Registering with a purged account's name

[masamage]

Title
Registering with a purged account's name

Short, concise description of the idea
It would be great if someone who does not have an account could take a purged account's name without having to pay $15, especially since they receive no extra benefits. This should be a seperate process from ordinary 'rename' tokens.

Full description of the ideaFor

Comments

[tooner]

1) Those who are hesitant to register (due to the fact that the account they want is the only one that costs money) would be able to join the LiveJournal community.

This has to be the silliest reason I've ever heard for not joining LJ, and it really pushes the boundaries of credibility.

[masamage]

Maybe it does sound silly. I'll try restating it, and see if that helps.

This isn't a desire for a specific type of account--ie, one with more benefits. More benefits should mean more of a tradeoff, and that's fine.

What I'm talking about is a desire for the normal account, using a unique identification that nobody else is currently occupying. That's what most of us have, and we weren't required to pay for it. If I may compare LJ to a dinnertable, I don't think "someone else used to sit there" is sufficient reason to make make somebody pay extra for their seat. (I can see a sentimental argument for never letting anyone sit there, but that bridge is burned already.)

Also, please note that the word I used was 'hesitant'. If the name was occupied, or if this rule proved solid enough that no changes were made, such a person would most certainly just find another name to go by, and that would be that. But on the basis that this rule seems useless anyway, asking about it first is worth the try!

So it isn't so much a reason not to join

Credibility

[matgb]

It happens, when I found my preferred name was used, I didn't think of a different name for a few hours; I hesitated. But I could see the benefits immediately, others still don't. Of course, for me, inserting an initial was easy in the end.

But there are a lot of unused names that are unavailable due to simply being deleted. I can understand charging to change an existing account (that's an admin fee), but not charging to set up a new account with a currently unused name. If it's available, it's available.

Some people have an online 'persona' they like to keep across the board. OThers may be tentative about setting up an account anyway (do it say wife/friends but they don't see the point) and not being able to use their standard id (which may simply be their name) tips them from inclined to towards not going to.

I set mine up just to keep track of two friends in London. My first post said "I'm unlikely to post much". Um, that isn't how it turned out.

Re: Credibility

[synergy]

This is what happened to me. I use "synergy" in various online chats and email addresses and so on, so when I decided to start an LJ account I found that someone had already taken it, posted one-liners 2 times on the same day and then by all appearances never used it again. When I opened an inquiry about it I got the smart answer that some people keep accounts to only make comments and read entries. It is possible, I suppose, that this person is using the account to only read entries, but I find it highly unlikely. They've never posted or received any comments either. In the end I just tacked on a couple of initials to the synergy and hoped no one would forget that it varied from all my other stuff by 2 letters. So I think this suggestion is a good one in that on one hand you can get people like me who weren't/aren't completely satisfied with their LJ name to change that and if a name isn't used ever again that frees up space on the database being wasted by maintaining the unused account with such enlightening account information as

Re: Credibility

[masamage]

That's a very fair complaint (which I also had trouble with when I tried to start a community), but really a very different matter. Who knows when a user might come back, after all.

This issue isn't, "I want my favorite name"--it's "my favorite name is available; so why should I pay for it?"

Re: Credibility

[synergy]

I agree with that as well although I consider my complaint about the same as for all intents and purposes it is available. Besides, I'm on other sites where they send out checkup emails if it's been a while since you logged in and they ask if you still want to use that account. If you don't respond within a reasonable time, they tell you, it gets deleted. Efficient I'd say compared to the sporadic stuff LJ appears to do making names available. So there would be a lot more names available which, yes, really shouldn't require a charge on it or at least not much of one. I realize the charge is partly there to discourage people from changing LJ names like they change their underwear...

Re: Credibility

[masamage]

There are arguments both in favor of and against this, and I think they should be made, but somewhere else. Do feel free to submit a suggestion of your own!

And thanks for your interest. ^_^

Re: Credibility

[sofiaviolet]

Oh, checking that e-mails are valid and that users still want their accounts is a nice thing; I've been on sites that do this. I think it might be an enormous load on LJ's mail servers, though; there have already been issues with comment e-mails and I'm not sure it would work well to add even more traffic.