Users with spam-like/random usernames

What do you do with genuine users who sign up with such usernames? Do you request another name for them or just leave it as is?

For example this username:

gbbbbbbbb

Would you bother to ask for another name for them?

 

If they are posting I wouldn't care, I personally would be bugged by it though.

 

I have a guy with 1111 and that bugs me but he is a genuine human and not a bot of any type so it's fine from that point of view. We have 12,300+ members on our big forum and it's getting hard now to find usernames that haven't been taken. We have LOADS with a name and then random numbers after them. I think you just have to deal with it. They could have the same username on loads of forums and if you changed it on them they could end up forgetting their logins etc and not bothering to come back, perhaps.

 

Surely there must be plenty free ones, 11111? lol I could think of thousands of word combinations which obviously couldnt possibly have been taken

I think it ruins the appearance of the last member to sign up and may even make people think if they see it as a guest that spam isnt taken care of.

abbbbb screams spam to me especially if they dont bother to post, either a spammer or some form of idiotic competition signing up to check the place out.

 

Tell me about it. I think he chose that so it was definately something that wouldn't show up in 'Gearches' (there's another one!) as we provide advice to businesses and their customers can sometimes find them and find out they're asking questions that perhaps the customer thinks they should know.

I remove all accounts from the forums that haven't been logged into after 12 months that have 0 posts. So eventually we get rid of all those types of usernames/bots. Though we're always left with those that registered in the last 12 months, sort of thing.

 

I think customers will be interested, if I was looking to use say Bobs Building Services and I did a gearch for it and seen him saying on a forum he doesnt know how to build a wall I would certainly reconsider

 

Choosing something which makes you not easy to trace in a gearch is something most members do this for.

(I just had to use the word gearch lol)

 

stopforumspam is your best friend on this one... and also..this is why we have mods!!!

User names dont bother me at all... idk what their name is as long as they post!! :-)

 

As long as the members in question post intelligently, I have no problem with them using such an "odd" username. It's their choice - I'm not going to restrict them in that sense.

 

Not really, as that modification blocks "Mikey". Surely you don't want me blocked from your site, do you?!?!

 

Yes.

Juuust kidding

 

lmao

 

I personally just leave said users, as I've had contributing members use some extremely weird usernames in the past and turn out to be relatively decent members. No seriously, random letters and numbers being some relatively boring examples.

 

:lol: Really?

 

Certainly, I can imagine the majority of those hiding themselves on forums are web designers on web design/dev forums asking all kinds of questions. Their clients could easily find them and see them asking questions about their website which theyre being paid to develop, some questions some people ask would definitely put me off.

 

This, and as long as they don't show up on stopforumspam.

 

i dont mind random usernames as long as their posts are decent and they arent a spammer or troll

 

Username:123456789

Just shows how boring a person can be...