The username is dead?

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I read it earlier and then discovered that he has disabled commenting.

I interpret his article as being another slam against using pseudonyms. He tries to make the case that people wonā€™t know who you are unless thereā€™s some real life information included, most commonly, your RL name. Well, whenever someone see;s my devilishly handsome purple self and the name Sarge Misfit, they know its me, no RL info included.

Basically, the username system isnā€™t broke so it doesnā€™t need fixing. Yeah, it sucks when you canā€™t get that nifty handle, but big deal. Get over it.

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As your friendly local IT department, I am happy to inform you that each and every one of you is a unique and special user object to us. Sure, you are a unique and special flower that blooms in a form that looks something like ā€œ{4F90ED00-A8C2-42E5-B0DF-224880823DF3}ā€; but you are all special in our sight.

If you would prefer to be secure in your unique and special identity, as well as unique, you could try something a bit more assertive, yet approachable, like

MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQDoi6YLE+sNvvWaQqFrw0C4gU2T
L5/9+M7bafyLdmgztbnL6vJmSlRy+O6gFhfnYMrVMC9k8Ziv7zDXS8cJPp6Y0zya
ehfQA9shVqSZrG070S0awjXN/IytkqfwzIlId9kN0epovbRQOEotB+ac7O2Kep9i
671mw4Ch7m+LU9NDdwIDAQAB.

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His first point was that itā€™s a bummer when you go to sign up for something and your username is already taken. This is true, but the alternative (Facebook method) is having a bunch of people with the same name on the service, which has its own flaws.

The upshot is: choose a handle that nobody else is likely to use so it isnā€™t taken when you sign up for a service.

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Waitā€¦ hereā€™s how to fix it? He seems to think Facebook has the answer, and hereā€™s 10 reasons it sucks. Iā€™m not sure I would call that a solution.

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Iā€™m just always annoyed that I can never get my preferred username:
aā€™; DROP TABLE users; ā€“

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I always think of Facebook as the anti-answer to everything.

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I use (short versions of) my real name, and have NEVER encountered that problem. Maybe its time for common naming conventions to change? Not just because user names- In the digital age, naming you child ā€˜John Smithā€™ curses him to a life of accidental credit mixups, arrest warrant snafus,etc.

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I had a very very unusual maiden name, and I suspect that part of the reason so many old friends have found me on FB is because they remember my maiden name and can easily find me because of it. I have had the issue, however, of having friends with pretty generic names that I cannot find to save my life. The Michael Smiths and Jennifer Jones are really tough to track down on FB. But then a unique identifier wouldnā€™t solve that search issue.

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Itā€™s a bummer and a bad first impression for a new service.

Itā€™s a bummer, yes. But not being able to get your preferred username leaves a bad first impression of a service? Since when? For a casual user, they will just add 6969 or something to the end of their username. For a hardcore user who absolutely MUST have their given username, they almost certainly have previously selected a username that is unique enough that it wonā€™t be taken. In short: I donā€™t know ANYBODY who thinks itā€™s some reflection of the SERVICE ITSELF that somebody has already taken their precious username.

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The flip side of that is a very uncommon name. Itā€™s gotten better, but at one time, if you could spell my IRL name, you could find my home address and phone number in about 5 seconds. My last name is very uncommon, paired with a not-very-common first name, and I think I might be the only one with my name in the US, at least the only one with any sort of web presence. Even in real life, I tend to stick with first-name-only unless someone has an actual need for my last name. Some people think itā€™s weird or like Iā€™m being a diva, and I do not care. Iā€™m just not that interested in being found.

It is only when it comes to web handles / usernames that I have ever run across the situation of sharing a ā€œnameā€ with someone. It was a weird feeling, and it made me wonder if I had already signed up with the service, Iā€™m so used to being unique (name-wise).

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I would think it would be a mark of potential quality that enough people have registered on a service already that they got your username.

Either that or their service lacks or has a crappy CAPCHA and there are already millions of spammer accounts on it.

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Robā€™s only real competition is Bruno

Hey, thatā€™s the combination to my luggage!

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Simple solution for the U.S.: A unique ten digit username should be assigned by the government at the same time as oneā€™s Social Security Number. Use of that name for all online transactions should be mandatory.

Edit: this was proposed entirely in jest ā€“ not as any sort of ā€œrealā€ solutionā€¦ Thank you, that is allā€¦

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Not that difficult, Iā€™ve found a million of 'em! :smiley:

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You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.

If only there were some distributed / federated way of creating unique identifiers that was under usersā€™ own controlā€¦ and if only such a method had been around since before the webā€¦ Perhaps we could give people unique user IDs at each domain name. Weā€™d need to separate the user part from the domain part with some sort of delimiter. Hmm, perhaps an ā€œ@ā€ sign would do? /snark

I grant that using email is just pushing the problem to domains, but at least those are long-lived and somewhat under your control. There were some smart people back in the early days of the 'net, before everyone handed over their identities to @gmail and @facebook.

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The weird thing is that he doesnā€™t like how Twitter does this, but I think Twitter handles this perfectly by showing both the name and the username.

So, I know that Brian Carnell @brian_carnell is not the same user as Brian Carnell @ass_monkey123

Honanā€™s Facebook model relies on the fact that people who use Facebook generally use it to communicate with people they have a high likelihood of having met in some context or another previously. On Twitter, and many other services, however, people are using the service with people theyā€™ve never met and often donā€™t even know the genuine identities of.

There doesnā€™t seem to be anything wrong with the username at all.

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Why not the world?

Facebook has the consequence of self-censorship. Itā€™s the site where my relatives and in-laws and potential future employees can find and identify me.

A username offers both identification and anonymity. Having different usernames on different sites lets you compartmentalize. I would really rather not have people on a gaming website connect my identity to a forum for transgendered people for instance.

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