Latest revision as of 13:54, 17 January 2013

This policy describes what kinds of usernames are acceptable. It also specifies that a user account should be used only by one person, and that in most cases one person should use only one account.

Basic Guidance

User names can contain alphanumeric characters and spaces. User names are case sensitive, and the first character is always capitalized. A list of user names is here: Special:ListUsers.

Inappropriate User Names

A requested user name deemed inappropriate by the administrator setting up the new account will not be granted. Below is a list of the types of user names that would be considered inappropriate

• User names that are likely to offend other contributors, making harmonious editing difficult or impossible, for example by containing profanities.
• User names that contain or imply personal attacks.
• User names that seem intended to provoke emotional reaction ("trolling").
• User names that impersonate other people (e.g. a user would reasonably assume your user name belonged to a notable person or system user who is not you).
• User names that give the impression that the account has permissions which it does not have, for example by containing the term "administrator" or similar terms like "admin", "sysop" or "moderator".
• User names 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.
• User names that contain words that give the incorrect impression that the account may be officially affiliated with Water Diplomacy or any of it's initiatives.
• User names which resemble IP addresses, timestamps or other names which would be confusing within the mediawiki software signature format.
• User names that serve entirely to promote a company, group, institution or product
• User names that are virtually identical to an existing user name with different spacing or capitalization will not be approved because this is confusing to other users (e.g.: if "John Doe" is a user, then a new account "JohnDoe" or "JOHN doe" will not be allowed).

Usernames that are inappropriate in another language, or that represent an inappropriate name with misspellings and substitutions, or do so indirectly or by implication, are still considered inappropriate.

Guidance for More than One Account

Most people will only need one account. If you have more than one account, the profile from the secondary account must link to your primary profile and explain the purpose of the account.