User talk:Robkelk/Username policy

Cases where Miraheze officially does not have an opinion on usernames
Recommend you ditch this section. It adds bulk and not enlightenment to a "policy document" if it lists things that it doesn't cover. Moreover, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives Americans immunity against the government, not against Miraheze; Miraheze is not bound to allow all the free speech the Constitution might permit in Central Square.

In the related clause, "felony" is damned peculiar; whatever the term of sentence, a username that is inherently a crime should be disallowed, and we need not justify that statement by the need to protect Miraheze. Your first example, a username that looks like a threat on someone else's life, is fine; your second is problematic. I have never understood what "hate speech" is, though recently it has meant anything that opponents of Obama say, and in any case would seem to be allowed by the "non-opinion" section. User:TrumpSucks! might be disallowed as a username, not by imagining the hate in the user's mind but because it seems to be something other than a self-identification.

Separately, I think you invoke the Attributions clause too often; it belongs in a better-developed Intro as one of the things that motivates the policy document. Your very first rule (usernames that would break Miraheze) is rare and belongs at the bottom of the bulleted list. 14:10 18-Sep-2017


 * Recommend you ditch this section. It adds bulk and not enlightenment to a "policy document" if it lists things that it doesn't cover.
 * That's in to prevent equating "discomfort" with "offense". There are people who think "I don't like that" is synonomus with "That offends me" - I would prefer to see that attitude not take root at Miraheze.
 * Moreover, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives Americans immunity against the government, not against Miraheze; Miraheze is not bound to allow all the free speech the Constitution might permit in Central Square.
 * The wiki has a mirror host in the Netherlands - we cannot go solely by US law.
 * In the related clause, "felony" is damned peculiar; whatever the term of sentence, a username that is inherently a crime should be disallowed, and we need not justify that statement by the need to protect Miraheze.
 * Felony is there to distinguish from misdemeanor. One rarely gets sent to prison for a misdemeanor - at least, not in the Commonwealth.
 * Your first example, a username that looks like a threat on someone else's life, is fine; your second is problematic. I have never understood what "hate speech" is, though recently it has meant anything that opponents of Obama say, and in any case would seem to be allowed by the "non-opinion" section.
 * Is the term "hate speech" not defined in US law? I learn something new every day... See Canadian Anti-hate Laws and Freedom of Expression for a definition of the term and a discussion of how the concept interacts with free speech.
 * User:TrumpSucks! might be disallowed as a username, not by imagining the hate in the user's mind but because it seems to be something other than a self-identification.
 * The section that you suggested ditching would allow "User:TrumpSucks!" as a username - it's disquieting, not offensive. Your example here illustrates why the section you proposed removing should remain.
 * Separately, I think you invoke the Attributions clause too often; it belongs in a better-developed Intro as one of the things that motivates the policy document.
 * It took me a while to realize that what you called a clause is the wiki's default content-use license. I intended that each clause in this policy has its own justification, so that the intent behind each clause was clear.
 * Your very first rule (usernames that would break Miraheze) is rare and belongs at the bottom of the bulleted list.
 * If it's on the bulleted list, it can be overridden by the conditions that remain at the top of the list - "Where the following rules do not conflict with the preceeding rules, ..." It needs to remain at the top of the list for that reason. It doesn't matter how rare the condition is; what matters is its severity.
 * (And I see that I've misspelled "preceding".)
 * --Robkelk (talk) 01:08, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
 * FWIW, some of our staff, and all of our financial transactions, are bound by US regulations, but most of our servers (both database servers and webservers) are in the netherlands. So all our data is there. The only thing outside NL is our cache proxies and DNS servers. -- Cheers, NDKilla ( Talk • Contribs ) 02:32, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Ah - the architecture is distributed, not mirrored. Thank you for the correction. The underlying point that we need to deal with more than just US law is even more important with this sort of setup. --Robkelk (talk) 13:16, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Your very first rule (usernames that would break Miraheze) is rare and belongs at the bottom of the bulleted list.
 * If it's on the bulleted list, it can be overridden by the conditions that remain at the top of the list - "Where the following rules do not conflict with the preceeding rules, ..." It needs to remain at the top of the list for that reason. It doesn't matter how rare the condition is; what matters is its severity.
 * (And I see that I've misspelled "preceding".)
 * --Robkelk (talk) 01:08, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
 * FWIW, some of our staff, and all of our financial transactions, are bound by US regulations, but most of our servers (both database servers and webservers) are in the netherlands. So all our data is there. The only thing outside NL is our cache proxies and DNS servers. -- Cheers, NDKilla ( Talk • Contribs ) 02:32, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Ah - the architecture is distributed, not mirrored. Thank you for the correction. The underlying point that we need to deal with more than just US law is even more important with this sort of setup. --Robkelk (talk) 13:16, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Ah - the architecture is distributed, not mirrored. Thank you for the correction. The underlying point that we need to deal with more than just US law is even more important with this sort of setup. --Robkelk (talk) 13:16, 19 September 2017 (UTC)