This page is for bringing attention to usernames which may be inappropriate under Wikipedia's username policy. Before listing a username here, consider if it should be more appropriately reported elsewhere, or if it needs to be reported at all:
- For blatantly inappropriate usernames, such as usernames that are obscene or inflammatory, post to Wikipedia:Usernames for administrator attention.
- For other cases involving vandalism, personal attacks or other urgent issues, try Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.
DO NOT post here if:
- the user has made no recent edits, as there is no need to take any action.
- you wish to have the block of a user reviewed. Instead, discuss the block with the blocking administrator. Generally, see Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Unblocking.
Before adding a name here YOU MUST ensure that:
- the user in question has been notified and allowed time to discuss the concern on their talk page. You may use the {{subst:uw-username}} template for this purpose. Only post the issue here if they have refused to change their username or have continued to edit without reply.
- the user in question has not already been blocked prior to bringing their username here.
If, after having followed all the steps noted directly above, you still believe the user has chosen an inappropriate name under Wikipedia's username policy, you may list it here with an explanation of which part of the username policy you think has been violated. After posting, please alert the user of the discussion, possibly with the {{subst:UsernameDiscussion}} template. You may also invite comment from others who have expressed concern on the name by use of this template.
Add new requests below, using the syntax {{subst:rfcn1|username|reason ~~~~}}.
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Tools: Special:ListUsers, Special:BlockList
Reports
Please remember that this is not a vote, rather, it is a place where editors can come when they are unsure what to do with a username, and to get outside opinions (hence it's named "requests for comment"). There are no set time limits to the period of discussion.
- Place your report below this line. Please put new reports on the top of the page.
Jc press sec
Jc press sec (talk · contribs)
- This user has made edits to Judith Collins (|talk|history|protect|links|watch|logs), and has stated in the talk page that they are Mrs. Collins' press secretary. The edits had been relegated to that one page (and uploading an image), however today an edit was made to a separate page in an apparent attempt to scrub criticism. This came to my attention because they then posted to WP:BLP/N claiming they had removed "defamatory information", which is clearly not the case. I placed a COI tag in the politician's bio, and notified the user that they should request a username change or create a new account. This was subsequently challenged by Schwede66 (talk · contribs), which stated in the account's talk page that they were "free to ignore" the WP:CHU warning because they had stated their real identity and thus made their COI clear. While I see "Jc press sec" making edits to Judith Collins as an obvious problem, regardless of COI considerations, and whatever other users think about them, I believe the name is essentially promotional and therefore inappropriate. But I admit that WP:U is not entirely clear about this. §FreeRangeFrogcroak 21:22, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
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- I removed material in question because is it defamatory (an alleged leak to the media which is not supported by any evidence), in accordance with WP:BLP (Contentious material about living persons (or recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced – whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable – should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion.[2]) and WP:COI policy (An exception to editing an article about yourself or someone you know is made if the article contains defamation or a serious error that needs to be fixed quickly. If you do make such an edit, follow it up with an email to WP:OTRS, Wikipedia's volunteer response team, or ask for help on WP:BLPN, our noticeboard for articles about living persons.) I also asked for help on WP:BLPN which got me to this point.
- I have chosen this user name for a reason - I have a declared COI, and I have outed myself on the Judith Collins talk page. On the Judith Collins talk page, you will see that I have already stated I DO NOT edit the page, and have not other than putting up an appropriately licenced photograph as requested by other editors. Note that I have already told other editors that I would only contribute material/edit requests to the talk page only, for consideration by other non-involved editors which was well received.Jc press sec (talk) 23:04, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
- Again, the conflict of interest is not the issue here. The problem is that your username suggests you are editing on behalf of someone else, in contravention to WP:U. The COI issue (how it looks like when we allow a politician's press secretary to edit the politician's bio) is a matter for another venue. §FreeRangeFrogcroak 01:10, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
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- I don't see anything in the username policy that discusses "editing on behalf of someone else". Which part of the policy are you thinking about? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:43, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
- WP:ISU? §FreeRangeFrogcroak 23:13, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
- "Two or more humans are editing under the same account name" is not the same thing as "One human is editing to help out some person unfortunate enough to be the subject of a Wikipedia article". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:49, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
- Usernames that are names of posts within organizations, such as "Secretary of the XY Foundation", are not permitted, as such a post may be held by different persons at different times. NTox mentioned it below. §FreeRangeFrogcroak 23:56, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
- Sure, but that has nothing to do with whether one human is editing on behalf of someone else. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:47, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
- Whether that's the case or not, it gives the impression that it is, and the policy is clear on that point. And thus my request for comment, although I think WP:ISU covers this quite clearly. §FreeRangeFrogcroak 00:52, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
- Sure, but that has nothing to do with whether one human is editing on behalf of someone else. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:47, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
- Usernames that are names of posts within organizations, such as "Secretary of the XY Foundation", are not permitted, as such a post may be held by different persons at different times. NTox mentioned it below. §FreeRangeFrogcroak 23:56, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
- "Two or more humans are editing under the same account name" is not the same thing as "One human is editing to help out some person unfortunate enough to be the subject of a Wikipedia article". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:49, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
- WP:ISU? §FreeRangeFrogcroak 23:13, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
- I don't see anything in the username policy that discusses "editing on behalf of someone else". Which part of the policy are you thinking about? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:43, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
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- Again, the conflict of interest is not the issue here. The problem is that your username suggests you are editing on behalf of someone else, in contravention to WP:U. The COI issue (how it looks like when we allow a politician's press secretary to edit the politician's bio) is a matter for another venue. §FreeRangeFrogcroak 01:10, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
- If I might chime in here: the 'on behalf of' business has always been a bit fuzzy; while there is no explicit use of such language in the username policy, it's generally accepted that an account should be associated with a single individual only. This is for example the basis of WP:NOSHARE—we don't want people sharing accounts because it's too hard to collaborate with someone when their sign-on keeps being used by a bunch of other people. (And imagine what RfA would be like if the candidates let/had let other people frequently use their accounts). The idea with accounts is that we want to establish an identity for someone, so if somebody is constantly doing stuff on Wikipedia as a representative of somebody/something else, the identity is lost. So a case as simple as making a few edits as a favor for someone is a lot different than actually creating an account for the purpose of representing them. The username policy simply aims to avoid cases of the latter by disallowing names that imply it. Hence why 'Jc press sec' is not allowed, in part because it implies official representation of the Judith Collins office. That's why I recommend that this user simply keeps these fundamentals in mind and stops by CHU to avoid (at least some) further hassle. NTox · talk 06:37, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
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- Thanks for the heads up via my talk page. I have clarified my statement on the Jc press sec talk page. It is now clear that my "free to ignore" comment refers to the COI issue with regards to the Judith Collins article only (and FreeRangeFrog has since removed the COI tag that s/he placed). I have now highlighted that the user name issue is something that may well be outside policy, though. That said, I'm not entirely sure about the usefulness of the policy, though. For what it's worth, I'd much rather know if a user has a COI, and if the user name gives this away, then we all know what's going on. With this article in particular, I've can most certainly state that on previous occasions, I very much had the impression that I was dealing with editors who had a strong COI, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of that behaviour was sock puppetry. With a user name chosen by the editor in question, none of this is an issue, though, and those problems wouldn't arise. Hence I'm having trouble with seeing the sense in the policy as it stands. But that's not something that we can resolve with this particular case, of course, and we'll have to live with what the community has agreed on. Schwede66 03:04, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
- I reiterate that I am not editing on behalf of anyone else - I am not editing full stop. It should also be noted that politicians and their press secretaries are subject to a great amount of scrutiny by the public and the media for their actions - including on forums such as Wikipedia. This is much more scrutiny than most (if not all) other editors on this site, some of whom clearly have COI and hide behind an anonymous username. So I am not sure about the usefulness of this policy, but as it is policy I am happy to change my username.Jc press sec (talk) 21:32, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks for the heads up via my talk page. I have clarified my statement on the Jc press sec talk page. It is now clear that my "free to ignore" comment refers to the COI issue with regards to the Judith Collins article only (and FreeRangeFrog has since removed the COI tag that s/he placed). I have now highlighted that the user name issue is something that may well be outside policy, though. That said, I'm not entirely sure about the usefulness of the policy, though. For what it's worth, I'd much rather know if a user has a COI, and if the user name gives this away, then we all know what's going on. With this article in particular, I've can most certainly state that on previous occasions, I very much had the impression that I was dealing with editors who had a strong COI, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of that behaviour was sock puppetry. With a user name chosen by the editor in question, none of this is an issue, though, and those problems wouldn't arise. Hence I'm having trouble with seeing the sense in the policy as it stands. But that's not something that we can resolve with this particular case, of course, and we'll have to live with what the community has agreed on. Schwede66 03:04, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
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- In keeping with the focus of this discussion board (which is to discuss usernames), the name is a distinct violation of the u-policy for implying shared use (WP:ISU—cf. "Usernames that are names of posts within organizations, such as "Secretary of the XY Foundation", are not permitted, as such a post may be held by different persons at different times.") and for representing an institution (WP:GROUPNAME—i.e., the 'Judith Collins Ministry', if you will). This is enough to block at UAA. No matter what one does in terms of COI/NPOV/BLP, their username remains a separate issue, and the bottom line there is that the name has to be personal. This means that no names can exist on 'behalf' of anything, whether it's a company, another person, a government department, a post/office in an organization, etc. Usernames must represent your personhood only and be used for yourself only. Like how some folks drive a company car on behalf of their company and drive a personal car only for themself. Keeping this in mind, I recommend that the user simply files a CHU request and carries on. NTox · talk 05:19, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
- Don't allow per User:NTox, looks like a clear case to me.--ukexpat (talk) 21:24, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
- Something like User:Alice the press secretary for JC would be acceptable and also do an equally admirable job of disclosing the conflict of interest. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:49, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
Alrofficial
Alrofficial (talk · contribs)
- The use of the word "official" implies some sort of "official" use of the account, either by wikipedia or an outside group (of which this is the "official" account). In the first case, it would be seem to fit the definition of a misleading username, in the second, it would imply shared use. This has been discussed with the user User_talk:Alrofficial#January 2013. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 03:06, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
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- I see no problem with this name. As far as I can tell he's not editing ALR-related content, and there is no evidence it's a shared account. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 04:19, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
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- I vote allow. I do not myself believe that the word implies any official connection with Wikipedia or the Foundation, and I would be surprised even if a significant number of newcomers did. The name however would certainly be problematic if the "Alr" was representative of a group, but since the user has directly stated that it is not, I'm inclined to take their word on it and say the name is not promotional. NTox · talk 04:22, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
- Allow It is entirely unclear what "Alr" is in reference to. So what would this name even mean? If you can't tell, then it is not a username violation. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:39, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
- Allow As Beeblebrox, I don't believe that airofficial implies any illegitimate authority. Pundit|utter 08:03, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
- Don't Allow I think it does clearly imply that he is editing as a representative of a group. — nerdfighter 22:02, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
- Allow - The word "official" used in a username will always throw up flags but, in this case there is no clear implication of "official what"? Shared use also seems a little slim. Mlpearc (powwow) 20:28, 27 February 2013 (UTC)