Will we ever run out of user names?

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1

Is it just me that can’t access list of members? Assuming it’s NOT just me, could the FAQ be updated to reflect this change?

I’ve heard several people report that they had a problem selecting a user name. Several tries, and all of the times that they tried, they were informed that the name was already in use. People are having to get more and more creative with their user names, adding numbers, symbols, and oddly backward and upside-down spelled names. Does anyone anticipate this creating real problems in the future? Obviously, there are approaching infinite combinations of letters, numbers and symbols, but I wouldn’t want to register as g58t26r, and even guava2 lacks the finesse of simply guava.

Is there any mass purging of inactive memberships? If we haven’t seen a post from you in five years, you’re gone. Let someone else have the cool name.

2

Off th’ top of my head – I believe the members list was deactivated some time ago. The FAQs accessible by the link button above discusses some features that aren’t active here.

Will we run out of user names? My bet’s on “Nope…” :slight_smile:

3

If a service (hah!) like AOL, with millions of subscribers, hasn’t run out of screennames — and they have more rigid limitations than we do – it’s a safe bet that we won’t.

I mean, after all, if there are 26 letters plus 10 numbers for each space, and we cut names off at 10 letters, we’d still have… um… lessee… 36 x 36 X … say, over 3 quadrillion names. That’d be enough for every human being currently alive to have several hundred thousand names. So I’d say, not a problem.

4

Great. Now you’re encouraging them. Bastard. Now I gotta run off and delete all those posts by CKDextHavn and his evil ilk.

5

Anybody remember that letter to the editor in Rolling Stone where the guy said, in effect, “According to my calculations, we will run out of pop music in seven years,” or whatever it was? Back in the late 60s or early 70s, maybe?

6

You shouldn’t be so fast to compare yourself to AOL. Like the OP requests, they do recycle inactive names. When my bother switched to a cable modem I asked for his old name and got it that day.

7

Besides, Dex, those aren’t names, necessarily; they’re unrelated series of letters and numbers and whatnot.

Still, I suppose a thousand monkeys in a room for a thousand years might come up with C K Dexter Haven. :wink:

8

Oh, yeah, like da nth e-man isn’t an unrelated series of letters…

9

Oh, boy, thank God that GF4HG90d23 isn’t taken yet. That’s my real name and was thinking of switching to it.

Peace,
GF4HG90d23

10

I just happen to be from Danthe, France. That’s all!

And you know, Dex made it tough on all of us when he added those spaces to his name. I was all set to use C K Dexter Haven, too.

11

Uh, Bunnyfoofoo isn’t taken. I dare ya.:wink:

12

There is NO way I’m changing my name to Bunnyfoofoo! I like my name, and wouldn’t change it for the world… unless I could come up with something more imaginative than this, of course. Somehow, I don’t think I could… so Flamsterette_X it is.

F_X

13

Let’s assume that the Straight Dope boards become popular beyond our wildest dreams and that billions of people flock to register here (let’s also assume there are wonderful new servers that can handle this). A38NMD9RPX registers on the boards because he is sick of trying to find a username which is not taken. The next person comes, sees a lack of good usernames, and in frustration becomes A38NND9RPX. Would A38NND9RPX be considered to be impersonating A38NMD9RPX due to the similarity in their usernames?

14

Come on IEI, everyone can see in a glance that those are different? Like, would anyone confuse lno and you?

This post is completely proofread. So there. :wink: