wide role accounts (e.g., "User:ExampleCorp"), there's zero accountability for missteps and violations in policy: everything is someone else's fault, much like the "my little brother vandalized" defense. Given that, I feel that creating additional bureaucracy to support any incarnation of them is counterproductive and is in no way balanced by a perceived ease-of-identification-of-bias label. Furthermore, as affiliations come and go, we'd inevitably be relied upon to change those passwords or otherwise dissociate them from their claimed affiliation. For example: User:John Doe (Microsoft) ragequits from Microsoft. What then? Either John Doe has to proactively request a username change—assuming he ever does—or we have to reactively respond to their demands of Microsoft with some sort of usurping/password change/account-disabling shenanigans. Furthermore, I can safely say that we don't want corporate-sponsored sysops (really any other permission holder either) or any sort of incentive to advertising using your username. It just doesn't seem appropriate in a place where one of the five pillars is a policy of neutrality. We want normal people; we want volunteers; we want people who come here because they love or hate or just want to improve something on here. While there are plenty of exceptions with what we actually get, the fundamental unit of "editor" that we want to support is the human, not the organization. --slakr^\ talk / 03:47, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
• Partial support I make no comment on allowing company names, but I think a group usage should be permitted. That said, the same rules around behaviour should apply as if it were an individual account - i.e. if one person using the account does vandal edits, the account will be punished the same even if another user of that account objects. I think we need to make rules like that clear as a pre-requisite to allowing multiple users on an account (which certainly happens already anyway). SFB 22:04, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose I am going to keep my comment brief since most of what I would have said has been covered. In particular see Atama's points. -Ad Orientem (talk) 02:31, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. This RFC is badly structured, because it presents two changes as a package. For clarity, I oppose both: 1) No role accounts: Editors need to be accountable for their actions, and that is possible only if each account is owned and used by one human. 2) No organisational names in accounts, because that would create problems when a user leaves the organisation, and confusion about whether they are authorised to speak on behalf of their employer. COIs should be declared on user pages and in relevant discussions, not hardwired into user names. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:26, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose: I've had a think about this (bad idea as I already had a headache) and here's my hits. On the Oppose side we've got that "someone else did it" can become a fair rule. On the support side we have that they would have identified official staff members using the account to the OTRS Team. The big issue is that what if they have someone on the team who isn't savvy with Wikipedia (through not being trained or whatever else) or they put someone new on the editing team with aforementioned lack of savvy? And let's not forget that if one of them goofs then they can play the blame game all day long. Of course they could have to make sure that we're clued in every time changes occur. But let's be honest, what.'a the odds of them all remembering each and every time? MM (I did the who in the whatnow?) ^{(I did this! Me!)} 00:10, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Discussion

Well, that early surge of opposition was unexpected. In case it wasn't clear:

• German Wikipedia has allowed this for quite a while now, and they don't really have any serious problems with it.
• It is not a license to create a multi-user account to dodge accountability, such role accounts would only be for real organizations and groups.
• Definitely not a license to allow any sort of promotional editing. It's a tool to keep better track of promotional editing and increase transparency, not decrease it. If an account is purely promotional, they can still be blocked for that. And you can make it a hard block, not a username soft block.
• If we don't change this, our official policy will be "you must clearly disclose any affiliations that are paying you related to editing Wikipedia, except, you have to have a username that hides those affiliations" Gigs (talk) 18:22, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
  • I think you misunderstand our policy. Our policy (seen at WP:ISU) obviously allowed for affiliations to be mentioned in usernames, and even provides examples (which include "Mark at WidgetsUSA" and "Jack Smith at the XY Foundation"). -- Atama頭 19:21, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) No, individual usernames of the form "Mark at WidgetsUSA" or "Jack Smith at the XY Foundation" are explicitly permitted by WP:ISU and serve to declare affiliations. JohnCD (talk) 19:24, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

• Let me add, I don't oppose modifying our policy to include language that mentioning a company affiliation in a username can help editors comply with requests for disclosure. I think that would help a lot if the proposed TOU change is implemented as a number of people are predicting. -- Atama頭 19:25, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

• At the very minimum, we need to make it much clearer in our communication templates we leave people when we block them for corporate usernames to encourage them to use an "individual with affiliation" username. We have conflicting information all over the place regarding it. ...usernames that match or include your organization's name, or website name, are usually viewed as inappropriate under Wikipedia's username policy. Instead, please have your organization's representative register an individual account that doesn't reference your organization. This is just one example. As I mentioned before, the common block templates say things like "register a new account that represents you as an individual only", as well. If encouraging "Affiliated individual" accounts is the answer to this RfC, we need to do a much better job of it, because I've never seen one, other than WMF employees. Gigs (talk) 20:14, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

• That template is misleading and conflicts with the policy as written when it says it can't include an organization name, nor can it reference the organization, and it really does need to be addressed. However, it should represent a person only as an individual, that much is true. The individual person could potentially represent their company, I suppose, but again we'd need at minimum OTRS verification to be sure that what they're claiming is valid. And that may lead to a discussion that is bigger than the username policy... How do we verify that the person editing with a corporate IP is qualified to speak on their behalf and isn't an intern working for the summer? (See here for what happened when a radio station took the word of an intern at the NTSB who spoke on behalf of the organization.) -- Atama頭 20:28, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

• That's in the corporate FAQ we link them to from the block templates actually. It's wrong about the copyright thing too, in light of the recent WMF statement. You are right that scenario of false representation will be an issue in the future, but that's an inevitable issue that is more of a result of affiliation disclosure rather than anything related to usernames. We'll have to issue disclosure guidance for people so they can disclose a non-official relationship vs a spokesperson relationship. More of an issue for the COI guideline than here. Gigs (talk) 20:34, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

• Oh yes, that is definitely something that falls under COI. A discussion there is probably warranted after this discussion concludes. -- Atama頭 22:53, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

• I don't see anything wrong with an *individual* having a username like "Bob at XYZ corp* along with an OTRS confirmation from the company. Anything else would likely cause problems. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 23:54, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

• I fixed the BFAQ. It should have been changed a couple of years ago when we formally approved of the "Mark at Widgets" name style. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:23, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

I just made an update to Template:Uw-coi-username that explicitly mentions the fact that a username in the variety of "Mark at XYZ Company" is permitted. I went short of explicitly recommending it (as I don't know for sure if there is consensus for actively encouraging it, though for the record I would support that). NTox · talk 02:59, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

To Gigs (or anyone else): If you find any more templates that conflict with policy, as you talked about above, feel free to post them. I'd be willing to fix them up. NTox · talk 03:07, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll keep an eye out and let you know or fix them myself. Gigs (talk) 17:30, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

• Call me crazy but this doesn't make sense. The legal opinion says that promotional/institutional accounts are forbidden but this policy has nothing to do with attribution as an "original author." Ok, that's akin to saying that our policy is that murder is illegal but that policy was not designed based on what kind of car you drive. Now the nominator says that murder should be legal because some people have good reasons for killing others and car ownership is officially not a factor. Neither the nominator nor any participant in this RfC has the authority to change the policy. Chris Troutman (talk) 01:12, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

  You're crazy.
  The legal opinion above says that the community at the English Wikipedia has (so far) chosen to prohibit names that are accepted at other WMF projects. It does not say that the community must or should have this prohibition; it merely notes that this local prohibition currently exists. It does say that the excuse (about copyrights) that we've been feeding people as the justification for this local rule is invalid. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:39, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

  • Yep. It was long thought that our prohibition on role accounts was pretty much required by our licensing. The WMF statement just was making it clear that there's no copyright issues involved, while noting it's still current en.wp policy to forbid role accounts. This RfC would have changed the policy but it doesn't look like it's heading for that consensus. Gigs (talk) 18:30, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

• As per Smallbones Lotje (talk) 07:29, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

• @Gigs: Thanks for helping to clear up the misbelief that multiple persons contributing to a single account is a problem for attribution purposes. As indicated above, there is still a desire to restrict group editing for other reasons. There was some support for role accounts (used by a single person) , so you could untangle these two (group and role), and revisit this in the future if you think a formal OTRS verification process and greater acceptance of 'role accounts' would be a net positive for the encyclopedia. Thanks for putting this RFC together. –xeno^talk 01:13, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Good closure, thanks. Gigs (talk) 18:45, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

WP:REALNAME

Perhaps we need some clarification of the wording of WP:REALNAME? Antidiskriminator (talk · contribs) just warned the new editor KazanElia (talk · contribs) for having an account name similar to Elia Kazan, who died over a decade ago. I cannot fathom how this username might cause harm or confusion, because it is obvious that KazanElia cannot be the same person as Elia Kazan, but perhaps we need to improve the wording of WP:REALNAME to prevent further biting of new editors. Maybe something like this?

If you have the same name as a real, living, well-known person to whom you are unrelated, and are using your real name, you should state clearly on your userpage that you are unrelated to the well-known person.

Thoughts? bobrayner (talk) 09:57, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

As I understand it, the rule is supposed to apply only to the living (or recently deceased) already, but this is simply not reflected in the wording. Can anyone confirm? NTox · talk 21:42, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

That interpretation would be consistent with BLP policy, but our practice generally has been to extend it to well known dead people too. User:ElvisPresley was username banned before they even made one edit, for example. Gigs (talk) 17:25, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Seriously? What did that accomplish? rspεεr (talk) 01:41, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Probably drove off a potentially constructive contributor, like most of the blocks based on usernames. –xeno^talk 01:46, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

@Hoops gza: Activity on this front, User:hoops gza has sent a large batch of famous Nazi related usernames to UAA. This action is correct under the current interpretation of this policy. Gigs (talk) 15:26, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Example of Username Policy violation?

I'm here to ask this: would a username like "HoustonGardens314" be a violation of the Wikipedia username policy? (I don't intend for that to be my new username, however, it's just a what-if question.) Jim856796 (talk) 20:50, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Depends, does HoustonGardens exist as an organization? the panda ₯’ 22:46, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

No, sir. But what if this "Houston Gardens" were an apartment complex (real or fictitious/made-up), and the "314" is an apartment number? Jim856796 (talk) 23:32, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

It wouldn't be the smartest userid then ... giving one's address away. But then again, Houston Gardens might be in Alma, Michigan. Now, there would need to be more to the story: is it a shared account between room-mates? (block) Is it editing an article about Houston Gardens? (block). Is it promoting Houston Gardens on its userpage? (block) the panda ₯’ 23:37, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

It'd be a shared account between roommates. I would think this "Houston Gardens" would really be a fictitious/made-up name. What if the supposed "address" were fake? Jim856796 (talk) 00:07, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, shared accounts are automatically disallowed under the username policy. The point is, there are many variables ... for example, if there's a Chinese Restaurant or a Punk band somewhere called "Dangerous Panda", should my username be blocked? The answer is: it depends the panda ₯’ 00:12, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Then, what if somebody purposely made up that username because it (or any variant thereof) is unlikely to be used by anything/anyone else in the future? Jim856796 (talk) 00:34, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 July 2014

117.199.102.217 (talk) 05:28, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Anon126 (notify me of responses! / talk / contribs) 05:35, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 August 2014

Vj60-wiki (talk) 14:07, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

• You have not said what you want us to change. I've closed your request, but feel free to reopen it once you tell us what you want edited. Monty₈₄₅ 14:18, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Should we issue warnings to users for their username who have never edited?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Should we issue warnings to users for their username who have never edited?

It has been drawn to my attention that the advice being offered in relation to improper usernames is unclear in whether we should be warning users ({{uw-username}}; {{uw-coi-username}}) for their username who have never made their first edit (e.g. [1] [2]). Suggested new wording to the top of Wikipedia:Username policy#Dealing with inappropriate usernames:

Consider leaving well alone

If the name is not unambiguously problematic, it may be sensible to ignore it. Assume good faith, and also note the exceptions in the section on inappropriate usernames. Generally, one should not ask a user to change their username unless the user has made at least one recent edit.

–xeno^talk 15:41, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

No, users who have never edited should not be warned or asked to change their username prior to their first edit

• I think this is a jarring first experience for someone who has never even made their first edit, and in many cases unnecessary as the account may never be used and does not need to be issued a warning. Extreme cases (attack usernames, etc.) can be reported to WP:UAA and reviewed for blocked on sight. Also, soon we will may be sending these users over to m:SRUC for global username changes with Wikipedia:BN#Global renaming adding another confusing and bureaucratic element to a user's first steps into the project. –xeno^talk 15:41, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

• I agree with Xeno , for all the reasons he's mentioned above. Wait for them to edit (except in cases of attack names ) and then template them if need be. Kosh Vorlon   16:36, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
• This counts as double !voting but I want to note that I'm extremely sympathetic to Xeno's view here. It is a jarring first experience and often one which is totally unexpected for new editors given that most (if not all) other "collaborative" or social media sites welcome corporate accounts, accounts named after whatever and role accounts. That doesn't mean our policies should change (indeed for role accounts they can't), but it does mean that many users will bring with them perfectly reasonable assumptions about naming which we have to disabuse very carefully. While the coi name template is among our least brusque and irritating user warning templates (I say that with genuine admiration, it's not easy to do), it's still a potentially crappy thing to land on someone before they get started. With that in mind I still weakly prefer the use of name templates. Protonk (talk) 18:24, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
• Overall, I agree with Xeno. We should not waste our limited energy on tagging accounts that aren't being used. Honestly, in many cases, I'd wait until the second edit, because very few registered accounts (~10%?) ever make it that far. "Self-ending" accounts should be ignored. ("Generally" is critical; judgement must be used.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:46, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
• If a username is obviously malicious (i.e. its racist), then the user should be banned on sight. Otherwise, just wait. Many new users do not become active and it is a waste of everyone's time to warn or pursue name changes for a user who may never edit. Plus, giving new users warnings before they even start editing is really intimidating and does not create a pleasant editing environment. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 02:35, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
• I agree with Xeno's comment. This comes over as aggressive and probably unhelpful. Andrew Gray (talk) 19:56, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
• I too agree with Xeno; they aren't hurting anyone if they haven't made any edits yet. What I've seen is that often people try to impersonate established users by creating similar usernames and redirecting to the established user's page; so we would be able to warn/block them since they would have edited already. WP:AGF and WP:BITE are two of our most important policies and we have to abide by them if we don't want to keep driving potential contributors away. Jinkinson talk to me 17:50, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, users who have never edited may be asked to change their username

• If a username IS a problem, is it best to have it corrected as soon as possible regardless of whether they have made any previous edits or not? But I would change the "should" to "may". —Farix (t | c) 19:58, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

  I agree re "should" vs "may" - and since you're the first endorsement of this particular wording, I've changed it to "may". –xeno^talk 20:19, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

• Yes, it is no less jarring to hear they have a bad user name after they have made one or two edits than before if you think about it, and it is easier to catch them before, via monitoring the user creation log. As a maintenance concern, it takes much less time as well and some names don't slip through the cracks. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 23:30, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
• I've never quite understood the reticence about fixing a bad username whenever it is discovered. Per Dennis. BMK (talk) 02:05, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
• Exactly. Per above and my comments below. --I dream of horses (T) @ 03:35, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
• As far as may be asked, sure-if it is an obvious problem name, dealing with it from the new user log vs RCP makes more sense. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:49, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
• Obvious problem name is obvious. If it's an unambiguously improper username, it's almost always going to be just as much of an issue after they've edited. If they end up being an exception to "almost always", it still doesn't hurt to have warned them: "Users who adopt such usernames, but who are not editing problematically in related articles...should be gently encouraged to change their username" (from WP:CORPNAME). I'd say {{uw-coi-username}} does a pretty good job of gentle encouragement.—LucasThoms 15:44, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
• Yes, may is the correct approach. This should be far down anyone's list of priorities, perhaps at the very bottom, but it's technically correct and potentially helpful so if this how an editor wants to volunteer her or his time then that's perfectly fine. ElKevbo (talk) 20:49, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

• I don't think it need be jarring. The message should be softened if it is. If it is bot-written, it should merely raise the possibility that the name is inappropriate. Users who have never edited should not be sent for renaming, they will surely work out how to register a new name.

  Would doing this be a waste of time? volunteers should not be telling other volunteers what they should be doing with their time. If something thinks there is value in this, and that it can be done efficiently, and it causes no harm, then do it, yes. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:42, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

• A requirement to wait until they edit is pointless.  Unscintillating (talk) 02:07, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
• Users with policy-violating usernames, particularly company/org names that also violate WP:ISU, should be forced to change names before editing. It's a burden when, patrolling the new account creation log, we find an obvious corporate/multi-user name (e.g. BobsPhotoStudio) and have to create some sort of follow-up list to manually go back and watch for them to edit before being able to do anything. Worse yet is not following up. It's like seeing a time bomb out there and waiting for it to blow up before doing anything to defuse it. The perception that a block is harsh may be the problem. If it is presented nicely, it can be seen as just a requirement before editing instead of being punitive. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 21:30, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
• If we wait until these users make an edit, then it will be seen on the history. Let me elaborate, if for say there is a page for corporation "WSAD", and one night a user named "HR @ WSAD" makes a small addition, and the next night "VP @ WSAD" makes an edit, etc, eventually, although one can see the history of the article, it is possible for the whole article to be brought into question. Even if that user makes no edits, I believe that they should at least be informed that it is involation of policy. It would be a good idea to soften the template used, and maybe use two different ones for those with/without an edit. For ones without edits, they should be informed that before any edits take place, they should change their username. Jab843 (talk) 03:10, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
• Why should we wait when we see a problematic username? Newcomers' experience may be hurt if they constantly get biten partially based on their unintentioal violation of WP:USERNAME, possibly prompting some to leave. Therefoore it's better to solve the issue before it gets into a big problem.Forbidden User (talk) 17:17, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

View by User:Hammersoft: Corporate names

I think the above change suggested by User:Xeno is too generic in wording. {{uw-coi-username}} is used by a number of users to warn editors with corporate usernames, even if they have not edited. This has multiple benefits to the project:

• It educates: To date, we have blocked in excess of 100,000 users for using promotional usernames (ref; see total here). By using the {{uw-coi-username}} template, we are educating these companies and helping to get the word out that Wikipedia is not a means of self promotion.
• It helps operation: We experience a great deal of content being added by companies attempting to promote themselves. While much of it is provided in good faith, almost all of it is promotional in nature. Using this template helps to stem this enormous tide of content. This reduces burdens on administrators having to delete such content, and editors having to remove content from existing pages for being promotional.
• It allows tracking: Attempting to police such addition of content after it has been added is problematic. We have no holding pen for potentially problematic accounts if we do not warn. Not warning forces us to rely on the off chance it will be detected at a later date. This frequently does not work. Many companies, while notable under our guidelines, have pages with very few editors/watchers to police what is being added. By placing the {{uw-coi-username}} template on their talk page, we categorize the editors and provide ourselves a means of tracking these users (see Category:Wikipedia usernames with possible policy issues).
• Less hostile: Frequently, editors with corporate names are blocked after they edit, and are not given an opportunity to change their names. Using {{uw-coi-username}} gives them an opportunity to do so before being blocked. Recent examples from today CHU request for: CityofHumboldt and CHU request for: recyclebikesforkids. Giving a warning before being blocked is considerably less jarring than being blocked and forced to create a new username (if you're even allowed to, depending on the level of block).
• Username not permissible: The policy at Wikipedia:Username_policy#Usernames_implying_shared_use notes that usernames that imply shared use are not permitted. If a well meaning fan of Zibbly Wibbly Candies creates User:Zibbly Wibbly Candies, the account name is not permissible anyway. It does not matter if they ever edit mainspace or not. The account name is not permissible.
• It prevents problems: By not communicating policy to the editor, we end up with problems like a request today at CHU request for: Gatekeepersystemsinc. Had the user been communicated with via {{uw-coi-username}}, we would have avoided this improper request.
• It avoids setting traps for new editors: Instead of informing editors that corporate usernames are problematic regardless of their editing, we instead silently invite them to edit. This creates a trap for them, and being caught in such a trap is aggressive towards new editors. Not informing them is aggressive by way of allowing them to edit while we know full well it won't be accepted.

In summary: Using {{uw-coi-username}} before editing begins does not undermine any function of the project. It enhances operation of the project. It helps to educate companies. It helps reduce burden on administrators. It is less aggressive towards new editors than blocking. It avoids improper requests to WP:CHU. It is less aggressive than not warning. It supports policy. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:51, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:51, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
2. Protonk (talk) 15:44, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
3. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:06, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
4. Mlpearc (open channel) 18:21, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
5. This is a specific case where I support warning before editing. Warning could very well prevent a block, and in the case of role accounts, may actually educate more than one person. --I dream of horses (T) @ 03:34, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
6. Broadly agree, but see my additional comment below. RomanSpa (talk) 06:35, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
7. —LucasThoms 15:46, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
8. Broadly agree too, but suggest a template tweak below NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:51, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
9. Zell Faze (talk) 00:05, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
10. I agree with User:Xeno that a warning template is jarring, but I feel like that impact is mostly independent of when it is received and it will have to be received some time. I like User:Hammersoft's argument about how it can be educational and head off problems before they begin. Antrocent (♫♬) 01:04, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

View by User:Sphilbrick: better solution

This problem would not exist if we auto-assigned user names for an initial period, then let them choose their own name if they stick around. See User:Sphilbrick/User naming convention proposal for more details as well as other benefits. Initial user experience is important. Having oneself blocked as the first introduction to the community must rank up their with the worst possible experiences. Has anyone done a study to see how many users who were blocked early simply because of a user name persevered, created a new name, and became a productive editor. I';m sure there are some, but I bet they are rare. --S Philbrick(Talk) 15:35, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:07, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
2. I agree with the problem however, not sure on the solution. Mlpearc (open channel) 18:24, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
3. Strong support. I have helped others, and played with creating accounts, and it was a very tedious process of finding a unique username of any meaning. There should be automated assistance in choosing a pronounceable, available, username. Auto assignment of a username that can be changed when auto-confirmed sounds like a very good idea. I also support freeing up old accounts that have never edited, and probably also old accounts that have only deleted edits. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:50, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Comments:

1. I'm a little conerned about this approach since BY-SA requires attribution of the content creator ("You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor"), and those auto-generated names prevent new contributors being correctly attributed for their work, which may be a legal problem. It does not matter whether you allow them to choose their own names after they stick around - Their work should be properly credited to comply with the license, regardless of amount or time. Also, this might turn new users away if they realize they are not properly credited for their work. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 06:17, 21 July 2014 (UTC) @Sphilbrick: Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 06:30, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

   How do we accommodate an IP who might decide they want to be attributed as "The greatest Wikipedia editor ever"? Or anything else? I think the simple answer is that you don't get to change the manner of attribution after the edit, so if you do not like the computer generated name, you don't have to edit.--S Philbrick(Talk) 21:13, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

   @Sphilbrick: While it's true that IPs cannot choose how they are attributed, we don't need another stuff that prevents users from being credited properly. Also, it's about whether we give them the right to choose an attribution, not whether they accept the attribution. Apart from this, auto-generated names may be difficult to remember and distinguish by other editors and themselves, leading to inconvenience of the users themselves ("What's my username again?"), and decline in user interaction (Strange and impersonal, like "Hello, Editor140722.0001, you participated in the AfD of Foo, however.... Oops, it was directed at Editor140722.0011, sorry for that."). Moreover, this can also cause naming conflicts in global accounts. For example, if one registered here on enwiki but hasn't reached the threshold for choosing a name creates a linked account on zhwiki, it may be "unfair" for him, since users in zhwiki are not subject to this restriction, but he/she is forced to use this impersonal name there. Additionally, I'm concerned that this might encourage the use of disposable accounts, which is more difficult to track compared with plain IPs (CUs will be very busy this way). In conclusion, I agree with the intent, but not sure about your solution. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 04:45, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

2. I appreciate the intent, really. Few things, though. If this is such a problem, I don't see why it wouldn't work to just warn before blocking -- give every potentially bad username, even the worst ones, a friendly-ish warning and a chance to change their name. Wouldn't that work? Also, the idea of numbered, impersonal usernames reminds me of a concentration camp or a prison, and while I am fully aware this is one of the IDONTLIKEIT arguments you refer to, I do not think I am the only one who would get this impression; and perhaps a potential new user would feel the same way, and walk away after finding out that they couldn't have a name of their choice. I know I would. It may seem petty, but I think it's a realistic concern. I also second Zhaofeng Li's concerns except for the part about attribution which I can't comment on.
   Btw, I do know of a user who was blocked before he made any edits due to a bad username and later returned under another account. I won't give his name because I think he would rather keep it a secret, but I know he exists. Just thought I'd put that out there. Cathfolant (talk) 22:56, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

   Also (also), if we're going to technically restrict usernames, we do have the option of using the title blacklist. We could still implement the threshold thing in that administrators (and therefore bureaucrats and whatever there is up on top of the hierarchy) can override the blacklist, and so a user could request to have their name changed to one that would otherwise be blocked. Some other websites have far more arbitrary restrictions on usernames than Wikipedia; doing something like this would not be unprecedented. Cathfolant (talk) 23:04, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

General Discussion

• Note: There have been [3][4][5][6][7] previous discussions about this.

It seems to me that a username is either a block on sight type username that is obviosly offensive or that it is borderline and needs discussion with the user. In the case of the former then blocking without warning is the correct action, in the latter I see no point in bringing it up if the user has not edited.

I don't think there is anything wrong with contacting users who have not edited, but I think it is a waste of time considering many new accounts never make an edit.

I don't worry about someone slipping through the net by becoming stale before editing. If the name is problematic then someone will notice, and if nobody notices it is probably not problematic. Chillum 15:25, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the link to the previous discussion. This lead me to find that until a significant rewrite, the advice was clearer [8]: "Unless a username is blatantly inappropriate, or you think it needs a preemptive block, do not report it unless the user has begun editing. Most usernames that are registered are never used." –xeno^talk 15:58, 16 July 2014 (UTC) (actually this still didn't address bothering the user pre first-edit, so nevermind)

• Poorly crafted question and potential responses

The above RFC failed to really distinguish between (A) friendly educational notice (B) outright request for action and (C)enforcement. I think friendly notice (which some might call a 'warning') is just fine but not required; in absence of overt problem request for action is obnoxious; in absence of overt problem enforcement is a waste of resources. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:35, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

What do you call {{uw-coi-username}} or {{uw-username}}? Personally I wouldn't call them friendly, they're closer to b, and they tag the user with a user category that leads to c (some admins will inappropriately block them after a short while). All for someone who may have never edited. –xeno^talk 15:44, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

You didn't explicitly ask under what circumstances the templates should be used, or to assess their content, so I didn't answer that question. You asked a question at a higher plane, and I answered. The question of how to do (whatever) is best discussed after a direction has been agreed upon. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:50, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

I asked if we should be pestering users to change their username (whether we pester them in a friendly manner, or pester them in an obnoxious manner) before they have edited. There's a reason we don't welcome users who have never edited, it is the same reason we should not be asking users who have never edited to change their username - regardless the method or relative "softness" of the request. –xeno^talk 15:58, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

• I don't think politely asking users via {{uw-coi-username}} to change their username when it is the name of a company is pestering. The username will never be allowed under our policy, and if they continue to edit under that name they will be blocked as a non-compliant name. Note that {{uw-coi-username}} is laced with multiples "please"s, "invited to", "recommend that you", etc. The elevation of that template as 'pestering' is subjective. I'd much rather use a standard template to this effect with language that we can agree on that one I came up with myself. If the wording of the template is objectionable to you, perhaps we can come up with a better wording for when a user registers an account under which they would never, ever be allowed to edit? --Hammersoft (talk) 20:39, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

• I think (@Xeno, correct me if I'm wrong) that xeno believes templated messages from a stranger are, ipso facto pestering (I do as well, to some extent). We're inured to that reality as regular editors and as a matter of practicality it's often simply not possible to handle messaging at scale without something that is at least semi-automated. But it's probably pestering all the same. I don't think softening the wording of the template will net us much in that regard. What may work is limiting the number of accounts we send the template out to; potentially bringing it down to a number such that a reasonable editor working on NPP or dealing w/ a queue of usernames might choose a personalized message over a template. Waiting until an account edits has two benefits in this regard. First, many accounts are registered and never make more than two edits. Limiting messages to those accounts which have made one or two edits cuts down on the volume considerably. Second, those one or two edits may be indicative of the message we want to send. Someone makes User:WidgetsRUs and proceeds to edit articles on BBC's Sherlock would get a very different message than an editor who jumped right in to Widgets R Us. Absent the information from those first few edits we can only send the blanket message. Protonk (talk) 21:43, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Comment. As I've indicated above, I broadly agree with User:Hammersoft, and am comfortable with the idea that new editors be contacted before they have started editing if their usernames are problematic. I don't agree with the suggestion that this would count as "pestering". However, I am very aware that many experienced editors can appear somewhat peremptory to newbies, so I would hope that (a) requests to change usernames should be made politely, with a clear explanation of the reason for the request, and (b) editors who change their usernames should be thanked after making the change. I feel we're actually quite good at being polite and fair in most of the requests we make of our colleagues, at least in these administrative areas, but we're very bad at thanking people. Since we're asking a new editor to take a specific action that will mean some work for them, I feel we should thank them afterwards. RomanSpa (talk) 06:57, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

The expectation of gratitude really jives with the point I'm trying to make on pestering.... before a user has made an edit, if its a borderline or subjective call, then the first contact should be a soft touch. We really don't know if they have the necessary WP:COMPETENCE but we should assume they do as part of CIVIL, DONTBITE, AGF etc. In my opinion, we should express our concerns to such users and trust that they will take the info, think, exercise their own judgment, and act appropriately. That's all consistent with DONTBITE, AGF, etc. If we hit them instead with the attitude that we have passed judgment and are commanding action (on a borderline subjective matter), why..... that's pestering (if not being an ass). Those two approaches convey different first impressions regarding collegial collaborative environment versus dysfunction. One is more likely to grow the community. The other is pestering, because it passes judgment, makes assumptions, and imperiously demands action (on a borderline subjective matter). Glaring problems that are unambiguous to anyone are a different kettle of fish of course. A NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:05, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Agree, discussion and welcoming are always preferred to templates and blocking, this depends on the level of Upol but, the issue is being addressed regardless of how many edits and other new users begin to see the pattern and learn what is acceptable and whats not. Mlpearc (open channel) 11:25, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

• Suggest template tweak

Regarding {{uw-coi-username}}, my comments above about AGF, community-building, and first impressions could be implemented without compromising the template if the last two sentences were tweaked.

Current

If you are a single individual and are willing to contribute to Wikipedia in an unbiased manner, please create a new account or request a username change that complies with our username policy. If you believe that your username does not violate our policy, please leave a note here explaining why. Thank you.

Proposed

Now that you know our policies, please review your username with that information in mind. Individuals who decide their original username might appear to be inappropriate may create a new account or request a username change. If you decide to keep your existing user name, please leave a note here explaining why you think it is not a violation of our policies.

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:05, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

@NewsAndEventsGuy: I like it, overall. For my money:

"Now that you know our policies, please review your username with that information in mind. Individuals who decide their original username might appear to be inappropriate may create a new account or request a username change. If you'd like to keep your existing user name, please leave a note here explaining why. Thank you."

Works better. It doesn't include the "explain with a policy based reason" bit (paraphrasing, of course) but in my experience that doesn't actually improve the kinds of responses you get. It prompts diligent editors with innapropriate names to wikilawyer and sounds imposing and prejudicial to anyone else. Thoughts? Protonk (talk) 18:31, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Another key is that I removed the bit that not so subtly hints we think the new ed with questionable name is likely be a biased ass but they can take steps to prove us wrong.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:45, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

• Support - change of template wording, regardless of the outcome of this RfC. Mlpearc (open channel) 18:55, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
• Also rather like the proposed new wording. If we wanted to go even softer, I wouldn't mind. RomanSpa (talk) 19:38, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
• I like the direction this is moving. The current wording is harsh and accusatory and assumes bad faith. The new proposals are very good.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 12:45, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

• As an admin with a lot of experience working at WP:UAA I have always felt it was context-dependent. The vast majority of usernames can be safely ignored if they have never made an edit, warning and reporting them just generates useless busywork and backlogs at UAA. There are exceptions, such as BLP violations, hate speech, severe obscenity, etc. Policy should say that, but should not attempt to define any "bright line rules." Beeblebrox (talk) 21:11, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Shouldn't the software filter new usernames and warn users when they try usernames containing words (or strings) that are offensive, derogatory or racist? It won't capture all of them, but it should kick them back and tell them why these are problematic and get them to enter a new username, rather than wait until their username is reviewed, and then they get a warning or a block? A stroll through the banned usernames should provide ample resources to create a dictionary of banned terms to stop a lot of these before they happen - a username with "troll" in it should never be allowed to be created in the first place, and if it is discouraging, then it is probably better earlier in the process that later.NiD.29 (talk) 23:51, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Using your troll example, what if someone really likes roller coasters, and so chooses the name IHeartRollerCoasters? A quick look at DQB's detections at UAA shows how hard it is to avoid false positives in a system like that.—LucasThoms 23:02, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

There are several possible solutions - it bounces back to the user and says why - so they can split it up or choose a new name, or they can submit for a manually entered exception, or the filtering is a soft filter, that warns the user that they can have it but they may be forced to change it if found to be in violation of the naming conventions (the message could read "You have submitted username "XXXXXX", which contains the string "XXX" which may be considered a violation of the naming conventions due to "reason XXX". If you believe this is not the case, please feel free to resubmit. It may be checked for compliance and if found in violation may require you to choose a new username." At the same time it would be tagged so an admin could make a spot check. This should reduce the workload since many bad names will be eliminated early.NiD.29 (talk) 17:22, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Promotional names – confusing example

The first example given at Promotional names of an unacceptable name is "AlexTownWidgets". This appears to be a personal name followed by a business name, which we later learn is acceptable, with "Mark at WidgetsUSA" given as an example. Would it be better to replace "AlexTownWidgets" by, say, "SpringfieldWidgets"? Or is the article trying to draw some distinction which has escaped me? Maproom (talk) 08:01, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

• Missing the preposition, AlexTownWidgets is a corporate name which does not identify a particular person within the corporation. In this case, if Alex Town is a person who owns this company, and wishes to contribute to Wikipedia (while observing and abiding by conflict of interest guidelines), then the proper form could be User:Alex Town at AlexTownWidgets. It's an important, if subtle, distinction. But, I agree that perhaps a better example should be used. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:41, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
  • It's in erroneous distinction. We have no rule against using CamelCase in usernames, and no policy-based ability to require the addition of spaces between words. Maproom, that's a good idea; I've changed it to "TownvilleWidgets" in the hope that it will be clearer. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:59, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Accidental Edit with IP

I looked for this answer, but couldn't find it, figured someone could help here. I thought I was logged in when I made an edit, but wasn't. Is it possible for me, or maybe an administrator, to change where my IP address is displayed in the revision history to my username so it's attributed to me?Equineducklings (talk) 21:31, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

No, but you can email WP:RFO to ask for the IP to be removed. (You will need to tell them where it is.) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:35, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. It has been taken care of.Equineducklings (talk) 03:50, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Help me choose

At the signup page the link "(help me choose)" points to this page. But frankly this page does not make it easier. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shalleng2 (talk • contribs) 00:38, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

• I am disappointed yet unsurprised that this has gone for weeks without comment. I'm sure all the "soft" blocks you're placing are much more important than actually figuring out how to help new users. rspεεr (talk) 05:08, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Political names

I have a question about the "promotional" section of this page: does a username that is clearly promoting a political candidate against policy? I'm thinking at the moment of User:Wyllie4gov specifically, but I've seen many other similar accounts pop up and edit pages relating to the political candidate or election. Thanks. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:32, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

• I have no idea why anyone would want to make a rule against a political campaign being up-front about who they are when they edit Wikipedia. rspεεr (talk) 05:47, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

• In the case of the username Muboshgu cites, it doesn't identify a specific person, and possibly could represent the campaign itself(which isn't allowed unless it was, for example, "JohnlikesWyllieforGov"). If their edits are promoting that candidate(not just about them) such activity would be promotional in nature and not permitted. In the first case we might need to post on their page to ask them if they represent a campaign(if we can't otherwise tell) 331dot (talk) 05:54, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

• • It would be one thing if it were "Wyllie campaign", "John at Wyllie campaign" or something like that. A name, however, which urges a vote for the candidate is promotional and should be disallowed. Daniel Case (talk) 14:28, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
    • I should've provided some more info here. This example is specifically citing Adrian Wyllie and the user has edited only that page and the page of the election the candidate is currently running in. While the account holder is clearly a Wyllie supporter, we have no way of knowing whether or not the account is affiliated with the campaign, or if its simply an unaffiliated supporter. (I see 331dot already provided that talk page message.) – Muboshgu (talk) 14:32, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
    • "[candidate] for [office]" is a very typical way to name a campaign. You'd have to be really familiar with Wikipedia to even think of a name like "John at Wyllie campaign". I hardly think that political strategists are thinking up plans like "You know where we need more advertising presence? Wikipedia usernames." rspεεr (talk) 05:42, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
      • Even if you are correct, the name would still be disallowed because it represents an organization and doesn't identify a specific user. I'll point out that HJ Mitchell has blocked the username, I presume for that reason. 331dot (talk) 09:20, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
        • Congratulations? rspεεr (talk) 05:22, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Proposal: Restrict use of "WMF" prefix or suffix in usernames to WMF staff

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

In light of a recent statements by Lila Tretikov[9] and Philippe Beaudette[10], respectively the Executive Director and the Director, Community Advocacy for the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), all WMF staff posting on Wikimedia projects in their work roles will have their work-related accounts identified in a specific manner that clearly differentiates from a volunteer account and clearly identifies the editor as a WMF employee. This policy will have full force as of September 15, 2014.

I propose that, effective September 15, 2014, the only accounts permitted to use "WMF" as either a suffix or a prefix in their username will be those who are identified and verified to be WMF staff at the time of editing. This will not apply retroactively, and there will be no requirement that the username be changed once the editor is no longer a member of WMF staff. Risker (talk) 23:53, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

• @Risker: @Philippe (WMF): Isn't this already covered under misleading usernames, which specifically mentions WMF in usernames? So either its already covered, or not misleading, and thus shouldn't need to be prohibited. Monty₈₄₅ 00:53, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
  • I'm going to be honest. I don't think that's strong enough, given that this is now an employment condition for WMF staff. I think they need something specific, even if it is a sentence in that section that separates the "WMF" part and clearly states that only WMF staff can use it. Risker (talk) 00:57, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
    • But what should happen with such accounts, if the user behind it isn't a WMF staff-member any more? Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 11:05, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
      • Armbrust, there is a procedure used at the WMF as described by Philippe Beaudette (of the WMF) here: "As one step in that procedure, someone from our Office IT group will globally lock the staff account belonging to the employee". This would apply if someone with or without an existing community account joins the WMF and creates a 'WMF' account. The idea is that the WMF account is something they start when joining the WMF, and it is closed down when they leave the WMF. I think what Risker means by her proposed change not applying retroactively is that people who used a single account for both roles (community member and WMF staff) but who have left before this 15 September 2014 change was brought in, should be left alone (I agree, though a historical document listing who worked for the WMF in the past and when, not just the current employees, would help at some point). I'm less sure what she means by the accounts not needing to be renamed - Risker, are you referring to current employees there or past ones? Current ones would not be renamed, but would be globally locked on leaving the WMF, per Philippe in the diff I linked. It is, in general, a bad idea to handle role-specific accounts by renaming. You want the community account to be left alone (not renamed), and a role-specific account created that can be locked when the employment ends. The ideal would be a table somewhere listing the community and WMF accounts of staff members, plus the overlap periods if someone had a community account from which WMF edits were done. Carcharoth (talk) 16:04, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
• As stewards, we generally are good at catching these accounts, and locking them globally if they are not actually WMF and/or contacting WMF for clarifications. --Rschen7754 03:05, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Indeed. This is written in the traditional descriptive policy format, where additions and changes to an existing policy are intended to document existing practice. The WMF's policy change is itself a description of current practice, except now extended to all staff instead of mandatory for new staff/optional for longer-serving staff. Risker (talk) 03:11, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
• How is this meant to interact with WP:REALNAME? If a person has spent 40 years of their life living as WMF Bloggs (and yes, scholarly citation forms people's names in that way), can they get that name on wikipedia using the WP:REALNAME procedure? Stuartyeates (talk) 01:20, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
• The WMF is only one legal entity associated with wikipedia. Are the names / initialisms of every chapter in every script going to be similarly protected? Stuartyeates (talk) 01:29, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

What is this about the retroactive thing? How clever is it to vote yes or no to several independent things, with only one yes or no to the whole lot? This is the why, when democracy does not work. It is a common corruption exampled in certain governments, and it is never accepted by the subjects of it. Oppose giving a singular response to a kaleidoscopic presentation. It already says, according to Monty845 above, that use of WMF is prohibited. So the only implication I can see in this vote is about the retroactive thing which is being sidelined in, and sidelining is corruption, whatever the intentions, sorry.. ~ R.T.G 17:50, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

• Comment Innocent as it may seem, adding little backdoor *honours* like that makes the WMF staff appear corrupt, and it does nothing to address any sort of lack of recognition or award for them. It has the feel of giving them all Jimbo status, forever Mr Presidents, when in fact they are employees who should be merited on their merits, which involves some work appropriating and identifying those merits, but ultimately encourages them. In my country it is commonplace, regular activity to backdoor voting referendums, and it is considered demeaning by all, so I'm sure it was all sugar flumps and I'm just angry ranting all over it but it's still that thing... sorry. I am supportive of giving WMF staff some recognition... but this doesn't do it for me.. ~ R.T.G 01:32, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
  • I'm lost by your comment, RTG. This was in no way intended as an "honour" for anyone, but instead a clear delineation of who is and is not WMF staff. This has some bearing on certain actions, and the permissions associated with either the staff or the personal account. (For example, a Wikipedia volunteer who is also a WMF staff member would have her personal level of permissions attached to her volunteer account and whatever specific staff permissions are associated with her occupation (often, none) attached to her WMF staff account - and it will be immediately obvious to everyone on any project that the action of a WMF staff member's account is linked to their employment, not their volunteer work. At the same time, we don't want anyone impersonating WMF staff. Nonetheless, I believe that several of our colleagues have pointed out that, for all intents and purposes, this will have little impact on the global usernames practices that normally result in accounts with WMF in their names being locked at the global level if they are not currently WMF staffers or are not a role account for which specific WMF staff are responsible. My feeling is that the RFC has run its course and the outcome is that there is no need to change enwiki username policy. Risker (talk) 02:21, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Support

1. In both my personal and professional capacities. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 00:01, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
2. But only "-WMF" and "(WMF)" suffixes, which Philippe has said will be used. And the current requirements (in the misleading usernames section) for usernames which suggest that they be editing as staff or otherwise on behalf of the Foundation. (Again, thanks for proposing these Risker. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 02:52, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

   There is a slight inconsistency in that the role accounts Philippe mentioned elsewhere don't actually follow this format and technically would be disallowed under this change...(User:WMFLegal, User:WMF Office, User:WMF Legal, User:WMFOffice - as you can see, multiple variants on those names are possible, so someone has to be alert to the possibility of attempted imitation accounts). Still, I'm sure that can be handled without too much angst. One slight concern with the '-WMF' format (I think the dash is a hyphen there) is that it might be possible for someone to create em-dash or en-dash versions and pretend to be someone they are not (I'm not sure if the username creation process distinguishes between different dashes - it might disallow them under some 'too similar' algorithm). Carcharoth (talk) 16:17, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

   There would be nothing to disallow the other WMF accounts, what would have to be made clearer is whether this only applies to names where WMF is clearly a prefix or suffix, such as anything with "(WMF)", or also to names in which it is probably not ("WMF Smith" or "WMF123") and ambiguous names ("A123-WMF" or "WMF-Bot"). Peter James (talk) 21:01, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

3. Support if an additional, internal means of identifying WMF-affiliated editors is also incorporated into the MediaWiki user interface—preferably, an icon of the WMF logo next to the user's name in user lists and editing history. ViperSnake151  Talk  20:30, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
4. Support as a natural extension of Wikipedia username policy, which bans misleading usernames. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 01:56, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
5. Support As much as I want to protect the rights of users to "complain" about the WMF via their usernames, I don't think it outweighs the potential collateral damage in a mistaken identity, especially when there's such a large movement to be a non-confusing and welcoming experience for newcomers to the project. Editors will simply have to find other ways such as using their user page or signature to give the WMF a little jab. Mkdw^talk 18:49, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

   I'm quite certain that a way will be found. :-) Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 21:04, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

6. Support per above. SW3 5DL (talk) 04:40, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
7. Support This all seems very reasonable. I cannot think of any good reason to oppose. Chillum 04:42, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
8. Support - I have read the oppose arguments, and disagree. I would be willing to consider a compromise. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:00, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
9. Qualified support. We ought to treat "WMF" usernames like "bot" usernames, which we almost always prohibit them to non-qualified users — "Nyttend Bot" will be blocked if it's not my bot account, and "Joe Bloggs (WMF)" should be blocked if it's not owned by WMF staffer Joe Bloggs. However, if there's good reason to make an exception, we should make it: "John Talbot" won't be blocked for a bot username, and William McKinley Frederick Smith shouldn't be blocked if he chooses to register as "W.M.F. Smith" and adds a statement to his userpage saying "this is my real name; I'm not a WMF staffer". Nyttend (talk) 02:01, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
10. Support - Per Nyttend. Mlpearc (open channel) 02:19, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
11. Support. And this should be a step towards a clearer (automatic?) identification of user's roles - Nabla (talk) 16:19, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
12. Support, and support retroactive as well as proactive treatment. Only current, active WMF staff should use whatever identifier is chosen. Other users whose usernames match should be required encouraged to change them, and staff who leave/retire/whatever should remove the identifier from their usernames. Ivanvector (talk) 20:50, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
13. Support, while current policy lends to us on the AAC team to reject accounts that are clearly attempting to impersonate wikipedia, it would be helpful to have this addendum to ensure that there is no confusion with user's. Also, (assuming that the WMF accounts have to be verified) it gives the community a sense of security in knowing that someone with that in their account is part of the wikipedia staff. Jab843 (talk) 17:52, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

1. If a username is not disruptive, and is not misleading, but somehow manages manages to include WMF at either end of the username, it should be permitted. For example, if someone wanted to make a statement regarding the WMF through their choice of username, lets say User:WMF Is Powergrabbing, and didn't edit disruptively with that name, they should be permitted to do so. I would even agree to a rebutable presumption that WMF in a username is misleading, but don't want to see a hard and fast rule on it. Monty₈₄₅ 01:18, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

   You do realise that any account with a WMF prefix/suffix that isn't a staff member is globally locked, right? This is simply a more specific iteration of longstanding practice. And the example you've given isn't a prefix or suffix, but it would probably be dealt with at Meta. Risker (talk) 01:58, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

   Several users have usernames with "WMF" at the beginning or end, and that's what prefix and suffix are often understood to mean in username policy - such as in "bot" usernames. Peter James (talk) 22:09, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

   There are legitimate uses for accounts which are locked, including User:WMF Is Powergrabbing. Stuartyeates (talk) 01:24, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

2. Exactly per Monty845. Cheers, Thanks, L235-Talk Ping when replying 01:38, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
3. Oppose. If the use of the "WMF" doesn't appear to imply a WMF position, then it should be allowed. If it does, then the current rule against "misleading" usernames applies. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 08:36, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
4. Oppose. I don't oppose the sentiment of the idea, but I think this is already adequately covered and we don't need to make more rules. WaggersTALK 09:13, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
5. Oppose as unclear and unnecessary. Misleading usernames can already be blocked, and if it's only "a suffix or a prefix" if added to an existing username this must be specified to prevent incorrect blocks. Peter James (talk) 09:27, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
6. Oppose per Spirit of Eagle above and WP:CREEP. It's something that already mostly covered and comes up very infrequently. We do not need to make the username policy any longer than it currently is. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:52, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
7. Oppose as unnecessary: The statement Usernames including phrases such as "wikipedia", "wikimedia", "wiktionary", "(WMF)", or similar if they give the incorrect impression that the account may be officially affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation or one of its projects already in the policy entirely covers the intent of this proposal. If any change in the interpretation of what gives an "incorrect impression" is needed, it doesn't require rewording of this policy and (according to the discussion above) will be done by the Stewards, not by us here on enwiki. Anomie⚔ 01:09, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
8. Oppose as already covered by Wikipedia:Username policy. Stuartyeates (talk) 01:24, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
9. Oppose per creep/buro concerns. Samsara (FA • FP) 00:28, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
10. Oppose as per above --Acetotyce (talk) 00:35, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
11. Oppose. The last thing this policy needs is more rules. rspεεr (talk) 05:45, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
12. Oppose The existing rules are just fine. See the comments of Anomie above. If someone abuses a username by claiming WMF status remedies are available. --Bejnar (talk) 17:34, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
13. Oppose Impersonation is the issue, not the letters. For example, I'm sure there's plenty of people with the initials WMF who might want to, say, have the user name User:WMFoster. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 17:29, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
14. Oppose, essentially per Stuartyeates, Samsara, King of Hearts, and Waggers, citing concerns about Wikipedia:NOTBUREAUCRACY and Wikipedia:Avoid instruction creep, above. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 12:43, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Other

• Is it possible to get a check on how many usernames exist with the format something(something)? If there aren't many then perhaps we could put a block on creating any username with that format. Then we can make general use of the format for restricted names in the future. Alsee (talk) 08:22, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

  It's easy enough using a database query on Tool Labs. There are 17131 such names. The most common suffixes include:

  • "(usurped)" 4322 uses
  • "(band)" 272 uses
  • "(WMF)" 255 uses
  • "(renamed)" 250 uses
  • "(Band)" 132 uses
  • "(WMDE)" 94 uses

  I've dumped a full list at User:Anomie/suffixed-username-list. Note that an actual block on creating such names tends to cause trouble with SUL auto-creation of such accounts for people who already have them elsewhere. Anomie⚔ 12:09, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

  That looks very useful, thanks for running that query and posting the results. I think the "(band)" variants and many of the other names with disambiguators in brackets are the result of userfication of non-notable articles or speedy deletions? Of those that are clearly Wikimedia-related, there are 17 "(WMUK)" ones (Wikimedia UK) and a number of other "(WM**)" ones like the 94 Wikimedia Deutschland ones you pointed out. Of the WMF ones, I have no idea who created User:AbuseFilter testing (WMF). There are also four "(Wiki Ed)" accounts and seven "(Public Policy)" or similar accounts. I couldn't find any specific Wikipedian-in-residence examples, though I know of at least one (they probably tend to be labelled with the name of the organisation in question). The question seems to be whether such labels should be accepted as common practice (the current situation), or whether the "(WMF)" ones are so special that a specific exception should be granted to avoid future problems. As far as the WMF goes, there was an indication somewhere at meta where User:Jalexander-WMF mentioned something about the staff rights flag maybe one day becoming a general switch used to indicate that someone is a staff member (essentially doing away with the need for clunking manual labelling) and the actual advanced rights divided up more efficiently among the various WMF departments as needed. Anomie, would it be possible to run a similar database query for '-WMF', 'WMF-' and 'WMF' (all capitalised) in usernames? Carcharoth (talk) 05:33, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

  Added to the list. Anomie⚔ 12:05, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

• Make it informal, not a requirement. Leave it up to them to decide if they want to append the suffix or not. -- œ^™ 02:16, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
• It's been more than a week since September 15, when this proposal was supposed to go into effect. Should this be closed soon? Personally, I feel that the community will usually do a good job in deciding which usernames are considered "misleading" and thereby in contravention of the username policy as it is currently written, especially those that resemble WMF employees. Mz7 (talk) 03:41, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Semi-protected edit request on 14 October 2014

Change: *Usernames which could be easily misunderstood to refer to a "bot" (which is used to identify bot accounts) or a "script" (which alludes to automated editing processes), unless the account is of that type to: *Usernames which could be easily misunderstood to refer to a "bot" (which is used to identify bot accounts) or a "script" (which alludes to automated editing processes), unless the account is of that type, or intended to be. Lotje (talk) 13:15, 14 October 2014 (UTC) 115.254.99.234 (talk) 11:15, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Cannolis (talk) 11:25, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

The addition of "or intended to be" adds confusion and uncertainty - what was the idea? - Arjayay (talk) 14:20, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi Cannolis, sorry to see the wording of the addition adds confusion. The idea is that if a username refers to a "bot" or to an account that is meant to be identified (in the future) as a bot it is okay. Say for example, Lotje is familiar with bot accounts and creates a User:Lotjebot for a bot in the near future, that username would not cause a problem. Provided of course, the account remains inactive for the time being. I hope this answers your question. Lotje (talk) 14:44, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

From my point of view, the account is a bot whether or not it's actively editing. An inactive or even unapproved bot is still a bot (although if unapproved, it clearly shouldn't be editing until approval or at least a trial is granted). I think you're confusing "bot account" with "bot-flagged account". --ais523 20:30, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I get your point. Lotje (talk) 21:51, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Non-bots with ...bot

Lots of usernames with "bot" are not bots, either because the creator meant to have them marked as bots and never did (e.g. ThreeBot), or because they were formerly bots and aren't anymore. These accounts are technically prohibited by our current wording, Usernames which could be easily misunderstood to refer to a "bot" (which is used to identify bot accounts) or a "script" (which alludes to automated editing processes), unless the account is of that type, since they're not of that type, but of course we're not going to block a "bot" username just because it's not yet approved. Anyone object to my clarification of the wording? Nyttend (talk) 14:03, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

I can live with it, :) Mlpearc (open channel) 04:26, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Being a bot doesn't necessarily mean you have a bot flag. Some bots are asked to edit without a flag by the Bot Approvals Group, normally because their edits are something that a human would want to be told about. Others are inactive, but the account still isn't being used for non-bot edits; it just isn't being used at all. For instance, my bot User:Bot523 is retired (and had the flag removed to avoid potential issues if the account gets hacked), but looking at its contributions, I seriously doubt that anyone would consider the account to be anything other than a bot. --ais523 05:17, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

If you find an acount ending with "bot" which you believe is currently being used by a human being, feel free to discuss it with the user and, if no agreement is reached, report it to WP:RFCN. Any account with no activity should be ignored. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 18:23, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

I just ran into a similar issue where I was disallowed the name "HotnBOThered" for a bot testing account because the bot was not approved yet (nor likely to be, since it's strictly intended for testing on a mature wiki that has significant data and the latest MW release). WP:BOTAPPROVAL specifically allows for bots to do limited testing, provided that no edits are made outside designated areas (see paragraph starting with "Operators may carry out limited testing of bot processes without approval..."). If an account will only ever be used by a bot, whether or not it's approved and has the bot flag, it seems to me that it should be marked as such in some way. Doing so by the name itself seems preferable to me than an explanation of a second account on the bot's talk page. Neither the wording on the page, nor the suggested clarification allow for this scenario, though. – RobinHood70 ^talk 15:48, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval is very clear on the matter, "If you want to run a bot on the English Wikipedia, you must first get it approved." (underlining mine). Reading through the instructions for creating a bot, section 1 bullet 3 says, "You will need to create an account for your bot if you haven't already done so. Click here when logged in to create the account, linking it to yours. (If you do not create the bot account while logged in, it is likely to be blocked as a possible sockpuppet or unauthorised bot until you verify ownership)". That is the proper way to do it. I see no reason to change the wording to include "intend", one of the most ambiguous words I know for The road to hell is paved with good intentions... — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 16:26, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Isn't that a bit of a chicken and egg scenario, though? Generally speaking, bots should be tested before they're approved. Sure, you can use your own account, but that brings SUL issues into play (like getting logged out by the bot, then making an edit, nominally with your "real" account, not thinking that you've been logged out), not to mention the possibility that a user might have elevated rights over what their bot would have, meaning that testing could be imperfect. Similarly, you can make test edits on other wikis better designed for that sort of thing or on your own testing wikis, but again, these don't fully replicate being on Wikipedia itself.

Of course, your quote brings up an inherent contradiction between two pages. According to WP:BOTAPPROVAL, as I cited above, you can carry out limited testing of bot processes without approval under any account, yet the policy you quoted says that any bot must first be approved. This portion of the discussion is probably best off being moved to one of those talk pages, however. – RobinHood70 ^talk 16:39, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Warning for real name/impersonation

For WP:REALNAME, is there a user warning template that I don't see that kindly requests the user to disclose their identity/affiliation with the famous person? Or is the best route to report at UAA with a request to use {{Uw-ublock-famous}}? This route for this is a little vague as written in the current policy. czar ⨹ 23:08, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

As I read it, in order to avoid mischief, the policy is to block with the template you reference. If it's really them (and not just somebody affiliated with them), they can then follow the procedures offered under the block template message. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:35, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Sure, because the thing potentially valuable contributors really love is following obscure directions because you blocked them first and asked questions later. I hope there are still other people left on Wikipedia who think this is insane. rspεεr (talk) 10:59, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

It makes sense to block immediately because of the obvious potential for serious BLP issues. The directions are hardly obscure but if you think they are then feel free to make them clearer. Sam Walton (talk) 12:19, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

@Samwalton9: You have no recollection of what the experience of a new user is like, do you? You should perhaps do a thought experiment: if you're a new user who's been username blocked, and you know zero Wikipedia policies, what do you need to do next? I want you to write down every link they would have to click, and every sentence they'd have to read, before they were able to edit again. Tell me if you still think this is simple when you're done.

So, changing the directions does not fix the problem. Changing the thing that happens is the only fix. This is Wikipedia's problem, where it needs to stop encouraging difficult and actively hostile user experiences. rspεεr (talk) 09:44, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

The block template in question, Template:Uw-ublock-famous, is fairly straightforward in my opinion. There are three options:

• If you are the person in question then you send an email, hardly an arduous task.
• If not and you don't mind losing track of current contribs you can create a new account, something the user will have already done.
• The hardest option involves copying some text ({{unblock-un|your new username here}}) clicking the blue link to go to your talk page, and changing "your new username here" to your requested username.

I think the first two options are perfectly simple, and the third, if anything, could be improved with some better wording. Sam Walton (talk) 11:48, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

I think you're skipping steps, such as even getting to the point of seeing that message. Are there statistics on how many people actually get unblocked through requesting an unblock using a template (by the way, there's no way to make templates make sense to new users), or through e-mail? I bet the most commonly chosen options are none of those: they're (1) give up, or (2) register again. rspεεr (talk) 06:57, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

If users aren't going to follow the steps in a block template then they're not going to follow the steps in a warning template surely? Sam Walton (talk) 10:14, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 March 2015

216.177.129.192 (talk) 16:57, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

 Not done as you have not requested a change. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. --I am k6ka ^{Talk to me!} _{See what I have done} 17:12, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 April 2015

59.60.67.122 (talk) 17:08, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 17:50, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 May 2015

JINU THOYAKKARAN Jinufuture (talk) 12:12, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

 Not done as you have not requested a change, but I suspect you are in the wrong place, as this page is only to discuss improvements to Wikipedia:Username policy.
If you want to suggest a change, please request this in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ".
Given the nature of this page, you will also need to reach consensus before any significant changes are implemented. - Arjayay (talk) 12:15, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Policy on identical looking accounts?

If someone had a username of ART1234, and someone tried to create a username of ΑRΤ1234 (the Α and Τ are Alpha and Tau in the second), is there a more specific policy than WP:IMPERSONATOR? I thought I remembered at one time a specific policy against the use of letters in other scripts that were identical in displayed pixels to Roman letters unless there were other things in the name.Naraht (talk) 20:42, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

The software would probably prevent it. If it's disruptively done, then we have the blocking policy. –xeno^talk 21:20, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

AntiSpoof

But I need to create an account named as XY007 to prevent impersonation because I'm known as that on other projects. But it triggers AntiSpoof. Please help! IllogicMink ^{talk about it} 09:49, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Addition to ISU

Just to keep things proper, I have added a clarifying bullet to the WP:ISU section:

• Personal usernames that imply shared access, such as "Jack and Jill", are not permitted.

WP:ISU focuses on corporate names and role accounts, but I occasionally run into personal usernames implying shared use. Typically they are spouses, dorm roommates, or siblings. I thought this needed to be addressed, so I added it. ~Amatulić (talk) 20:01, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 July 2015

41.13.16.3 (talk) 00:21, 18 July 2015 (UTC) Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Altamel (talk) 00:42, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Tweaked

This piped link for redirect wasn't taking users to the right section, for some reason. I think I fixed it. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:12, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Truth

I propose a ban on usernames containing "Truth", per WP:NOTTRUTH and the fact that always seem to have a significant misunderstanding of WP:NPOV. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:59, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Similar to 'promotional' usernames, they may get a better understanding of policy, and might not keep reappearing, and might save time for the block reviewers and bureaucrats, if they were blocked for actually 'truthing' instead. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 15:08, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Cryptocurrency wallets

We disallow e-mail addresses and URLs; do we want to disallow cryptocurrency addresses (e.g., 1Wiki8Q5G7FviTHBac3dx8HhdNYwDVstR (talk · contribs))? --slakr^\ talk / 20:00, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

On first glance it is a gibberish name, however it is a means to send the person money. It is a bit like putting a donation link on every signature, problematic. Chillum 20:06, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

I rather doubt we'd allow a bank account number; I don't see how this is any different. I'd say it should be covered by the provisions against either promotional or simply "confusing" usernames. 20:12, 28 August 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Huon (talk • contribs)

I'd like to try and qualify that a bit. We probably wouldn't allow bank account numbers if they can be identified as bank account numbers. We probably wouldn't allow telephone numbers which begin +44(0) or similar. Bitcoin addresses are rather distinctive. In light of all the weird and wonderful usernames on this project, I don't believe they are that confusing. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 08:10, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

A gentle clarification on "confusing usernames". A username has to be able to be confused with something else. A username is not, by itself, confusing. Thus the username "WikiModerator" is confusing, even though it's simple to understand. It's confusing because it create confusion in novice users - "This person is a moderator and has authority". The user name "ajhswefij" is not confusing, even though it's a mash of letters. Once that editor becomes established the username "ajhswefji" (swapped last j and i around) would be confusing - people would think the latter username is the former user. This is something that has had several megabytes of previous discussion. It was pretty solid agreement then, although getting the policy changed to reflect that was very difficult. 82.132.219.212 (talk) 21:13, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Please also see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User names#1Wiki8Q5G7FviTHBac3dx8HhdNYwDVstR. Cheers! -- 1Wiki8Q5G7FviTHBac3dx8HhdNYwDVstR (talk) 12:56, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

RfC - should we allow company account names with verification

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is consensus against allowing company accounts. The majority opinion cites WP:ROLE or accounts tied to a specific office in a company and shared accounts as reasons against the proposal. The majority also mention that accounts like John@Widgets are allowed already and those accounts are tied to one person. The minority opinion is that it would make tracking of these accounts easier and to avoid issues like encouraging deception. There is strong support for adding information to the sign up page to help new editors choose a name correctly. Since it was not part of the RFC to begin with I can't in good faith find a consensus, but it may be something that would gain consensus in a future RFC. As a side note, this may help eliminate corporate ROLE accounts, and still help in tracking edits by these individuals while helping them to avoid deception. AlbinoFerret 19:25, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

---

Hi all,

Following several recent discussions (including this, there has been some arguments presented against our current practice of blocking all usernames associated with companies in general. In order to help overcome this, and make it easier to disclose who edits for companies, and identify them on the articles they edit.

I'd like to propose that we follow a model similar to dewiki, which would mean we should change the policy to allow company names as usernames after they verify they represent the company, by sending an email from a work email address to a new OTRS address. A draft I'd like to propose that is used for this can be found at User:Mdann52/CoIdraft. Additionally, the volenteer handling this could then finish the on-wiki declaration on their User page, if the user does not understand or forgets to do this.

Thanks in advance, Mdann52 (talk) 18:43, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Clarification: As some people have raised this point below, this is not permitting shared accounts, just that we have one account for the company with one user behind it. If multiple users want accounts, then they can have a similar system to now (ie. joe@amce). Mdann52 (talk) 15:13, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Its still an issue. They set up account User: Widgets Inc and "task" the summer intern to make the corporate wiki page. Intern completes the summer assignment and leaves and now User: Widgets Inc is either a role account or dead and useless. Even if they give it to a real employee, people get promoted, change roles, get fired/quit and the account is now a role account or dead. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:51, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Whether or not to allow transferring the username between representatives, how that's done, who qualifies as a representative, how we go about verification, etc. are extremely important questions. I think this RfC should not be treated as a proposed change in the text of the username policy, but a first step in a complex process. This is a big enough change and a controversial enough issue that debating it at the same time we're debating the specifics of its implementation and relation to other procedures would make it doomed from the start. I think that if one can fathom a way that corporate usernames run by a single verified representative could be beneficial, this is worth a conditional support, with the expectation that we'll have to figure out what "verified" means and other specifics before actually changing the text of the policy. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 22:06, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Given that, it seems that it is even more vital to surface as many of the potential issues as possible. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 02:35, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Support

1. As proposer. Mdann52 (talk) 18:43, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
2. The English Wikipedia has had something like 100,000 businesses come here guilelessly, naively, openly, transparently, under their real company names, only to teach them instantly that to edit here, you should hide who you are. It's helped institute a culture of lying and has made many such editors invisible to Wikipedians today. It's counterproductive. The strong preference for an account name of the type "User:Bob @ Widgets Inc" can be communicated to people while asking them to provide evidence of their company affiliation. It can be done without first insta-banning the transparently named accounts they have only just created in good faith. Andreas JN466 20:38, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

   No, if the accounts do not act in abeyance of our policies after being informed of them they are permitted to rename their accounts. The ones in the list of mine that I linked above all continued to edit despite being away aware of the policy. That's problematic. This policy change would simply enable companies willing to act against policy to continue to edit. Not a good mix. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:48, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

   Please proofread what you've written here: what does "in abeyance of our policies" and "away of the policy" mean? As for your penultimate sentence, company accounts are regularly banned, told that this is only due to their name not complying with user name policy, and told to come back with a new name, like User:Rocketman1234. Who then monitors User:Rocketman1234? It's the same person, except no one can recognise them. On the other hand, if you ask people to provide OTRS evidence of who they are (the method used in the German Wikipedia), you have a confirmed company account. Such accounts can have a flag applied to them, and edits made by such accounts can be highlighted or filtered in Recent Changes and edit histories. In other words, almost the exact opposite of what you assert is the case. Allowing such accounts enables scrutiny of what they are doing here, whereas now they are flying under the radar. Andreas JN466 11:26, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

   Thanks for the away/aware note. As to the rest, we strongly disagree. I'm sorry you feel the way you do. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:36, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

3. Support as it helps with the issues at hand. Less companies will turn to less than reputable means if we provide them a clear way to properly interact with Wikipedia. It person within a company would however get their own name like User:CompanyX (account 1) etc Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:54, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
4. Support per Jayen466. The current policy of banning corporate names because they're corporate names is asinine. It's a holdover of a pretty fiddly copyright issue (1 person per account) which has had large unintended consequences. Namely exactly those that Jayen466 points out. Protonk (talk) 13:14, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
5. Sensible. –xeno^talk 15:03, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
6. Conditional Support - This is a sensible starting point, but there are several valid concerns raised in the oppose section below and in past discussions. By "conditional support" I mean that this RfC should be used to determine whether there's consensus to allow named corporate accounts run by a single verified representative, but that we should hold off on changing the text of the username policy until subsequent (not concurrent) discussions allow for sorting out the details of its implementation. Many of the concerns people raise come down to things like what these accounts might permit, what the perception could be, what problems might arise in the verification procedure, and so on. I don't see any of these to be prohibitive of the basic idea, so conditional support. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:56, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
7. Support (although not sure if this is an oppose) allowing company account names with verification, but only if appended with something making the account associated with only one individual. Allow User:CompanyX 01 upon verification from CompanyX, but insist that User:CompanyX 01 is person 01, User:CompanyX 02 is person 02, User:CompanyX 03 is person 03, and so on. We don't need to know who is person "01". Account User:CompanyX nn may be blocked at any time by a request from CompanyX. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:30, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
8. Support per Andreas and Doc James. As stated above this is a way for companies to ineract clearly and transparently with Wikipedia, and makes associated edits easier to follow and track. --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:47, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
9. Support as many users do create such accounts, and it will give them a way forward, and also make it clear what their COI is, and will also stop imposters. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:02, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
10. Support We need to be far more welcoming of such editors, and to assist them to contribute according to our policies. Far better to have corporate users clearly identified as such - I understand corporate accounts work well on the German Wikipedia, for instance. Claims that this is against policy are circular; this is a discussion about changing our policy. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:18, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
11. Support It baffles me why we continue to force companies to create account names that hide what they really are. Having a company username is the best form of disclosure, and we should encourage it, not block it. Gigs (talk) 06:13, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

    But that's not quite correct. A user named "Arturo at BP" represents BP, and that username is perfectly OK under our policy. Coretheapple (talk) 21:27, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

12. Support I think this is a common sense proposal. Giving such a clear and easily followed path for companies to edit transparently will hopefully help reduce the need for them to do it underhandedly. Aparslet (talk) 07:28, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
13. Support, our current policy of requiring disclosure but disallowing the most efficient way (in the username) makes no sense. —Kusma (t·c) 14:27, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
14. Support I'd much rather have contributors openly declare their affiliations, and this is one obvious way to do it, that ought to come naturally to anyone here with an attitude of being forthright rather than deceptive. The traditional reason, that it will mislead people into thinking that their edits are authoritative, is I think obsolete. The way we treat COI edits now, limiting substantial edits to the talk page, nobody could reasonable think that. DGG ( talk ) 04:08, 24 September 2015 (UTC)1
15. Support There are way too many username rules as well as automated denial of usernames that are not similar but denied on the basis of being too similar to other names. However, administrators, acting on behalf of Wikipedia, should be able to require corporate usernames to state on their userpage that they are or are not representing their company and to assign a specific person responsible for the account (which can be a nickname, not a legal name). If that person changes, they must update the page.
    For example, there could be a user name of "Microsoft, Inc.". On the user page, there would be a disclosure "This user is being maintained by employee X4892835 on behalf of Microsoft" or "This user is being maintained by employee Yeugeniy Patel on behalf of Microsoft". Sandra opposed to terrorism (talk) 18:49, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

    Sandra, we agree there are too many rules.  :-)     But are you not, in your proposal, just adding more rules? We already permit, under the current rules, usernames like "User:Yeugeniv_Patel_Microsoft" to be utilized. We already require disclosure of paid editing, so if that person (Patel) were to edit Microsoft or Microsoft Word, it would be a pretty clear disclosure of COI-encumbrance, and somebody could help Patel add the {{connected_contributor_(paid)}} thing to the Talk:Microsoft page, right?

      The reason to disallow a username like "User:EntireMicrosoftPrDept" is because there would be a lot of humans using that identity, 24/7/365, across hundreds of thousands of article. There is the question of whether multi-human role-acconts like that can be said to legally comply with the copyright-transfer-clickwrap. There is the problem that for any edit, the current human can claim innocence (not me musta been some other human using this login). There is also the practical problem that, with dozens or hundreds of Microsoft employees all using the same shared username, there will be thousands and thousands of edits to check through.

      I do agree that the heavy-handed insta-blocking of 'procedurally unacceptable' usernames is really in poor taste, especially since there is so little helpful info when you first register for a username that might clue you in to the idea of registering as "User:Yeugeniv_Patel_Microsoft" rather than "User:OfficialPublicaRelationsRepForMicrosoft" ... but I don't think Mdann52's proposal as currently formulated, will truly solve the practical problems I mentioned above. Plus it adds new and complicated rules, to an already rule-heavy system, where I'd rather we take rules away if possible, not add new variations. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 03:35, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

16. Support. It might cut down on some of the deception. At the moment we are basically telling spammers with corporate names that they can abandon that name and continue their spamming under a new account. Any patroller who is clueful enough to read, understand, and implement the guidelines at WP:NPP should be able to recognise artspam which can be deleted easily enough whatever kind of name the creator has. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:00, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Sorry, but oppose: We already permit usernames constructed like "User:BobatWidgetsInc". This identifies a particular person rather than a group. If someone is editing on behalf of a company they can do so from a name like that, and it's just as identifiable. See WP:ISU. I've warned innumerable accounts that are corporate names. See User:Hammersoft/log#Corporate_.2F_organization for a list of the ones that were blocked as a result of my reports. Even more than this list renamed their accounts to identify themselves individually rather than having an account to represent a company. I see no motivation to change our policy to allow group accounts. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:34, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

   We do not verify that what they say is true though do we? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:57, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

   You're right, we don't. So? What problem does this added bureaucracy seek to solve? --Hammersoft (talk) 19:19, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

   People pretending that they represent a company which they do not. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:06, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

   Can you cite an example where this has happened? --Hammersoft (talk) 16:03, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

   I can cite multiple examples where people using their own full legal name have been blocked, not for any actual disruption (and certainly not because multiple-humans-per-username was suspected), but just as a safety-first measure. They were forced to file OTRS identity-confirmation, to 'prove' they were either able to access the person's email account, or were savvy enough to forge an email-impersonation sufficiently well to fool an OTRS volunteer. Point being, I believe DocJames is advocating that we use the same heavy-handed techniques on "User:Larry_SomeCorp" type usernames, and block them until they OTRS-verify via company-email-addy who they are. See his 'support' vote, where he specifically says he does NOT support the existence of "User:SomeCorp" but does support OTRS-verification of "User:SomeCorp_UserA" and "User:SomeCorp_UserB" and so on. That is orthogonal to what Mdann52 is proposing, of course: it is a separate question, whether we allow "User:SomeCorp" iff and only iff they OTRS-verify the linkage (currently we block and force a uid-change)... and distinctly, whether we have a policy to force "User:Larry_SomeCorp" and "User:SomeCorp_UserB" to get blocked until they OTRS-verify (currently we just AGF and take their word for it that they work for the company... plus thank them for disclosing so prominently per WP:TOS). 75.108.94.227 (talk) 02:19, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

2. Strong oppose for the reasons advanced when this proposal was decisively rejected only last year at this RfC. JohnCD (talk) 20:56, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

   To be clear, my RfC last year did conflate multi-user corp accounts with corp usernames, which increased opposition. Gigs (talk) 06:17, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

   Yes, since MDann52's clarification I understand that this proposal is only to allow company names as account names, while still requiring them to be single-person accounts. I am still opposed: there are all the complications raised above by Rhododendrites (whether or not to allow transferring the username between representatives, how that's done, who qualifies as a representative, how we go about verification, etc.) plus the need for new rules about company account user-pages, so they are not used for WP:FAKEARTICLES or advertising - all these seem unnecessary new complications when the "Mark at Alcoa" form is available. Also, as I said last time, I think it entirely possible that User:Acme Widgets would think his business here was to push the company line (and the vast majority of new company accounts join up in order to spam), but James at Acme, an individual, might feel more like a partner in our enterprise as well as an Alcoa representative. JohnCD (talk) 21:20, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

3. I think this is unclear. I'd be content to see individual accounts clearly related to companies (schools, organisations, etc), when they have proper permission to represent the company (if they can get the permission and prove it convincingly). But we do not want accounts shared within companies. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 12:44, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

   Admins could rename accounts rather than blocking them. Andreas JN466 13:22, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

   Admins can't rename accounts; nor, since SUL, can bureaucrats. It needs a steward. JohnCD (talk) 17:35, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

4. Oppose - firstly, sending an email from a company's domain isn't necessarily proof that someone works for that company, and it's easy to spoof. Secondly, user accounts should be for individual people not companies as zzuuzz explained above. Thirdly, even if someone is successfully validated as working for a company they could subsequently "go rogue", leave the company and edit maliciously using the company account; we'd need a heap of mechanisms to police that to make sure it doesn't happen using up time that would be better spent building an encyclopaedia. WaggersTALK 13:12, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
5. Oppose we rely on accounts representing individuals and those individuals being the same person over time. I would not like to see a fairly trusted PR person at a particular company hand the company Wikipedia account to a different member of staff. Though I would be happy to see forced renames introduced instead of soft blocks. ϢereSpielChequers 13:34, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

   I have seen Wikipedia accounts for sale and people trying to but accounts on Elance. You get an account confirmed and people are willing to buy it. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:31, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

   First I have heard of such a thing. That's a violation of the Terms of Use, I gather?Jusdafax 04:00, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

6. Oppose I oppose the idea that if someone at some instant has access to an email account at XYZCompany, they can make themselves the permanent spokesman for XYZCompany, even if they are no longer an employee, or if they are an embittered and disgruntled underling who hates the company and seeks to harm it. A simple email from an account at a company or organization would not prove that the individual is in fact officially authorized as a spokesman. Even more strongly I oppose letting someone who has never been associated with an organization to present themselves as representing the organization. I also oppose shared accounts, which would allow any number of people to post as User:XZYCompany, since there would be no individual accountability for vandalism or boosterism. This proposal would be very harmful to Wikipedia and in some cases to the companies or organizations. User:TedatXYZCompany would be permissible, since it does not present the person as an official spokesman. But if XYZCompany sends an OTRS wishing to dissociate Ted from representing the company, that would be appropriate in some cases, such as if Ted is making false or malicious statements about XYZ or which present XYZ in a bad light. Edison (talk) 18:40, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

   These objections aren't realistic. The German Wikipedia has had this system for years, with good results. Stuff like this just doesn't happen, and even if it did, a phone call to the Foundation's Legal Department would sort it, because it would be a grave Terms of Use violation (as well as grounds for a lawsuit against the impersonator). Andreas JN466 19:13, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

   Define "good results". I'm still not sure what this proposal is seeking to do that is not already handled under our current system. I don't see how User:WidgetsInc (proposed acceptable username) is any better than User:BobatWidgetsInc (currently accepted username). --Hammersoft (talk) 19:18, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

   Good results: More people editing transparently. What's it seeking to do: Abandon the insta-ban practice that (1) teaches people that honesty about who they are is bad for them and frowned upon here, and teaches them instead that you get on in Wikipedia by hiding behind a stupid made-up name. Andreas JN466 19:46, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

   I believe {{Uw-coi-username}} covers this rather nicely. This template is supposed to be given to accounts that appear to be representing a company, and requests as WP:UAA are frequently denied for the lack of this warning. Given this template, I still fail to see what this problem aims to solve. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:51, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

   Example from yesterday: [11], reported here. That person will be back, except that next time they won't be called Atlantic Licensing, but some other user name. And because Wikipedia's unceremoniously kicked them to the kerb, they'll be less inclined to treat Wikipedia, Wikipedians and their professed values with respect. They'll just look out for themselves, and feel justified in doing so. Can you explain to me what's been gained by that? Andreas JN466 21:07, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

   Sorry, but that's a poor example. The user wasn't warned about the username, no attempt was made to discuss their edits with them, and when they were blocked no {{uw-softerblock}} or {{Uw-spamublock}} was placed on their userpage. Had the right process been followed, this would possibly have turned out differently. I don't see how adding a process to 'fix' the lack of use of an existing process in this case will somehow lead to the new process being used anymore than the old process. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:22, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

   That's the practice the present policy creates. All based on the tantalising idea that you can permablock a user for a name. I don't see any advantage in that arrangement. Andreas JN466 23:15, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

   I don't see an advantage in creating a bureaucracy to solve a malfunctioning bureaucracy. Sounds like giving a cup of water to a drowning man. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:55, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

   What's blocking people for having the wrong name, if not bureaucratic? It's Kafkaesque. Andreas JN466 16:27, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

   So to solve the problem (still not seeing there is a problem), we throw bureaucracy at it? --Hammersoft (talk) 17:08, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

   The idea is to replace stupid, ham-fisted and counter-productive bureaucracy (ban the name, but not the editor!) with smart bureaucracy (leave the name, verify they're not impersonators). Andreas JN466 00:46, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

7. oppose -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:48, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
8. Oppose shared accounts. Accounts that identify individual people at organisations are currently acceptable and convey all the benefits of transparency without the problems of shared accounts. Thryduulf (talk) 01:28, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

   @Thryduulf: This RfC is not proposing shared accounts, merely verifying company accounts using company names like we do with accounts with the names of BLP's. Of course, the policy that allows shared accounts is still going to be in force. Mdann52 (talk) 15:51, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

   There is no policy that allows shared accounts. Also, once identified, how do we know the company isn't going to have the account used by multiple people? --Hammersoft (talk) 15:55, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

   Nothing in our current system stops them from sharing accounts either, and I'm sure it happens. Gigs (talk) 06:21, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

9. Oppose - We had an Rfc last year on this topic, the community said no, so why are we doing this again? Wikipedia policy in the naming is fine just the way it is, and arguments that it drives businesses to violate the Terms of Use are unconvincing. We need to stop business and corporate PR creep dead in its tracks. Jusdafax 04:07, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

   @Jusdafax: The previous RfC was much broader than this, into shared accounts. This isn't proposing this, just that we are less bitey to new users who come here, and don't instablock corperate accounts, making it harder to identify them, they are still only one person accounts. Mdann52 (talk) 15:58, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

   We already have a process in place that doesn't insta-block corporate accounts, if that process is properly followed. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:05, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

10. This seems to violate enwiki's policy against role accounts. As described in WP:ROLE, accounts are supposed to represent one's edits as an individual, not represent an "office, position, or task" (meta:Role account). To allow someone from "ABC Corporation" to edit with an account called "ABC Corporation" is clearly allowing that person (even if it's just one person) to use that account as representation of a corporation (office). In this way, I cannot agree or disagree with the argument other than to say it seems to violate WP:ROLE. NTox · talk 04:03, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
11. Oppose doesn't seem like this would fix any significant problems, and would in fact create some new ones. Outside of pure wishful thinking, it's pretty hard to imagine an account named BobsDiscountTyreWarehouse doing much beyond self-interested spam/SEO/advocacy type edits. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 03:46, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

    Do you imagine that if they come back as User:DerekSmith, having been told that they mustn't call themselves User:BobsDiscountTyreWarehouse, they'll suddenly start writing featured articles? I think they'll make just the same edits as before, except you will no longer be able to even tell that there might be a conflict of interest. Andreas JN466 00:46, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

12. Oppose Wrong answer to the problem. Restricting names even more doesn't fix sockpuppetry and sneaky COI editing. If anything, we would rather they were up front with their association. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 16:42, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

    Are you sure you are in the right section? The idea is to restrict names less and let people be more up front about their association. Andreas JN466 00:46, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

    I'm against forcing OTRS "registration", which is in fact restricting name, because I think this just pushes people underground more. Being overly strict leads to more socking and clandestine editing by COI editors. They are going to be here, if our policies aren't liberal enough, they will just hide in plain site, and that doesn't help us. The more rules we create, the less likely they will comply, and I don't blame them. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 00:54, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

13. Oppose without first having a discussion to overturn the long-standing ban on accounts which "belong" to one person now and to another person at a later date, aka "role" accounts. On a related note, I support keeping the current rules regarding such accounts. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 01:47, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
14. Oppose. Officials of companies are already allowed to identify their corporate affiliation in their user names. But "group accounts" has long been prohibited for many valid reasons, and this opens the door to erosion of that very sound policy. Coretheapple (talk) 15:05, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
15. Oppose I want this, but Wikimedia Commons should be the pilot project to manage this. We need volunteer infrastructure to manage organization representatives in Wikimedia projects, and developing this would be easier on Commons. In Commons, organizations need a path to be able to donate non-text media like images, videos, and documents. It is still hard for any organization to have a partnership with Wikimedia projects, and usually when there is a Wikipedian in Residence that person bends rules, breaks them, or operates in a grey area to get an organization's content into Commons. This is not sustainable. It would be better to establish best practices in Commons first. Bring this same discussion to Commons at Commons:Commons_talk:Username_policy#Making_official and address the concerns I raised in that talk. English Wikipedia contributors understand these problems and have more interest in this than the Commons community. Following any outcome, whether to allow or prohibit the practice, still there needs to be some kind of verification process for official accounts whatever name they use. Probably this should happen with OTRS, but then also we need community confirmation that OTRS is an appropriate channel for verifying accounts. Finally, we need proper guidance for using organizational accounts. There is COI scare talk, and there is GLAM invitational talk, but there is not much mixing between these because COI police and GLAM outreach volunteers have historically stayed away from each other. We need new collaboration models. After this is sorted on Commons - then best practices on English Wikipedia should be easier to determine and with more consensus. I would love to see this issue revisited after sorting this on Commons. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:01, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
16. Oppose. We're not Twitter or Facebook. People don't come to Wikipedia to complain about the company or ask for customer service. I don't see many purposes where verified accounts will be helpful. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 18:22, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
17. Oppose. User accounts should remain individual for reasons of accountability. While we can not guarantee that an account is used by several people, accounts should not represent a group of people, or even worse, a company or business. Kebabpizza (talk) 18:44, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
18. Oppose: will create extra work for verifying the accounts but will not solve the fundamental problem. If a company will be willing to follow the new process, that is of sending an email and following the ToU, they would presumably follow the current process of requesting a rename. But this will not stop all the blatantly promotional accounts. BethNaught (talk) 07:44, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
19. Oppose. I am entirely opposed to allowing accounts that are official corporate identities. This proposal would precipitously legitimize them without addressing the issue of commercial promotion. SteveStrummer (talk) 03:35, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
20. Oppose. Strongly agree with statement by SteveStrummer, above. — Cirt (talk) 05:54, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
21. Oppose I'm not sure that this will really benefit the community. I remain unconvinced that allowing promotional usernames will discourage them from making blatantly promotional edits simply because they've registered with OTRS and are "in compliance" with policy. It seems to me that this will add more bureaucracy to Wikipedia and will increase the already massive workload of OTRS volunteers for a very small benefit. (If there's even a benefit at all.) On a more visceral level, I don't like the idea of edits being made by huge corporate entities. Are "McDonalds" and "Coca-cola" going to suddenly start adding brilliant content to our community? Somehow I doubt it. I'd really prefer that the Encyclopedia be edited by individuals rather than corporate representatives (even if it's just one per company). If these companies aren't paying WMF for the space, why should we basically give them free advertising if they're not going to contribute valuable content. Mww113 (talk) 05:18, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
22. Oppose per Hammersoft et al. I don't like this from the company-legal point of view. Any "verification" is unlikely to represent a legally valid authority from the company, so that they have to stand behind any edits made. In the case of any trouble they are likely to disown any edits, and probably disclaim all knowledge. So what's the point? Johnbod (talk) 14:32, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
23. Oppose Of course not. I figured this was a given. We can't have people using the history logs and every signature as adverts for their company. What is more we are not qualified to verify these things, we could be an unwitting party to a joe job where someone uses a company name and acts like a fool on purpose. HighInBC ^{(was Chillum)} 15:18, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
24. Oppose. Well, generally speaking and looking at the larger picture, this proposal is part of a ongoing (and neverending, I guess) discussion about how to treat corporate editing. The fact is (IMO) people are going to bring their political ideology to the table, and no sense pretending otherwise. If you're a Democrat(USA)/Labor(UK) you're generally going to be against stuff like this. If you're a Republican(USA)/Conservative(UK) you're generally going to favor stuff like this. It comes down to how benign you feel private corporations are and how strongly you feel that corporations should be treated as people. I'm a Social Democrat so my view is "not very benign" and "not much like people" so I'm agin this; I don't want User:ExxonMobile in here with the pigeons. Let them lie their way in like they have to do everywhere else (you know, "Association for a Sustainable Eco-Friendly Growth" etc. or whatever they call their lobbying arms). They're good at this so question is basically moot anyway. Herostratus (talk) 15:14, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
25. This will raise a whole set of another problems. One account being used by multiple people, high COI editing, edit warring and many other. To remain as neutral as possible, we'd have to stick to the current guidelines. Sorry and regards—☮JAaron95 ^Talk 07:13, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
26. Oppose Primarily because multiple individuals using the same account. However, I would support something (with verification) such as what the WMF uses where the username includes both the company name and an individual name. Fredlyfish4 (talk) 01:44, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Comments

• Agree that the insta-banning of transparently named accounts is incredibly stupid. They should be welcomed, WP:BITE applied, and gently assisted in renaming their account. The current policy makes a rapid learning curve for non-transparency, with an obligatory exercise in the creation of second accounts with no linking to or from the first. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:35, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

• Bear in mind that the vast majority of new company-account usernames are not here to help build an encyclopedia: they are here because they think this is a free advertising platform, and they want to post things like (four recent real examples):

• "Our SEO and Internet Marketing Services help boost your website in search engines. Our expertise and efficiency in delivering good quality web design and development services has led us to become one of the trusted website development firm all over the world."

• "<name redacted> is provide best SAP ABAP Training pune at vey low cost. Please register yourself and get free demo class @ <email redacted>"

• "Our management has both, experience and skills to maintain any sized project and managing a company of very cool designers, and very intelligent developers."

• "Our intellectual professionally well managed team here aids to turn budding organizations into Business Reality. That’s where we act as a gateway towards realizing your dream."

In cases like that, it is entirely reasonable to block the account until the user explains what sort of non-promotional, encyclopedic edits they would make if unblocked. JohnCD (talk) 18:09, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

The immediate blocks are an overreaction. The user has a choice of trying to explain in unfamiliar territory to someone very quick with the block button (hopeless), or they can create a less transparent account, no acknowledgement of NOTPROMOTION or SOCK. They cannot even attempt to demonstrate an attempt at a less promotional edit. Presumably, you fear that an unblocked new promotion account will make promotional edits that will live undiscovered? I think that is clearly a mistake. Will you having tagged their usertalk page, and with an obvious first edit, later edits are much easier to scrutinize than new attempts from a new account. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:28, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

What we do depends on the type of edits that these company-named accounts make, of course. There are certainly some that are here for the right purpose, who have unwittingly chosen an invalid username: they should be encouraged as much as possible. But for the examples provided above (and they are very common nowadays) are you not taking WP:AGF too far? Once they've made edits like these, the evidence is that they're not here to help improve the encyclopedia, but to promote their own interests, as JohnCD says. They're not going to suddenly start writing useful content just because we talk to them kindly: they have a business to run, money to make. It is, though, most important that we do explain to them why their edits were not acceptable and why we blocked them; and once we do this I don't think there's much evidence that any significant proportion come back with another username and repeat their actions. This is how we proceed under the present system, but it's blindingly obvious that we should be telling people about our rules before they register an account (as below), not after they've made unacceptable edits.  —SMALLJIM  10:02, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

There's no AGF in reverting advising/warning, tagging, and watching. Probably, as you seem to indicate, if they edit again, they will promote again, and probably you then want to block. This does not speak to the point that the immediate block teaches them to, to create another account (aka SOCK), not use a transparent username, and to try being more subtle. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:40, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

• What would you allow on the user page of a company account? What they would want to put there is the sort of promotional fluff I have listed just above; or else a WP:FAKEARTICLE (an easy way for a non-notable company to get one). JohnCD (talk) 19:19, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Off the top of my head, I would allow a link to their company and a statement of their intentions on Wikipedia. For an account that is yet to make useful contributions, about one paragraph max. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:43, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

When registering an account

When people want to register an account, it doesn't appear that we automatically advise them of our most important rules (no vandalism, advertising, undisclosed paid editing, promotional usernames, etc.). By providing a short but clear summary, with a click on an "I understand and agree to the above" button being necessary to proceed with the registration, we should be able to avoid many of the problems we see with new accounts that are created in good faith. And for the others, it would provide a solid basis on which to warn and block.  —SMALLJIM  21:55, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

• Solid point. There is a link called "help me choose" that links to the username policy. But, if someone doesn't need help choosing they would never click on it. This is misleading good faith new editors who think they can create an account on behalf of their company. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:35, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
• We use to have advice like this but it was removed in the name of usability or somesuch. –xeno^talk 14:55, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

It must have been a looong time ago – maybe it's time to resurrect it: Wikipedia has a lot of problems that it didn't have several years ago.  —SMALLJIM  10:18, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

• Every other online service has some rules a newly registered user must acknowledge (even if the skip over some of the TL;DR boilerplate. It does not make Wikipedia more "user friendly" to keep new editors in the dark. An automatic welcome posted on their talk page would be useful, but for some reason the community seems to want to leave the talk page blank until the new editor has edited. Edison (talk) 18:46, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Exactly. This is a much wider issue than this RfC, of course. If anyone wants to run with it, please do. I'm more an ideas man than a campaigner.  —SMALLJIM  10:18, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

• What we should really do on the sign-up page, as well as guidance about appropriate usernames, is give a brief explanation of what Wikipedia is not for. "This is a project to build an encyclopedia. It is not a social-networking site, or a free platform for promotion. If you want to help build the enyclopedia, you will be very welcome; but if what you want to do is tell the world about yourself, your friends, your company, your client, your band, your book or your new original theory, this is not the site for you to do that." That would save a vast amount of time for patrollers and admins, and a vast amount of frustration and wasted time for the many newbies who don't understand what an encyclopedia is, and spend time and effort making pages that have no chance of being kept. JohnCD (talk) 13:32, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

+1. This is a vital step. But we're getting away from this RfC which is just about corporate usernames. Where can we most usefully go with the call to reform the sign-up protocol?: Noyster (talk), 22:59, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

This RfC, as formulated, conflates several issues

This RfC suffers from conflating several issues:

1. Should accounts named after businesses or organisations be insta-banned for violation of the username policy? (current practice)

2. Should accounts named after businesses or organisations be allowed? (not currently allowed)

3. Should accounts, in particular those used by companies' employees or principals, only ever be used by one person? (a current requirement)

4. Should accounts purporting to edit in the name of a company prove that they are actually doing so via an OTRS email from that company's mail server? (not currently done).

My opinion on these are 1. no, 2. yes, but I don't feel strongly about it 3. yes, but I don't feel strongly about it, 4. yes.

We may need to fix the structure of this RfC, to arrive at a more meaningful result. Andreas JN466 14:07, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

#1, no insta-ban, instead just add the username to a special tag-only abusefilter, which collects all "role account" edits into a central location of sorts. Then, gently walk them through COI-disclosure, using talkpages, the basics of WP:RS and WP:42, and point them to WP:Q if they have further questions. Give them a few weeks to change their username into a non-role-account alternative, like Larry_SomeCorp rather than simply SomeCorp, but no need to block them pre-emptively and procedurally. See also WP:ROPE.

#2. they should not be allowed, because they indicate that the humans behind such accounts very likely don't understand pillar three WP:COPYVIO issues, pillar one WP:NOTPROMOTION issues, and the WP:NOSHARING and WP:COI stuff. But they should be temporarily allowed, whilst the humans in question learn the ropes, per my answer to #1 above.

#3. Yes, one human per username... and preferably, each human should have something like User:Larry_SomeCorp for their 'on the clock' editing of articles related to their workplace, and a bidirectionally-linked User:Larry_TvMusicToysSportsPoliticsReligionEtc for their 'fun' editing of stuff unrelated to their workplace/boss/products/customers/competitors/etc. It is important to have one human per username, for the little brother defense, which often appears when e.g. political BLP-articles are edited from the IP address of the politician's campaign HQ... it wasn't me, says the politician, it was that dern unpaid nameless intern! One human per username, max.

#4. No, forcing OTRS-or-we-will-block-you against User:LarryWhatever_SomeCorp and all variations thereof, will just convince people to edit as User:AOIGoaihgoiAOIDHGOaoihdw or more subtly as User:GandalfRulz, rather than disclose their COI-encumbrance right in their usernames. We *want* to encourage COI-disclosure, as a way to encourage honest up-front participation, and so that we can watch COI-edits more closely. The best way to do that, is for the username itself to match the company. If the editor in question has a username like User:Bill_Microsoft, do we really care if they are Bill Gates, or just Bill the Janitor? No, all that matters is that their edits are NPOV. Do we care if they are working out of Microsoft Research in Egypt, and thus may not have a Microsoft.com email, but instead have something in an Arabic-glyph-domain-name? Or what if they are a professor as well as a Microsoft employee, and use their dotEdu email? Point being, we do not care if the person actually works for a company or just claims to, and we do not have the bureaucracy necessary to handle the "prove" of identity that would be necessary. It is actually conceivably a Very Bad Idea^TM to try and pretend that we can 'prove' who works for some large company, and who does not... there are plenty of trolls out there, who would love to trick OTRS volunteers via forging emails or exploiting corner-cases or straight out social engineering ("my boss will fire me if I don't hurry up and fix 'our' article please approve my OTRS request I swear that my MSN.com email is from microsoft corporation!") that will put wikipedians in a bind, when the troll uses their "proven" identity as a microsoft employee to screw with iPhone and Google and Linux and other such articles, plus adding spam to Mona Lisa or whatever. Better not to pretend we can 'prove' that the person is really an employee; we already force them to disclose, and disclosure is sufficient -- if they lie, then THEY are lying, but if we offer to 'prove' who the employees are and who they are not, WE are gonna get our wiki-noses bloodied, sooner or later. Plus, as already mentioned, we want to encourage easy painless disclose-your-COI-encumbrance right in your username, and OTRS is anything but painless. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 03:17, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Precedents in other Wikimedia projects

Mdann52, can you bring a link to the German language guidelines here? Here are other discussions -

• meta:Role account
• Commons:Commons:Username policy - see especially Commons:Commons:Username_policy#Usernames_requiring_identification and Commons:Commons_talk:Username_policy#Making_official. Ellin Beltz just a few weeks ago closed that discussion, which without any discussion suggests that accounts on Commons can have organization names if they confirm with OTRS. There is no OTRS infrastructure for managing name confirmations.

This discussion is bigger than English Wikipedia. If I were looking for a test case, I would pause on English Wikipedia and sort this policy at Commons. Companies editing articles in Wikipedia has been a perpetual problem. There is less problem with organizations like museums donating pictures to Commons, but even in that case organizational accounts have regularly been blocked even when the intent is to make media donations with a Commons upload. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:49, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

• I concur the issue is really larger than en.wiki. That said, meta:Role account indicates only one possibility of a role account that was not representing some function of Wikimedia ('gardener' on fr..what that represents, I do not know). I don't think Commons is the right place for a 'test' case. While certainly there have been cases of organizations wanting to donate materials to Commons, which makes it seems like a decent test case site, I think the issue needs to be brought to a higher fora than that. Commons is a special case, and is not necessarily the best test case platform. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:58, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Hammersoft On Commons this has happened fewer than 100 times, mostly with no problem, and all with a high level of engagement by the organization. On English Wikipedia this has happened thousands of times, with the majority of cases being problems, and almost always with low engagement from the organization. Are the situations not comparable for having organizational engagement in common? I have trouble imagining a path to resolution and consensus on English Wikipedia, whereas on Commons there is more agreement and many paid staff Wikipedians (10? 20? the majority of those which exist, I expect) who would be willing to endorse an agreement if the Wikimedia community could come to one. What differences do you see between Commons and enwp and what drawbacks do you see with Commons as a test case? Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:56, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

• Commons is a media repository. The various language wikipedias develop mostly textual content. They are radically different in focus and intent. It would be like using a fish hatchery as a test case for how to improve corn crop yields. I generalize, but companies wanting to donate material to Commons have a very different intent than companies wanting to get a presence on Wikipedia. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:37, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

• • DE link : de:Wikipedia:Benutzerverifizierung (in German, obviously). Mdann52 (talk) 06:13, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Mdann52 Can you translate the title of that? Is this "User verification"? Is there an equivalent concept on English Wikipedia? I might like to create something just so that there can be an inter-wiki link. Is this at all related to de:Wikipedia:Personal Acquaintances? Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:51, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Bluerasberry apologies, the ping did not reach me and I've only just been made aware of this. Very roughly, yes it does. The most similar concept currently is making people with famous user names (eg. User:Bill Gates) email OTRS to verify it is them. Mdann52 (talk) 05:46, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.