topic Re: Allowable User names on sign up in Community Site Feedback

Allowable User names on sign up

MauriceC — Wed, 19 Jul 2017 10:41:09 GMT

I notice that in this topic

There is a post from Superuser - but this member is not a member of the *new* Superuser group?

Member since 2015 so a historical problem, but could be confusing. Are there 'excluded' names during the sign up process to minimise this happening?

Re: Allowable User names on sign up

Townman — Wed, 19 Jul 2017 10:59:22 GMT

I suggest the first point to confirm here is that this user has had this name since signup ... rather than now we have super users, it has been changed recently.

I thought it was possible to change display names, though having just taken a quick look (on iPhone) I could not find anything ... though I recall jelv having the alias 'spoon whittler' for a while ... so there could be something somewhere I've not found.

This is not the only misleading user name around the place - there are numerous non-staff members who have some inference to 'plusnet' in their usernames - e.g. Plusnetman - which ought to be prohibited. Indeed I would go so far as to suggest that not even plusnet staff should have 'plusnet' in their names - e.g. Plusnetliam - less like Scott Storey, they leave the employ of the group but remain valuable contributors to the forum.

The only thing which should infer any association with anything official should be via rank or role and to that end (as a start) names should be filtered to disallow any name having the following character sequences (case blind)...

Plus
Net
Staff
Support
Super
User
Admin
Mod

A SQL query run on the user database against the above might be informative to see just how many user name variations might be involved.

Re: Allowable User names on sign up

Mav — Wed, 19 Jul 2017 11:38:21 GMT

@Townman

There was a 30 day 'grace' period (that ended on 7th May 2016) when we moved to the Lithium platform allowing old members to change their registered name that had been transferred over.

The SMF forum allowed the display name to be altered as often as one wanted but that facility is not present here.

Re: Allowable User names on sign up

jaread83 — Wed, 19 Jul 2017 13:22:48 GMT

We already have an extensive list of banned words for usernames. Can't really ask that particular user to change their name as it was made before the Superuser program was introduced.

Re: Allowable User names on sign up

Townman — Wed, 19 Jul 2017 13:33:03 GMT

Jack,

That being the case how did Plusnetman pass the filter? I believe that was a recent new joiner (not so easy to look up on the phone).

Are all of the suggestions above in the filter?

PS: One could ask the user if they would mind / like to change their name - if they go it's a win, if not it's no loss.

Re: Allowable User names on sign up

jaread83 — Wed, 19 Jul 2017 13:33:07 GMT

A few of them are. @Chris and @HarryB set them up initially based on what was in the SMF forums.

Re: Allowable User names on sign up

HarryB — Wed, 19 Jul 2017 13:33:17 GMT

@Townman wrote:
That being the case how did Plusnetman pass the filter? I believe that was a recent new joiner (not so easy to look up on the phone).

https://community.plus.net/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/12646

Registered in 2010.

@Townman wrote:
Are all of the suggestions above in the filter?

[Plus
Net
Staff
Support
Super
User
Admin
Mod]

The short answer is no.

I don't see a problem with words such as Super or User. However things like *superuser* *plusnet* etc. are in there (Where * is a wildcard)

Re: Allowable User names on sign up

Townman — Wed, 19 Jul 2017 13:41:35 GMT

Thanks guys for comprehensively closing off the questions here.

Re: Allowable User names on sign up

Mav — Wed, 19 Jul 2017 13:42:22 GMT

I assume a lot of names got past the filters as they were ported across from the SMF forum where, perhaps, the displayed name differed from the the registered name.

When we come across these we PM the members to request they offer us an alternative name to change to on their behalf.

Re: Allowable User names on sign up

Oldjim — Wed, 19 Jul 2017 13:48:25 GMT

I did notice a new user where the name includes 55 instead of SS to get round the swear filter - the name was intended to indicate that the customer wasn't too happy

Re: Allowable User names on sign up

Townman — Wed, 19 Jul 2017 13:53:38 GMT

As in [-Censored-]?

Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): Avoidance of swear filter edited as per Forum rules.

Re: Allowable User names on sign up

jaread83 — Wed, 19 Jul 2017 14:13:19 GMT

That user was approached by mods to change their name to something else as it got around the username filter (which is an amusing array of rude word configurations).

Re: Allowable User names on sign up

MauriceC — Wed, 19 Jul 2017 15:25:02 GMT

As there appears to be no consensus on being able to resolve this complex (?) issue. I propose to mark it closed until it causes a problem.

Re: Allowable User names on sign up

npr — Thu, 20 Jul 2017 19:07:39 GMT

I'm sure he /she would give up the username for a few months of free broadband.