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I would like to know more about the policies for users when creating their accounts in the SE/SO network.

  1. One of the questions I have is if there are policies and restrictions on the use of some words in the username?

  2. Who should be in charge among users, moderators, staff to follow up on this?

I leave you some reference images:

users with names contains admin

users with names containing admin (Spanish SO)

users with names containing fuck

users with names containing pussy

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    I don't think I've ever been fooled by a user claiming with their username to be an administrator here, but thanks for pointing out another reason why hiding reputation and badges by default is a bad idea.
    – Glorfindel Mod
    Commented Aug 10, 2022 at 19:39
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    @Glorfindel definitely doing that by default is a problem. It can be a configuration option... or a personal configuration about the design of how we see the site. But personally, the names used with words that are usually offensive, used in an offensive context or that lend themselves to generating confusion, seem out of place and make me noise, I just want to know how the community sees this and how it applies the policies of user, if they handle this matter.
    – user925996
    Commented Aug 10, 2022 at 19:45
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    Potential duplicate: How much leeway do we give possibly offensive usernames?
    – Ian Campbell
    Commented Aug 10, 2022 at 19:48
  • @Campbell the response is a suggestion or workaround; doesn't really explain how the SE/SO network works on the particular topic.
    – user925996
    Commented Aug 10, 2022 at 19:52
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    One day you wake up to find ArcanisGK507 is marked as an offensive word by users, moderators and/or SE staff ...
    – rene Mod
    Commented Aug 10, 2022 at 20:53
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    @rene and that day I will have to change my username... I don't see anything wrong with that... the ideal is to maintain respect in the community
    – user925996
    Commented Aug 10, 2022 at 21:00
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    Brainfuck is the name of a programming language. Context matters.
    – This_is_NOT_a_forum
    Commented Aug 11, 2022 at 1:22
  • @This_is_NOT_a_forum I see no need for a user to call themselves or use the username Brainfuck or any compound/derivative thereof...
    – user925996
    Commented Aug 11, 2022 at 14:02
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    Users never need to call themselves anything nor use any username at all. It is entirely optional. You see no need to use "brainfuck" in a name; I see no need to use "Arcanis"; neither of these blindnesses is relevant.
    – Nij
    Commented Aug 12, 2022 at 8:52
  • The problem here isn't that the name "admin" is offensive, or even that it might be deliberately abused. The problem is that relatively new users might interpret any comments from "admin" as authoritative.
    – Ray Butterworth
    Commented Oct 30, 2022 at 16:56

1 Answer 1

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There's a town called Penistone and the Scunthorpe is famous less for its football team, than for tripping off poorly coded censor scripts. Generally there's a need to look at the broader context before acting.

With respect to users called Admin - if there's no practical risk of impersonation, it's not really a big issue.

Practically - it's not a great idea to try to try to moderate language by filters, and honestly if we wanted to start policing profiles, there's a few thousand spammers I'd love to have the time/energy to take care of.

While I do agree a good many of these usernames (but not all!) don't belong here, honestly I don't think it's a practical thing to look through, classify (as innocent or offensive) and reset/moderator message every user who might be so now and in future. There's also no great tools to deal with profiles in general.

If you see a post with an offensive username, flag it - the moderators will deal with it. If a user is trying to pass himself off as a moderator or other person of some degree of authority, once again, flag it. We can deal with those fairly effectively.

There's discussions of similar issues here and that's a useful starting place to start.

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  • thanks for the reply; there are many words and opinions; but you don't actually answer my questions:
    – user925996
    Commented Aug 15, 2022 at 14:43
  • Are there policies and restrictions on the use of some words in the username? yes or no
    – user925996
    Commented Aug 15, 2022 at 14:43
  • Not particularly. We're not going to hunt them down, but if you see an active user with an offensive name, you can flag
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    Commented Aug 15, 2022 at 14:52
  • I know how to flag a comment here and in the chat rooms... but I don't know how to do it in a user profile...
    – user925996
    Commented Aug 15, 2022 at 14:54
  • wait for them to post. As I said, we really don't have the time to take care of these things enmass
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    Commented Aug 15, 2022 at 15:02

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