Comments | suggestions: Registering with a purged account's name

masamage in suggestions

Registering with a purged account's name

Dec 17, 2005 21:27

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 ( Read more... )

account creation, purged accounts, § rejected, account renaming

Comments 24

matgb December 27 2005, 10:41:29 UTC

I like it in principle, not that I've anything to do with those that actually implement these things; I know that my preferred username, MatB, hasn't been used by the registered user, but that's a completely unrelated issue.

The main issue I guess is why deleted, sometimes people get deleted for real reasons, and I know a couple people ahve had 'stalker' problems. But, given that LJ simply assigns a number to a name, it should be possible to make sure it's a different number?

me_and December 27 2005, 11:25:35 UTC

The system for renaming, including to deleted journals, is already in place, that's not the problem. The issue is whether it's priced right.

(The comment has been removed)

ruakh December 27 2005, 22:36:39 UTC

[...] if it ain't broke, I say don't fix it.

I'm not sure you understand the concept of a "suggestions" community . . .

(The comment has been removed)

ruakh December 29 2005, 21:52:11 UTC

Lots of things work fine, but that doesn't mean that changing them need be "just for change's sake"; something that works fine can still be improved upon.

In this case, the suggestion is that LiveJournal's fee model be made more consistent by removing the needless $15 step involved in creating an account with a previously-deleted-and-purged username.

That the system currently works is not an argument against improving it.

Thread 5

beckyzoole December 27 2005, 17:09:36 UTC

I don't really understand why there is the charge at all for using a purged account name with absolutely no entries.

ruakh December 27 2005, 18:22:06 UTC

This doesn't affect me at all, but I think it's most definitely broken and in need of fixing.

tooner December 27 2005, 20:17:23 UTC

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 December 28 2005, 01:03:40 UTC

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 December 28 2005, 01:45:35 UTC

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 December 29 2005, 18:23:10 UTC

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 ( ... )

Thread 8