Using purged usernames without renaming

[chacusha]

Title
Using purged usernames without renaming

Short, concise description of the idea
I would love it if you were able to directly create an account with a purged username without creating an account with an UNUSED username and then renaming.

Full description of the ideaI want to create a new LiveJournal account, and I want a certain username which is

Comments

[embodyment]

I'd support this.

I wonder if it would be possible for an account to be automatically created (by "the system"), with the sole intention of being discarded in the process of a user purchasing a purged username.. I understand *why* the rename is in place, but it would be more convenient and a better experience for the user if creating a username to discard was taken care of behind the scenes. Instead of someone entering in a mish-mash of keystrokes, a username could be created..something like lj_#####, with a set of numbers which increments each time the process runs. lj_ and some other prefixes are already reserved for official use, so at least the list of purged usernames through purchasing a purged username wouldn't increase in a way which limits the number of free usernames available...

[lady_angelina]

This makes so much sense to me. Especially since you gave the provision to still impose the $15 fee to reuse the username.

Not sure why it requires the intermediate step of creating a throwaway account, but if it's feasible to do away with that, I'm all for it.

[kayt_arminta]

+1

[pauamma]

Even without requiring you to create your account as "alice" and rename it to "carol", there would still be a rename required, from "carol" to "thedeleteduserformerlyknownascarol", so that the communities entries, comments, PMs, etc. of that user don't get attributed to you. That rename needs to happen no matter what.

[chacusha]

That's fine, that's something that the user who is creating the nickname doesn't see or have to deal with. The only thing I have issue with is that in order to use purged username "carol", I have to come up with an unused username "bob1879" and rename it immediately, sending bob1879 to the list of purged usernames rather than letting it be an unused username again. It seems like the way it "should" work is that I pay $15 and get to use carol, LJ does the work of renaming the old carol, and then I get to use the purged username directly.