Daenyth Blank wrote:

On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 13:15, Xyne wrote:

...

A user by the name of "Jamie" on the forum wants an AUR account with the same name: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=81872

I don't think we should take any action on this without the consent of the account holder. If he's gone and not answering, it's not for us to step in and remove his account. I don't believe it's appropriate and I think that the users need to have confidence that we aren't going to meddle in things like this.

I see the logic of both points of view, but I'll add my two cents anyway. I think that Daenyth is right, but I'd also say that an account that was created a long time ago but has never been used could probably be removed. Hell, on the forums we have accounts created in 2003 with a 0 post count... after six years of inactivity I'd say it's time to move on.

Heiko Baums wrote:

Am Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:41:42 -0500 schrieb Daniel J Griffiths :

...

I see the logic of both points of view, but I'll add my two cents anyway. I think that Daenyth is right, but I'd also say that an account that was created a long time ago but has never been used could probably be removed. Hell, on the forums we have accounts created in 2003 with a 0 post count... after six years of inactivity I'd say it's time to move on.

I don't agree in this. I also have an account on the forums, which I don't need often, because usually I need to report a bug in flyspray or I already find an answer for my problem in the forums. And I don't need to login to search the forums. So you probably don't see any activities for my forums account for a long time. But if I need to post in the forums, then I'd like to use my "old" account. So deleting a forums account due to supposed inactivity is not really nice and shouldn't be done. And I'd be pretty angry, if my accounts would just be deleted without asking me.

In case of an AUR account I'd principally say, that the forums "Jamie" has bad luck. I think he should register a different user name on AUR, and, if he wants to use the same user name in AUR and the forums, then he should register this AUR user name in the forums and use that.

But in this case of inactivity in AUR one could friendly ask the owner of the AUR account "Jamie" and ask him, if he wants to keep it or if he agrees in giving his account to the forums "Jamie". And only if he agrees this should be done. If he doesn't answer or agree then this account should be untouched. And this should really be an exceptional case.

Heiko

When I said inactivity I wasn't talking about someone who hadn't posted in a while. I'm talking about accounts that have been active for six years and /never /used.

<loads of typos>

Sorry, my ability to type is inversely proportional to how much sleep I get.

why? are we out of alphabetic combinations?

You know what they say...they always come back. What if someone tries arch and comes to the conclusion he/she isn't ready for it. He/she leaves and after some time tries again. It would be a shame coming back and noticing your account is deleted or taken over by someone

IMO if Jamie wants to have the AUR username he should just contact the other account holder (if the e-mail is publically available anyway). I don't see any reason to take action, there are enough alphanumeric combinations left.

Ronald

Hmmm. I was about to say that I still don't agree because the AUR account is only for uploading & maintaing packages and voting, but I just realized that I hadn't taken comments into account. The user may have actually posted some comments. I still maintain that there is no point in keeping accounts that have never been used for anything. It's clutter in the database and on the disk. It's like drawing a line in the sand on a beach and then leaving without ever coming back. If someone else wants that spot, I don't think it should be permanently off-limits because someone might show up months or years later and say "hey, that's my spot". Anyway, with the realization about comments and the overall direction of this discussion, I think think I have my answer. I'll let forum-Jamie know. Thanks

On Tue 13 Oct 2009 20:20 +0200, Xyne wrote:

...

why? are we out of alphabetic combinations?

You know what they say...they always come back. What if someone tries arch and comes to the conclusion he/she isn't ready for it. He/she leaves and after some time tries again. It would be a shame coming back and noticing your account is deleted or taken over by someone

IMO if Jamie wants to have the AUR username he should just contact the other account holder (if the e-mail is publically available anyway). I don't see any reason to take action, there are enough alphanumeric combinations left.

Hmmm. I was about to say that I still don't agree because the AUR account is only for uploading & maintaing packages and voting, but I just realized that I hadn't taken comments into account. The user may have actually posted some comments.

I still maintain that there is no point in keeping accounts that have never been used for anything. It's clutter in the database and on the disk. It's like drawing a line in the sand on a beach and then leaving without ever coming back. If someone else wants that spot, I don't think it should be permanently off-limits because someone might show up months or years later and say "hey, that's my spot".

Anyway, with the realization about comments and the overall direction of this discussion, I think think I have my answer. I'll let forum-Jamie know.

I don't even know why this needs discussion. No one should expect a username like 'Jamie' or 'Bill', for instance, to be available on any public site. Those names are just too common. The smart user should choose something truly unique. I wouldn't want to set any precedent by giving certain users special treatment here. AUR accounts can be renamed in the account settings, so forum-Jamie is able to choose a new unique name and not have to orphan and re-adopt his or her packages.