Wikipedia talk:Username policy

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.

Should emoji and non-language unicode characters be acceptable as a username? Primefac (talk) 18:26, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

We have had three recent cases where a username with an emoji/unicode username has been brought before WP:RFCN (Special:PermaLink/778328432 and Special:PermaLink/803943220 (updated to permalink now that discussion has ended)).

Each time the core issue came down to the fact that we simply don't have a rule regarding this; the closest WP:IU has is "confusing usernames" and "seem intended to provoke emotional reaction" neither of which really encapsulates the issue. Other arguments were ones of accessibility (actually seeing the emoji), convenience (hard to type and/or copypaste), intention (it's essentially a trollface), etc.

Thus, I think we should determine a consensus on whether to allow emoji/unicode usernames, and propose we put the following in a subsection of WP:IU:

Non-script usernames

Due to the difficulty with some web browsers in viewing non-language unicode characters and emoji, as well as concerns regarding the suitability of these characters as names, users are not allowed to have the following usernames:

• Usernames containing emoji
• Usernames that are considered to be emoticons or otherwise "decorative" usernames
• Usernames that use any non-language symbols. This includes:
  • Symbols and characters unrelated to the list of writing systems
  • Symbols and characters that are the block lists at Unicode symbols

Users with such names should be offered the opportunity for renaming their account or creating a new one (see #Dealing with inappropriate usernames below). Before blocking, disagreements as to whether a particular username is acceptable should be discussed at WP:Requests for comment/User names.

Note that this restriction does not affect signatures, which are governed by Wikipedia:Signatures.

I am amenable to minor changes being made to the language/wording if something is not clear (or could be more succinct).

Please note that per the exceptions listed at USERNAME, if this proposal is accepted existing usernames will be grandfathered in, but if the name has not been brought for discussion it's fair game. Primefac (talk) 18:26, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Support as nominator. My browser can handle about 85% of emojis, but every once in a while I just get a box. We have a relatively small set of users using emojis/unicode and I'd like to see it kept that way, if only so I don't have to start questioning who or what is talking to me. Primefac (talk) 18:26, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per my thoughts at this RFC. Multi-character versions of these names make pinging next to impossible on either your mobile or your desktop depending on what the specific character is. That is disruptive to a collaborative project. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:34, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support I don't think we need this kind of flare to exist within the user account names themselves, as @Primefac has stated, the signatures will suffice for fulfilling this function of personal expression. The two systems are indeed distinct. - Wiz9999 (talk) 18:39, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. We should always aim for making usernames unambiguous and functional/legible. postdlf (talk) 18:48, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Your rationale sounds like support for User:♥︎player, who likes to play the card game Hearts and whose username will be unambiguous and legible for almost everyone, and a ban for User:ᚱᚢᚾᛟ, who likes to write about ancient writing systems, but whose username will look like square boxes for most editors. That is the opposite of the proposal. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:19, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support largely per the accessibility concerns. Emoji and whatnot in signatures is fine, but as a username shouldn't be allowed. ansh666 18:48, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. This project needs to promote conventions that aid communication. Tiderolls 18:50, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Qualified support for the first point only (no emojis), because they are not universally supported and many are rendered as vastly different icons on different systems (see this discussion for a related example). These have the effect of making a user possibly appear as multiple users to users on different systems, or who (like me) frequently switch back and forth. Yes you can copy-paste a username for pings or whatever, the problem is it's visually difficult to track a conversation with users whose username appearance changes unexpectedly. However I strongly oppose all of the other proposed changes as a solution in search of a problem. We already allow usernames in non-Latin language scripts which means that at least some of us have to copy-paste usernames anyway, so these arbitrary restrictions don't solve anything. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:52, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Ivanvector, I specifically worded it so that non-Latin language scripts are acceptable. I'm not talking about things like 雲‍水, I'm talking about things like ℞ or ⨁. Primefac (talk) 18:58, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes that is how I read the proposal, but I'm against that point. As long as a username uniquely identifies a user and has a reliable appearance across platforms, I see no reason to impose restrictions, and "language vs. non-language" is fairly arbitrary. To me, 雲‍水 is nonsense moreso than ℞⨁: the latter two have the appearance of stylized Latin characters whereas the former two are just random shapes which convey no information to me. I imagine you could make sense out of a username like Ivanvect⨁℞ even if you can't easily type it. I̡̡͜͡͞v̶̴̶̡͠a̡̡͘͞ń͘͟͟͡v̴̷̛͘҉e̕͢c̕͢͞t̢͘͝҉ǫ̵̛͡r̛͠͏̷ (^T̨a̢̕͟lk/_{E͡͞d̸i͜t̸s̴̵̡}) 19:24, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So you're saying a username of I̡̡͜͡͞v̶̴̶̡͠a̡̡͘͞ń͘͟͟͡v̴̷̛͘҉e̕͢c̕͢͞t̢͘͝҉ǫ̵̛͡r̛͠͏̷ should be allowed? That's of benefit to Wikipedia? That looks less like nonsense to you than 雲‍水 which is merely in another language? Foreign languages don't strike me as nonsense. In fact there's nothing at all disharmonious or confusing to me about strings of letters/glyphs/whatever in a foreign language but garbled scribbles are definitely confusing. Writing systems are designed to clearly convey information, they intrinsically have a legibility to them. I'd rather deal with an emoticon than the chicken scratch version of your name. —DIYeditor (talk) 15:28, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but the statement above just cracks me up so much... @DIYeditor that nonsense in Ivan's username should not exist anywhere! let alone in a username. It is such an extreme eyesore. I certainly hope I never have to deal with an actual user that has that garbled nonsense as their username. Foreign language scripts are so much more legible than that nonsense chicken scratching around the text. - Wiz9999 (talk) 16:44, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The constructive observation is that you could tell whose signature that was even though it was mangled with non-language characters - it still conveys information. Other than being kind of displeasing to look at (a matter of opinion) it's less disruptive probably than the other two Latin-ish O and R symbols which mess with line height in the editor. Yes, the foreign language characters have a meaning in the foreign language, and I could plug them into Google Translate to determine their meaning (Google insists these are Indonesian and won't translate them), but so what? If I'm to refer to an editor with this username in conversation, I'm going to be copying and pasting their username anyway because I can't type these characters, and if I'm doing that anyway then it doesn't matter one tiny little bit that these are language or not. The set of characters uniquely identifies this user account (the same way that the arrangement of characters in "Ivanvector" uniquely identifies mine) and everything beyond that is decoration. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:25, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Note to closer - in reviewing this discussion, please review whether they many bolded "support" comments are in support of excluding all of the types of usernames listed in the proposal, or in support of excluding only emoji from usernames. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 12:18, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose with a question One, I think username policy should be determined on global level given that we don't have separate accounts for this project and the global one. Second, I don't see a point in singling out emojis or other icons - names in other alphabets have the same issues and "but they are in an actual language" has nothing to do with any problem. I think that emojis are a bad idea as usernames but not one that needs a policy to fix. I am not sure how widespread the "different display" problem is, though. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 18:57, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Jo-Jo Eumerus, a Vice article gives some pretty good examples of how one emoji can look wildly different. There was also discussed (in the first RFCN I linked to) the issues with "crying face" and "crying laughing face" and "laughing face" potentially being confused.

  The main reason I set aside language things like Kanji / Arabic is because some users use them as their usernames (because they edit in multiple languages) and it's not fair to prevent someone from editing en-wiki simply because they're (for example) Japanese. Primefac (talk) 19:01, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  To reply to your last point, which I missed, the entire reason I created this RFC is because there is no policy. At the original RFCN that I closed the consensus was essentially "we don't have a rule for this, so why not". You're not alone in thinking that emojis are a bad idea as a username, but if we don't have a rule/reason/consensus on it, we'll just end up debating in circles about it. This way, whichever way the consensus goes, we can point to it and say "see, we (do/don't) allow these usernames". Primefac (talk) 19:06, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  But does that matter? The fact that the emoji that I always see on my Mac is different from the one that some other editor always sees on his Windows box is not going to stop me from recognizing it on my Mac, or stop him from recognizing it on his PC. And if you choose to switch back and forth between systems, then you are already aware of the limitations of the systems you use, and you can adjust for it (in just the same way that you will adjust for the fact that you will be able to read User:ᚱᚢᚾᛟ on some computers and not on others). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:18, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Probably not, but I was answering the question posed. Primefac (talk) 19:20, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Take 🙄 for example: What can look like a slightly annoyed look, with rolling eyes, will look like happy face on some devices and a confused face on others (check the Emojipedia entry for examples). Now you are switching devices and don't know that manufacturers implement Unicode differently: How will you know that this is the same user as this or this? Regards SoWhy 14:32, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  I see an empty square. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:36, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Check the link for how it should look like. But then you see the problem, no? I see the emoticon but you don't, so how can you identify a user with such a name? Regards SoWhy 12:33, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes, I was meaning to illustrate the problem. On systems where these are variably supported readers all see different things, but on what is still the vast majority of systems which don't support these character sets at all, all of the characters look exactly the same. Every character in this set is the same empty box. You can't differentiate between different characters in the set, and by extension one cannot differentiate between different users who use characters in this set to compose their usernames. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 12:35, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Support (edit conflict) as they are not universally the same (unlike a username); the fact that they could be seen differently on one broswer to another seems to be unnecessarilly looking for a dispute (if only between those who see it one way and those who see it another). Would we have to start taking into account the cultural differences that may see some emojis causing offence- UAA or not- who'd be to judge? The one with the latest browser or? No admins with Gingerbread or below may apply :) Language's not relevant. Whatever our colleagues who put themselves down as believing in the Force or speaking Klingon may assert in the latest census (and I don't say they do- they're probably too sensible- or that we have any, hastilly) emoji != language. — fortunavelut luna 19:03, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - Honestly, I have no idea how to ping someone who's name is an emoji, and if I found myself in a situation where I needed to, I would probably just post on their talk with a link rather than trying to figure it out. I wouldn't have any serious misgivings about grandfathering people into the system, if those who already had one of these names feels strongly about retaining it, since AFAIK the overall number is very small. But I think it's constructive at least to keep that number from growing large. GMG^talk 19:10, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support, purely for technical reasons. – filelakeshoe (t / c)  21:01, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support One of the most fundamental purposes to have designated user names on any online medium is to facilitate communication between users. If there are any technological barriers that prevent such communication, the lack of universal rendering and lack of screen-reader compliance are two such examples, then the user name fails in this purpose. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:05, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per nom's well-reasoned case. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:28, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - These appear in histories and logs and are commonly part of URLs when using tools and links. For technical reasons and because this is en-Wikipedia, it would even be best if they were restricted to ASCII alpha+numeric in my opinion, but I understand that this would now be problematic with unified user names and that it is out of the question. One thing that has not been addressed above is how many users would now receive a rename notice (to evaluate and time the effort of fixing existing names). Another is if the user creation code will enforce this in the future instead of constantly needing community attention. —PaleoNeonate – 21:52, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose because what's written is too sweeping, and because of the number of people this could harm. Did you know that one of the Wikipedias has a history of blocking people for having numbers in their usernames? You don't even have to make an edit there. All you need is a username like Wiz9999, and to click one of the interlanguage links to that wiki while logged in, and then you can get blocked if one of the admins decides that your use of numbers is annoying ("annoying" is the actual policy justification). You don't even have to make an edit. Another wiki bans usernames that are "too long", including Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi|'s. IMO we need less of this in the movement, not more. We should not have a policy of banning usernames that aren't actually hurting anyone. When and if an individual username becomes a problem – maybe if the editor actually sticks around, unlike 99% of newly created accounts – then we could talk about it on a case-by-case basis, but let's not waste time pre-emptively policing the artistic style of usernames. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:17, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support – These usernames are already borderline on several parts of the username policy, including the "emotional reaction", "disruptive", and "confusing" clauses. I'm generally opposed to non-latin characters being in usernames for decoration only, as the intent of WP:NONLATIN always seemed to be to allow names and words in non-English languages, and it talks about "usernames that are not spelled using the Latin alphabet", not "usernames that user characters outside the Latin alphabet". I would clarify that the policy does not prohibit the use of punctuation from the "Basic Latin" character block (other than # < > [ ] | { } / @, which are banned for technical reasons). --Ahecht (TALK
  PAGE) 22:19, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the "Basic Latin punctuation" model, User:Winking (`_^) would be fine, but User:£ sterling or User:Two × Two would not be. I'm not sure that distinction makes much sense. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:54, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

    That example wouldn't be fine, it would fall under the "emoticons or otherwise "decorative" usernames" clause. --Ahecht (TALK
    PAGE) 14:58, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Support Wikipedia relies on collaboration and I am one of a significant number of editors who find it difficult to think about or communicate with someone using squiggles for their name. The motivation of an emoticon editor is not relevant, but the fact remains that such names often come across as trolling. If you are here for the encyclopedia, please do not use a decorative name. Johnuniq (talk) 00:07, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. I don't think it's helpful when a username shows up as a string of boxes on something that does not support emoji. —MRD2014 ^{Talk • Edits • Help!} 00:23, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support, they also should be allowed in signatures. Kaldari (talk) 01:34, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Should be allowed, or should not be allowed? Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 01:44, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. No point in singling out emojis compared to other non-Latin characters. Emojis are Unicode characters and can thus be typed just like any other language character. Side note: I am appalled by the short length of WP:UUN or attempts to shorten it, this doesn't bode well for the goal of countering WP:BIAS. feminist 02:56, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  @Feminist: Care to elaborate? After all, the proposal does exclude actually used scripts, so I fail to see how this is a WP:BIAS problem. Regards SoWhy 12:37, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Support The allowance of non-Latin character is necessary, because of global user names--a person who edits primarily on a non-Latin-alphabet WP will have a name in the characters of that language, and the name will therefore be the same here as on their home wiki. There is no WP written in emoji. There is thus no necessity for these names. Many users and editors find them confusing, and they add nothing helpful. DGG ( talk ) 05:10, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• support this is a working community and being able to cite someone's username is an essential part of communicating. Jytdog (talk) 05:32, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support: Emoji usernames are an issue for computers that don't support emojis. KGirl ^{(Wanna chat?)} 12:04, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per most of what was said above, especially the points about a11y, making it harder for collaboration to happen and problems with output on different devices. Regards SoWhy 14:24, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per GMG, DGG, and others. shoy (reactions) 14:35, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support It's great for users to have an opportunity to be creative with their names but ultimately they are used for identification by and communication with other editors. We are here to build an encyclopedia. The reason for allowing Unicode characters in general should be to provide for other languages which is a no brainer. Extending that to purely graphical (or entirely nonsense) usernames doesn't make sense - seeing ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡o) come up in my watchlist, with its punctuation marks, is annoying and confusing unlike purely foreign language names - which are a series of language characters and not annoying or confusing at all. And what of someone who wants to make an even longer string of characters as an emoticon or worse as pure nonsense? Perhaps added to "emoticon" should be "or nonsense jumbles of punctuation or symbols". Users can make their signature whatever they wish anything that is not confusing; they are free to put emojis or other characters there which is fine. We shouldn't be forced to deal with decoration in usernames themselves. Please nip this problem in the bud. —DIYeditor (talk) 14:43, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support on technical grounds - While I understand that there are people who want to have some fun with their usernames, it could pose technical problems, both to readers (who may be unable to see symbols), and to the users themselves (wouldn't it be hard to log-in using such usernames?) As a compromise, maybe in the future, the use of emojis could instead be directed at user signatures instead (and indeed, many users already do so). Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 16:12, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose If characters are going to be arbitrarily banned from usernames just because people WP:DONTLIKEIT, this should be a global user name policy on Meta rather than a local policy to trip up anyone who comes here after establishing their name on another wiki. Anomie⚔ 17:21, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • +1. We need a global policy to address DONTLIKEIT problems. "Your username is okay at your home wiki, but you'll get blocked if you go to this other one" is not okay. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:50, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • How is that different from a circumstance where "Administrator" or some such has been accepted on a foreign language Wikipedia because they didn't recognize the problem but it can't be allowed here? A global policy would be great but this is a start. —DIYeditor (talk) 18:29, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm also somewhat amused by the support reasons that complain about usernames that would be allowed by this proposal, e.g. "I̡̡͜͡͞v̶̴̶̡͠a̡̡͘͞ń͘͟͟͡v̴̷̛͘҉e̕͢c̕͢͞t̢͘͝҉ǫ̵̛͡r̛͠͏̷ " that abuses diacritics (which are language symbols) or "( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡o)" where the only characters that might be considered non-"language symbols" are parentheses and a tilde. Anomie⚔ 17:21, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡o) has no natural language meaning even if it does have language characters. I think common sense would win the day here. 比萨 (pizza), بيتزا (pizza) or any other username that was meant to convey something in an actual language would still be allowed, while (<ت.ت>), a face I randomly pieced together by copying one section of the Google translate of pizza in Arabic above would not be. Any usernames that were created on other wikis and are in line with their naming policies should obviously be exempted. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:02, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡o) would be disallowed as an emoticon by the second criterion and I̡̡͜͡͞v̶̴̶̡͠a̡̡͘͞ń͘͟͟͡v̴̷̛͘҉e̕͢c̕͢͞t̢͘͝҉ǫ̵̛͡r̛͠͏̷ might fail decorative although as I said the wording could use some expansion to include general abuse of language symbols. If the proposal doesn't go quite far enough that can be further amended once it's clear if there is support for the basic idea. —DIYeditor (talk) 18:29, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) What do you mean it has no natural meaning? It's clearly a set of winking eyes and a nose, and intended to represent that. I don't think anyone with any language background is going to see that set of characters and think it's a dump truck or something. It's 比萨 that conveys no natural meaning, unless you are familiar with that language or someone tells you that it's pizza. I also don't get a face out of the characters you picked together without you telling me that's what it is, I thought it was a boat. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:36, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose it might be better to say whatever the face is can't be vocalized in any language without being gibberish. Its a face, but it doesn't serve the essential purpose of names (whether IRL or on the internet) of allowing us to have something we can easily and recognizably call someone by, unless we are told what to call them. That's the difference between it and a made up name like "FlubsterWubster". The latter conveys no meaning at all, other than something thats easy for anyone who speaks English to pronounce and recall.

The pizza characters don't have meaning for someone who doesn't know those languages, but we can pretty readily assume that it means something in a language that is/was spoken and that they're likely trying to contribute on zh.wiki. My boat/face/whatever was more of a point to common sense: it has language characters in it, but if it was created by someone on en.wiki we'd likely know it was meant as an illustration, not as a name from a language that uses a non-Latin script. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:13, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Support - emoji etc names are confusing, hard to communicate with, and generally not conducive to collaborative work here. I also agree with Anomie, that this would be better implemented at the global level, but at least something can be done about it here. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 17:24, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support as long as non-latin alphabet names that are global, and come from other wikis are allowed. Emojis, "cute" characters or Ivan's extreme example obviously should not be allowed. -- Alexf^(talk) 17:26, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • What if another wiki says that "User:🏈fan" is a perfectly fine username? Are you going to block that user for daring to edit the English Wikipedia without first requesting a global name change? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:50, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • That is using a cutre emoji type character. What I said is non-latin alphabet. That is not alphabet but cute emoji characters. Not the same as thew 比萨 example above. -- Alexf^(talk) 18:43, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - Not all emojis work on various browsers and then we have I̡̡͜͡͞v̶̴̶̡͠a̡̡͘͞ń͘͟͟͡v̴̷̛͘҉e̕͢c̕͢͞t̢͘͝҉ǫ̵̛͡r̛͠͏̷ which for me looks like an utter mess, in short if you want to contribute here in a helpful manner then you can pick a username like the other 20 million people on here, Non-latin usernames should be exempt as not everyone is English. –Davey2010^Talk 18:51, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - Per nominator, collaboration hurrdles and my previous comments here and here - FlightTime (open channel) 18:58, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - A solution in search of a problem and another example of instruction creep. Anne drew Andrew and Drew 20:42, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• If you reread the first sentence of the proposal, I trust you'll see that this is not a solution in search of a problem. Regards, Lepricavark (talk) 00:59, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose As noted by others, usernames are global across all Wikimedia projects and so local ordinances would be disruptive and might lead to incompatibilities if other projects retaliate by deciding that they don't like the latin alphabet. Andrew D. (talk) 22:58, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• The proposal is to prohibit decorative (junk) characters—characters from non-English languages are fine. I hope קיפודנחש does not mind me using their name as an example of someone who is based at hewiki but is also active here—that is no problem. I see some comments above that non-English should be prohibited but that is not in the proposal and will never happen due to single user login. Johnuniq (talk) 00:36, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Johnuniq, I think my comment above might be what is being referred to. I am 100% opposed to any prohibition on non-English language characters. The point I was trying to make is even if the language in this proposal is ambiguous, it is easy to determine through looking at something whether or not it is decorative or language. Clearly we shouldn't be prohibiting non-Latin usernames that are the standard script system in other language Wikimedia projects. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:02, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Support The proposal in its entirety. Irondome (talk) 23:07, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support For mentioned reasons plus....it should not be a complex technical task to just write a user name. Wikipedia's misguided effort to make itself more technically user friendly consists of dumbing down the level "2" stuff to level '1" while ignoring that it has piled on level 8 stuff to basic editors. We should avoid making that worse. North8000 (talk) 00:24, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support ASCII is enough for English. I get that Unicode exists to represent other alphabets, and a certain amount of disruption is necessary for encouraging unified usernames cross-project, but things that aren't valid usernames in any computer system elsewhere shouldn't be encouraged at Wikipedia, either. Jclemens (talk) 04:52, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. Can't see legitimate uses for such names. (But what about users who may have registered such names on other projects and are being migrated here?)  Sandstein  10:09, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sandstein, that's what the penultimate clause is for - if someone creates a nonconforming username on another wiki, and then starts editing -en, the issue would be discussed with the user, then at WP:RFCN, and then blocking would be considered. In other words, there are a lot of (semi-)peaceful ways to resolve the dispute before it comes to a block. Primefac (talk) 12:01, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support as they can't be pronounced or in some cases easily written. Signatures are a different story. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:37, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. Names that cannot be displayed consistently can cause a variety of confusions, and there are plenty of options for conforming usernames in a wide variety of languages. --RL0919 (talk) 17:28, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Names that cannot be easily typed/used cause an unnecessary complexity to the entire community for the sake of satisfying one editor's vanity. In particular I'm thinking about a certain prolific editor who name changed to a specific symbol that caused so much problems that people had to set up convienence templates that they could converse with the editor. Unfortunately that editor would be grandfathered in, but that doesn't prevent us from trying to prevent others from doing silly things. Hasteur (talk) 18:06, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support the rule against usernames that may be difficult to enter or render. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:43, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per Jclemens and DIYeditor. I was not swayed by the opposers' arguments. Chris Troutman (talk) 20:45, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per every "support" reason above. — JudeccaXIII (talk) 21:26, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per nomination, mainly to avoid difficulty copying/writing usernames with unusual characters. Name goes here (talk | contribs) 23:59, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per nomination. Names like these are disruptive and makes things difficult if one wants to mention or discuss with the user. I'd even go as far as to getting rid of the grandfather clause for this, but that would (currently) be against consensus. SkyWarrior 03:27, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. We are happy to adapt, to cut and paste characters in language, so that all editors may use any reasonable name in their native tongue. Emojis are not a language, so there isn't any expectation of a right to use them. The unusual characters are not universally supported on all platforms, making collaboration more difficult. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 10:55, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support all as written. Having emoji, emoticons, or symbols with no linguistic properties is very unhelpful. Emoji are also fairly recent, and may not be supported on older systems. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist ^{(Speak quickly)} _{(Follow my trail)} 15:20, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support To hell with emojis. Those are a technical nightmare / impossible to even type on any keyboard or pronounce in any language. I'd extend this to wingdings/dingbats and other non-pronounceable things. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:12, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. There are literally billions of billions of usernames that can be made with just numbers and the 26 letters of the English alphabet. Any potential editor should be clever enough to figure out a username from that selection. bd2412 T 22:22, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - [There is no point if] non-Latin characters are still to be allowed, and it would be silly to disallow other language characters because of the Single Unified Login system. Foreign language characters pose all the same problems as symbols/emojis etc. [(i.e. non-language characters; e.g. I cannot pronounce or type Japonic, Sino Tibetan, or Eastern Slavic language characters any better than the most arcane symbols/emojis)]. Furthermore, this would only ban [symbols/emojis etc.] locally. If a contributor who creates an account [with symbols/emojis etc. in their username to edit another language Wikipedia] after this request for comment were to close as successful and becomes well established there, then begins editing here, they would be forced to change their username or receive a block. That is not right. This should either be implemented as a policy for all language versions of Wikipedia or none. It does not make sense to just implement it locally. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 04:14, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: this is not about non-latin characters but about specific unicode ranges like emojis, which are not part of language scripts. —PaleoNeonate – 05:42, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• That oppose is not relevant for this proposal which happily permits user names such as קיפודנחש (from my example above of a user active at hewiki and enwiki). This proposal prohbits non-language symbols such as 😈 + 🙏🏻 + ⚱. Johnuniq (talk) 06:51, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@PaleoNeonate and Johnuniq: It is highly relevant. I merely did not state it clearly which led to misinterpretation. I've clarified with brackets. Regards, — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 15:52, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Godsy, as I mentioned above, blocking is the last course of action to take in your hypothetical "other wikis first" scenario. You discuss with the editor, then go to RFCN, and then block if necessary. It could very well be that the issue is resolved in steps one or two. Primefac (talk) 15:59, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If, for example, User:👽 creates an account at and makes a few thousand edits to de:Wikipedia over a year or so then begins contributing here they should never asked/forced to change their username (because it affects the identity they have built there) or be blocked (because it is unjust). I cannot support a proposal where either of those things is a possible outcome. On a side note, there would be no grounds to ask, for example, User:靑瓷陽印刻ისნაირებისა草象嵌牡丹ორებლებ文銀釦대접, which is actually egregious, to change their username. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 16:18, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

One could absolutely ask the latter to change their name. That's what WP:RFCN is for (never mind the fact that you've mashed up Chinese and Georgian in a rather pointy/gibberish example). It might not be technically covered under this proposal, but as far as "disruptive" or "confusing" usernames go it's certainly up there (and those two are covered by existing policy). Primefac (talk) 16:23, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Primefac: Gibberish perhaps, but not pointy. There is no need for characterizations like that which only serve to drain civility from a discussion. I certainly hope we would not discriminate against Korean-Georgians (or vice versa) wishing to use characters from both languages in their username (as long as we allow foreign language characters). — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 16:35, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Support, per the support arguments above. I too suffer from the emoji-as-box problem and would rather forestall the possibility of running into a discussion between two users with two different emoji usernames that both render as a box for me. What a nightmare. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 01:58, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - "confusing username" is often confused. This bit of policy was created to prevent users creating names such as "AdminBob" or "BotAnna". A username is not confusing in itself - otherwise we'd have to ban non-latin usernames. We really don't need to police usernames so heavily. There are enough policies to prevent names that are problematic, and if a name is created in order to cause problems it is the behaviour, not the name, that needs to be addressed. I need to stress how unfriendly the username policing is. Imagine you sign up for a username, make some good faith edits, and then get a warning about your username posting you to a meta discussion board where you'll have to defend your name. It's incredibly hostile to new users, and it's ridiculously bureaucratic. DanBCDanBC (talk) 11:37, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• It wouldn't be asking much to get rid of emojis from names. We would certainly welcome, say, writing out what each emoji in the name is and using that as a username instead. That being said, I can see an argument, though I still disagree with it, for having a name that's mostly not emojis, with maybe one or two thrown in - as long as the rest can be used to identify the user such that if just that portion or even a nickname based on it were used in a wiki conversation it would be very clear to whom the speaker is referring. The policy might have been made for the exact cause you describe, but it also goes a long way toward clarifying discussion and making fellow users easier to refer to. e.g. Just plucking a random user out of the air here, but it might be kind of touchy for Stifle to log on and see someone calling his or herself "The Real Stifle" and commenting in the same discussions as the aforementioned Stifle. Perhaps case-by-case would be useful. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist ^{(Speak quickly)} _{(Follow my trail)} 02:41, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose as a solution looking for a problem. If passed, I would expect a grandfather clause for usernames previously existing. Full disclosure: I occasionally use the alternative account User:✄. Stifle (talk) 16:00, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Given that the last sentence of the proposal is that existing usernames would be grandfathered, I'd say your expectation has been met. As for the "solution looking for a problem" - I brought this discussion up because at least three times now "we don't have a policy on this" was part of the reason username discussions resulted in no consensus/no change results. Primefac (talk) 16:04, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Strongly Oppose — Only unambiguously hostile usernames should be disallowed. That some people's computers don't work well with non-letter symbols is their computer's problem. We don't erase everything written in Arabic in the encyclopedia because some ancient Window$ 95 doesn't show it right, instead we link to information about the problem. —{{u|Goldenshimmer}}|✝️|ze/zer|😹|T/C|☮️|John15:12|🍂 23:06, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Genuinely out of curiosity, does that mean you're opposed to WP:ORGNAME, WP:MISLEADNAME, WP:UNCONF, and WP:ISU? Because none of those fit your description either. Primefac (talk) 23:33, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Primefac: ORGNAME and ISU I oppose because they're redundant to WP:SHARED: it's a matter of semantics, but don't block the users because of their usernames; block them because they are a shared or organization account (which could be noticed because of the username). UNCONF I oppose because it similarly seems pointless to me: excessively long usernames should be controlled by a limitation on the sign-up page, if doing so is desired (the policy isn't clear regarding what it prohibits beyond that). MISLEADNAME I oppose because, yet again, it's redundant: everything in it seems to be prohibited by non-username-specific rules to be civil and collaborative, and rules against impersonation of other users (honestly, upon further reflection, I'd chuck the "hostile" prohibition I suggested above into this bucket as well). Since usernames are global, anyway, having project-specific username policies seems silly, and since there are general conduct policies for ENWP, this just seems like redundant overregulation that would be better covered as examples in the guidelines for how a user's level of civility and collaboration should be assessed. —{{u|Goldenshimmer}}|✝️|ze/zer|😹|T/C|☮️|John15:12|🍂 20:14, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Support the spirit of this proposal, though given some of the examples given above (e.g. emoticons created with only language characters), perhaps minor revisions may be necessary to make its letter coincide with its spirit. (For one thing, what exactly is a "decorative" username? Would anyone have much of a problem with User:*^* Double sharp *^*, since it is rather easy to type despite its slight silliness?) Double sharp (talk) 05:21, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support it's sensible and hard to type out. jcc (tea and biscuits) 16:38, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. Emojis rendering as boxes in particular is extremely disruptive. Having two or more people like that in a discussion would be unreadable, and trying to identify one of them across different discussions would be prohibitively difficult. I also welcome attempts to establish common ground for global usernames at Metawiki. Alsee (talk) 08:52, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support: Actually any responsible/prospective editor who is here to really help build encyclopedia will surely choose decent, meaningful and readable username. --Ammarpad (talk) 11:28, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per many of the above reasons and my past explanations on the topic. These usernames make communication harder. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 13:31, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Not allowing emojis will improve accessibility. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:44, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. The proposal seems a bit too open-ended and I don't see good justification overall. Yeah, it seems like there could be problems down the line but that's not a reason to stamp out creativity, no matter how reflexive that may be nowadays. The creativity might not be needed if we didn't have a huge number of dead usernames no one ever used... If need be, the type specimen (͡ ͜ʖ͡o) may suggest a less restrictive alternative - format altering characters ("combining" characters, RTL and so forth) potentially could be an issue in a way that ordinary "emojis" may not be. I could also certainly see recommending plain language usernames without requiring them. Doc James' argument comes closest to being persuasive but I would need to hear someone with those issues actually tell us it is a significant problem - AFAIK there are a lot of issues with screen readers and I don't know if this rates top billing. Wnt (talk) 10:39, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support While I do not see an aggravated usage of such usernames and not even that their use are disruptive, I agree with the points stated here, also if an user were to have their homewiki with a different username local policy which allowed such, I'd oppose any sanctions on them. --QEDK (愛 • 海) 07:33, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - the user name exists partly to allow reference to the user; use a name which isn't readable to most local users, and you're disrupting the user interaction system here. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 09:39, 16 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose for the simple fact that since WP:SUL exists, consensus for such an issue cannot be delegated by one sole Wikimedia project. Steel1943 (talk) 05:21, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. In light of WP:SUL being a thing, local username policies relating to character sets and so forth are generally problematic and difficult to enforce. FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY ^[u+1F602] 18:20, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Meh Even if this becomes policy, I could jump onto the French Wikipedia, make a new username filled with everyone's favorite blank boxes and come back here under WP:SUL, without any problems. I have a non-english username, but don't have to resort to fancy script in doing so, understandably some people do, although editors with Chinese characters are often unpingable on old versions of firefox. Emoji is proably not an offical langauge anywhere yet, although people do like them and use them as a kind of communication. apprantly they are not going to become a languge soon either. I use old computers some of the time and can't see whatever all these fancy things are most the time, I agree that it makes it harder to ping people or see their username, but I wouldn't say that bothers me, I can still copy/paste whatever the blank or numbered little boxes are to do the deed. Dysklyver 20:29, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Under the current proposal, when you started editing here after creating your account on the French Wikipedia, someone could tell you to change your name and report you to WP:UAA to be blocked if you refused to do so. Anomie⚔ 20:42, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support It's evasive. What's next, a username consisting of only whitespace? They're impossible to ping, and it comes off as purposely difficult to reach. Drewmutt (^ᴥ^) talk 22:55, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose We have no business trying to tell other wikis that their username policies are unacceptable here, unless there's a problem with the content of the username as well as its expression. This is different from content objections, e.g. how we prohibit offensive usernames or how de:wp permits "User:Acme Company" and we prohibit it — we prohibit it because we don't allow role accounts or promotional usernames regardless of the specific characters, not because we oppose having "C" and "O" and "M" next to each other in usernames. In saying that this is an expression problem, I doubt anyone would mind having a user called "FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY", even though that's the same as 😂, which typifies the subject of this prohibition proposal. If any characters cause technical problems, we already ban them (this would fall under WP:UNCONF), but aside from that, we should permit any characters, or combinations of characters, that aren't objectionable for content reasons and that don't cause technical problems for reasons such as length. Nyttend (talk) 23:57, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Nyttend, you might want to double-check that; de Wikipedia specifically gives examples of unacceptable names, including "company" names. Primefac (talk) 16:44, 18 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Maybe they changed their policies? I'm talking about the issue discussed in the first section of Wikipedia talk:Username policy/Archive 21. At the time (early 2014), someone said 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. Also see the comments in the "Libraries, archives, partnerships" section of C:Commons talk:Username policy. Regardless of whether this is currently permitted, my point stands — one Wikipedia might permit a username because of what it is (e.g. a company name) that would fall afoul of our standards, and with that situation I'm fine, unlike what's proposed here. Nyttend (talk) 22:57, 18 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Support – Per Drewmutt. Hard to ping, and makes it difficult to reach them. –Miles Edgeworth ^Talk 17:32, 18 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support: including emoticons not only impedes accountability of/communications with the user (as others have mentioned, they may be hard to ping/link), but undermines the seriousness of the project. Nobody should come here and immediately think of how to add 'fun' to their experience—we should all be here to build an encyclopaedia. Signatures are the place to add funny graphics (if one so wishes). –Sb2001 01:17, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose due to the proposal being too strict. As currently written, it technically bans numbers and most punctuation due to their not being part of any alphabet (and would also ban a majority of the characters typable on a macOS English-language keyboard layout). If you want an emoji/dingbat ban write it as an emoji/dingbat ban, there's no point in banning the en dash and the pound sign along with the rest of them. Also, it would be very confusing to have 100 different local username policies; this belongs on Meta. Jc86035 (talk) 15:46, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Numbers are directly related to a writing system (most of them, actually), as are most punctuation. If you have a better way to phrase it, then I'm all ears. Primefac (talk) 15:56, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  @Jc86035: Numbers, en-dashes, and pound signs are part of the "Basic Latin" character block, and are therefore related to a listed writing system and not in the symbol block. This policy shouldn't disallow those names, although it might be worth clarifying. --Ahecht (TALK
  PAGE) 17:00, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  @Ahecht and Primefac: I would support a global proposal to prohibit characters from specific Unicode blocks (allowing ‰, €, √, №, ₂, and probably ə) as well as unassigned/private-use Unicode codepoints, ASCII control characters, diacritic combinations (stacked on one character) that don't exist in any real language (e.g. r̛͠͏̷), and diacritics used on characters which don't have diacritics in any real language (e.g. —́). I wouldn't ban "decorative" usernames since even ~Jane-Smith~ might be banned with that clause. I would also leave the details to separate !votes in an RfC since there are a lot of facets which don't seem to have been considered properly (note the supports based solely on not wanting to copy and paste usernames, which are nonsensical because the policy as worded allows characters of dead scripts like Egyptian hieroglyphs and 'Phags-pa for which no widely-supported keyboard layouts exist). It's also probably a bad idea to use real live Wikipedia articles as part of the policy.

  In addition, what are the current blacklists for new account usernames? Neither MediaWiki:Titleblacklist nor meta:Title blacklist include emoji so I'm not sure how 😂 would have been banned (this info should probably be at the top of the section to indicate current practice). Jc86035 (talk) 11:07, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  I was going to say "So something referencing 'Spın̈al Tap' wouldn't be an allowed user name?", but it turns out n̈ actually is used in a few uncommon orthographies (according to our article). I suppose the point still holds if someone wanted to reference it by putting metal umlauts over other̈ l̈etter̈s. 😂̈ Anomie⚔ 14:54, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  @Anomie: I was trying to be brief but I meant, basically, that only real combinations of diacritic modifier characters would be allowed, regardless of whether they would actually appear on the letter in question in a real script (e.g. since ¨̌ is used in ǚ, any letter which can be modified with diacritics would be allowed to have that combination of diacritics). This would allow people to use arbitrary metal umlauts on the letters and stuff like that but prohibit overusing diacritics and using them on random symbols. Jc86035 (talk) 16:22, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Support I particularly like DIYeditor's reasoning: "ultimately they are used for identification by and communication with other editors. We are here to build an encyclopedia". I think we need a relatively easy way to remember an account name, and these are definitely not. Doug Weller talk 12:36, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Partial support Full support for the third clause (non-language symbols) as reasonable enough. Sort-of supporting the first (emojis), but as a subclause of the third clause explicitly excluding emoji Unicode points (per browser rendering issues etc.) from language symbols, not as a ban on "funny usernames"; said otherwise, ☺ is forbidden but ":-)" is allowed (barring technical restrictions etc.). Oppose the second clause (emoticons and decorative usernames) per that reasoning. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 15:49, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per Od Mishehu and Drewmutt. Pinging should not be difficult, especially on mobile devices. James (^talk/_contribs) 16:03, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support, mostly per bd2412. Enterprisey (talk!) 01:43, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support, as non-language characters are not properly supported. The Banner talk 20:04, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose, as too broad. If the proposal was limited to merely emoji (which can differ considerably in appearance over different platforms), I could support. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 05:37, 23 October 2017 (UTC).[reply]
• Support - the technical limitations of emojis and other non-language usernames make this a very easy decision for me. I have nothing against emojis, just usernames that incorporate them. Kurtis ^(talk) 06:47, 23 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support – There is no reason anyone should need a username that breaks these rules, and plenty of space to express yourself with language characters, so any possible technical or confusion issue with emoji in usernames, even an unlikely or rare one, is enough of a reason to say no to allowing them. —swpb^{T go beyond} 17:42, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support limiting emojis, emoticons, and Unicode characters that are not letters/numbers/punctuation in any script. These usernames serve no practical purpose besides annoying other users who want to talk to them, and I find DIYeditor's rationale especially compelling in this matter. For instance, notational systems, braille, music, shorthand, emoji, alchemical symbols, and game symbols should be all disallowed in usernames, with no restriction on using them in signatures. I feel like it would be more effective as a global policy, though. epicgenius (talk) 22:56, 30 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - it aids communication. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:19, 2 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• For what it's worth, there was also a discussion on meta that had general support for the proposal, but I do not intend on this being a meta RFC; it's just for en-wiki (for now). Primefac (talk) 18:26, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • The discussion there seems rather different. The idea was to ban changing an existing username to an emoji-only username. So creating new accounts with emojis would be fine, and changing usernames to something like "User:🏈fan" (because that's emoji-plus-letters) would be fine, but they would refuse to change an existing username to just "User:🏈" . Your proposal is much more sweeping. In fact, I'm not even sure that your proposal, as written, permits punctuation in usernames (e.g., @Kralizec!:, @Tim!:, @Marine 69-71: or **dave**), although I hope that's not your intention. Maybe you should provide some examples of usernames that exist and that you think should be banned. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:59, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  @WhatamIdoing: Well; they've already said it doesn't apply to existing usernames, so I don't suppose that's possible. Cheers — fortunavelut luna 22:10, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  @WhatamIdoing: !, -, and * are part of the "Basic Latin" character block, and are therefore related to a listed writing system and not in the symbol block. This policy shouldn't disallow those names, although it might be worth clarifying. --Ahecht (TALK
  PAGE) 22:19, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  (edit conflict) Which would doubtless create a lot of problems with fairness ("He can have that name, which is much worse than yours, but you can't, because he created his account two days before you did, and we changed the policy in the meantime"), but doesn't answer the questions at hand:

  1. Where is the evidence that there is an existing problem with usernames? We don't normally write policies for WP:CREEPy reasons.
  2. What kinds of usernames are intended to be banned, and what kind of usernames are intended to be kept? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:21, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  WhatamIdoing, this is a genuine question: did you read through the discussions linked in the nomination? There's a huge amount of concern about emoji usernames mixed in with the support/indifference towards them. And yes, this is preventative, because it's better to decide we don't want emoji usernames when there are only two dozen, then try to retroactively realize that fact when we're awash with hundreds of accounts.

  Of course, this is a consensus-building opportunity, so if the consensus is "let's wait and see" then we would wait and see. But there have been more than one heated discussion about this topic, and the outcome so far has been "we don't have any rules so we cannot do anything", so... let's make some rules? Primefac (talk) 00:00, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  I didn't read it, and I don't expect any enforcing admins to dig through the archives to read it before they start hassling people for having the "wrong" kind of characters in their usernames. The change you want to make to this policy needs to contain all of the necessary information, without referring to previous discussions, and it doesn't. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:53, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  I may not be remembering things correctly here, but as I understand it emoji names are de-facto banned for new users by entries in the title blacklist. The reason the meta discussion was for renaming to emoji names is because stewards/renamers can bypass the title blacklist when performing renames. That said, we should have a global user naming policy, but there would be enough "but muh local project rights@@" stuff going on that I don't imagine the discussion would go anywhere. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 17:29, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Could this RfC be renamed to something more descriptive, like "RFC about disallowing non-language characters in usernames"? --Pipetricker (talk) 14:34, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No-one objected, so I'm changing it. --Pipetricker (talk) 08:07, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• I see a lot of people complaining about emojis being untypeable, unrecognizable, unpronounceable, or rendering as boxes. But all that applies just as well for many English speakers to names in obscure non-Latin-based writing systems. For example, do "𑨢𑨆𑨏𑨳𑨋𑨆𑨬𑨳", "𑩴𑩖𑪌𑩜𑩖𑪒", and "𛆁𛈬" show up for everyone, and does everyone else know how to type them and pronounce them? Assuming I didn't make any typos and whoever made the linked images didn't either, those are all words in languages. I can see characters there for the first two (the last shows up as boxes with numbers for me), but I don't know how to type, recognize, or pronounce any of them. Anomie⚔ 13:29, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think there may be support for a software fix here: allowing per-project nicknames as mostly proposed in phab:T154177. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:46, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • If you're talking here about users from other language Wikipedias, even if they occasionally stop by here, it's something we must tolerate on grounds that on their local wikis these names are certainly readable. Any non-language symbols or emoji are different in that they are not written in a language of an other Wikipedia (or other sister project), so the user can't say that "my user name is more readable where I come from than the user name type you want me to use". עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 09:45, 16 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      • While it's probably tongue-in-cheek, I see http://😃.duolingo.com/ offers to teach the Emoji language in 5 minutes per day. ;) More seriously, I'm trying to point out that certain arguments being frequently repeated here apply as aptly to things those people do support keeping. Even as names created locally and not just as coming from another wiki. (And yes, I'm aware from previous discussions that you personally would support banning all non-English characters in user names.) Anomie⚔ 19:02, 16 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
        • As I said, for users from other wikis, non-English characters something we must tolerate - which means that I clearly do not like the idea. The comment you linked to was explicitly about some local admins. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 04:52, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Anomie:; No!. All I see is "", "" and "". I didn't realise your examples even had content until I went to edit mode. I now feel like I am missing out. :( (Currently viewing on an iPad). ClubOranje^T 10:20, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• I see 8 identical empty squares, 6 identical empty squares, and 2 identical empty squares (the squares across all three sets are identical; there's just one square repeated 16 times). I do know how to type them: Ctrl+C Ctrl+V. I know in theory how to type them natively, but I don't know which characters they are. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 21:01, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: I have no opinion at this time, but If I recall, there's an editor named 😂. Steel1943 (talk) 03:54, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Update. Steel1943 (talk) 05:21, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment I feel that this RFC should have taken place on Meta, not enwiki. Biggest reason is that usernames are now global, and as a global renamer, I greatly desire having a global username policy instead of having the hodgepodge mess we have now of individual wikis setting their own username policies when usernames are now global. It is entirely possible for a username that is acceptable on one wiki to be a blockable offense on another. A proposal to set another local policy here would contribute to that mess. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 13:26, 18 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  I will be pursuing that shortly. Primefac (talk) 13:35, 18 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Is there even a global username policy on Meta? There is a global rename policy, but it doesn't apply to initial names chosen at account creation. What you're proposing is creating a Global Username Policy from scratch, which I think is going to meet a lot of resistance. --Ahecht (TALK
  PAGE) 19:22, 18 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Ahecht, as far as I am aware there is none, but due mainly to k6ka's concerns I would like to start one fairly soon (as soon as I find time to write up a comprehensive plan with all angles covered). I don't necessarily think that having a general policy will be met with resistance, because I plan on basing the meta policy on what the majority of other wikis give as their policies (see my reply above regarding the de-wiki's username policy and its similarity to our own). Besides, the question of "should we have a global username policy" is not the same as "what should be in a global username policy", so the specific details can always be worked out later (though I do want to start off with the common items). But I guess we'll see. Primefac (talk) 20:59, 18 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  As someone who thinks UPOL is the most boring part of en.wiki and am only here because I think these types of usernames make communication harder, no, this did not need to be done on meta first. Local policies of any sort can always be made stronger than global policies, so the objection that we have SUL now is about as useful as saying We have a global CU policy, we can't make our CU policy more stringent. Global policies are the minimum. They can be strengthened locally, and when not existing, local projects can set them. Even if a global policy allowed the characters explicitly, we would be able to prohibit them locally on en.wiki if the account originated here. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:48, 28 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  A stronger CU policy here doesn't interfere with the use of CU on other wikis. A ban on certain characters here does mean that someone with an established history elsewhere might find themselves blocked here unless they abandon that history in favor of a new name. Anomie⚔ 18:56, 30 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  An editor with an established history elsewhere might also find themselves able to keep their username. Blocking is the absolute last option, and it might end up that this hypothetical user gets to be an exception to the rule because of their established history. Primefac (talk) 18:58, 30 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  I personally really don't like relying on vague or unwritten exceptions to rules to avoid negative effects of the rules as written. That tends to lead to too many arguments over whether person XYZ should be granted an exception with arguments tending to come down on whether people like the person or not. Anomie⚔ 19:25, 30 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Fair enough. The "discuss first" option was written in mainly to handle the "they don't know" situations (much like borderline spam-un users), but I'd like to think there would be some AGF as far as simply asking if the hypothetical user would mind changing their names. Primefac (talk) 21:19, 30 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Possible solution which covers not only emoji, but provides options for easier communication with non-latin character sets proposed at Village pump proposals. ClubOranje^T 20:32, 18 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Anybody up to close this?Winged Blades of Godric^{On leave} 10:28, 4 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, I'll get right on it......oh wait...never mind...carry on... Primefac (talk) 13:56, 5 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm...This looks kinda interesting, if we don't mind the dampening spirits after being given a rousing reception at AN, soon after...:) Winged Blades of Godric^{On leave} 14:53, 5 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]