Ability to sell user names in a secure way

[radiantsoul]

Title
Ability to sell user names in a secure way

Short, concise description of the idea
I would like users to be able to sell the name of their journal to another user

Full description of the ideaThere are lots of people who want to use LJ names that have already been taken. However deleting accounts of those who have some content on their journals

Comments

[charliemc]

I think this is against the TOS of LiveJournal.

(But for the record, there are communities that do this and are completely safe in their practices... Just be sure you've created a password that is NOT at all like your personal pw for other blogs here... And then immediately change the email address of the exchanged account. Again, it's not in line with LJ's TOS, just so you know...)

[charliemc]

To clarify, the communities I'm speaking of EXCHANGE accounts -- they don't SELL them. To me, this means they're not really breaking the spirit of the TOS...

[dawna]

and the transfer of accounts in that manner has been unsafe for a long, long time. Because in the past you couldnt remove the first validated email address and users could take back the account if they wanted to.

Its still not safe because you cant remove email addresses until your email has been validated for 6 months. So for 6 months someone can take back that account. Its just not wise to trade or obtain a otherwise used account.

[charliemc]

Yes. Actually, I know that's true -- the ORIGINAL email address it the important one, no matter what.

It's never good to ignore the TOS...

[dawna]

Absolutely not. Its a violation of the section X of the Terms of Service to sell usernames and selling usernames can get you suspended.

I doubt LiveJournal will suddenly reverse this stance. Especially since there have been, in the past, name squatters who have scooped up a lot of good usernames and sold them for a profit. To foster that behaviour would be unfair to the userbase at large.

and having a fixed sum to prevent cybersqatting wont stop cybersquatters from registering the names, and still requiring people pay them more money than LJ's "service" that you describe. People are greedy and when it comes to good names, they want a premium for them.

[charliemc]

It's always been frustrating for people at LiveJournal to deal with finding a username they want.

Recently my sister and I wanted to set up a community with a certain name, but it had already been used -- by a community that has never had ONE entry, ever. (sigh)

Buying and selling at LiveJournal? Just not a good idea...

[radiantsoul]

Prolific cyber squatters would earn quite a lot of money for livejournal though.

[scien]

But... at the cost of frustration and expense for the LJ userbase as a whole, as dawna said.

[gerg]

Absolutely not; people already compromise accounts (prolifically) to get 'good' usernames, and this would only encourage that behavior further; why would you pay for it when you can just steal it?

We'd also have to deal with people sending fake offers, gaming the system with shill accounts, etc. etc. etc.

That notwithstanding, there are significant logistical issues involved with paying users money; specifically, costs associated with cutting checks or sending paypal or whatever else. There's also the issue of hundreds of different countries, the residents of all of which would whine if the feature wasn't supported in their area or didn't pay via their preferred currency or method for whatever reason.

[unmowngrass]

I dislike this idea... for all the reasons already mentioned, but also:

I don't want people to feel compelled to sell a username. Whilst you say it's user's choice, if you create the possibility, people will have expectations. What is wrong with, if it's gone, it's gone? There is the purged feature so some names come back.