Editing 1963: Namespace Land Rush
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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
− | When a new web service starts, such as a forum, a social media server or an email portal, the people who sign up get to choose their username on the service, which, in most cases, blocks future users from using those usernames. Common names such as "john" are likely to be taken quickly. This is analogous to the way that | + | When a new web service starts, such as a forum, a social media server or an email portal, the people who sign up get to choose their username on the service, which, in most cases, blocks future users from using those usernames. Common names such as "john" are likely to be taken quickly. This is analogous to the way that land was distributed in America, with the first to claim able to choose the best land. |
This comic is a list of usernames [[Randall]] suggests should be used if they are available. | This comic is a list of usernames [[Randall]] suggests should be used if they are available. | ||
− | The title text is a self-reference to "xkcd"; the name of the comic is a purposefully unpronounceable phrase created by Randall | + | The title text is a self-reference to "xkcd"; the name of the comic is a purposefully unpronounceable phrase created by Randall. |
(Note: for a more serious list of problematic user names to block from a service provider’s point of view, see [https://ldpreload.com/blog/names-to-reserve Hostnames and usernames to reserve] as well as [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2142 RFC 2142].) | (Note: for a more serious list of problematic user names to block from a service provider’s point of view, see [https://ldpreload.com/blog/names-to-reserve Hostnames and usernames to reserve] as well as [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2142 RFC 2142].) | ||
==Table== | ==Table== | ||
+ | {{incomplete|Add explanations of the names. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} | ||
{| class="wikitable" | {| class="wikitable" | ||
!style="width:30%"|Entry | !style="width:30%"|Entry | ||
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|- | |- | ||
|<Surname> | |<Surname> | ||
− | |Possibly available if your last name is more uncommon; names like " | + | |Possibly available if your last name is more uncommon; names like "smith" or "kim" will probably be taken faster than even given names. |
|- | |- | ||
!colspan=2|Recognizable (Usernames that would make it look like the email came from an official source within the organization named) | !colspan=2|Recognizable (Usernames that would make it look like the email came from an official source within the organization named) | ||
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|- | |- | ||
|Facebook | |Facebook | ||
− | | | + | |Similiar to Google above. |
|- | |- | ||
− | | | + | |BitCoin |
− | | | + | | |
|- | |- | ||
|Obama | |Obama | ||
− | |Impersonating | + | |Impersonating a president, supposedly to send messages as them to make them seem bad (or not). |
|- | |- | ||
|Canada | |Canada | ||
− | | | + | | |
|- | |- | ||
|NFL | |NFL | ||
− | | | + | | |
|- | |- | ||
|Garfield | |Garfield | ||
− | |In the original "GMail" service on the Internet, the G stood for "Garfield" | + | |In the original "GMail" service on the Internet, the G stood for "Garfield" |
|- | |- | ||
|<Your city> | |<Your city> | ||
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|- | |- | ||
|NASA | |NASA | ||
− | | | + | | |
|- | |- | ||
|<Name of person who runs the service> | |<Name of person who runs the service> | ||
− | | | + | | |
|- | |- | ||
!colspan=3|Causing Trouble (Usernames that might cause errors when mixed with the service's back-end code) | !colspan=3|Causing Trouble (Usernames that might cause errors when mixed with the service's back-end code) | ||
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|- | |- | ||
|Username | |Username | ||
− | | | + | | |
|- | |- | ||
|Name | |Name | ||
− | | | + | | |
|- | |- | ||
|You | |You | ||
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|- | |- | ||
|Account | |Account | ||
− | | | + | | |
|- | |- | ||
!colspan=2|Causing More Trouble | !colspan=2|Causing More Trouble | ||
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|- | |- | ||
|<Name of service> | |<Name of service> | ||
− | |Pretending to be the official account of the service | + | |Pretending to be the official account of the service. |
|- | |- | ||
|Help | |Help | ||
− | |Pretending to be the help account. This could | + | |Pretending to be the help account. This could led to many questions from new users. |
|- | |- | ||
|Error | |Error | ||
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|- | |- | ||
|Hyphen-Emdash | |Hyphen-Emdash | ||
− | |Could be read "Hyphen hyphen Em dash" or "Hyphen dash em dash | + | |Could be read "Hyphen hyphen Em dash" or "Hyphen dash em dash" |
|- | |- | ||
|Dash-8hyphen-8 | |Dash-8hyphen-8 | ||
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|- | |- | ||
|Yes | |Yes | ||
− | |This might be a | + | |This might be a Beret Guy-esque misunderstanding when filling out the sign up form. When encountering the form field "Username:" Randall typed "Yes" (as in "yes, I want a username") instead of specifying it. |
|- | |- | ||
|Bot and Computer | |Bot and Computer | ||
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|- | |- | ||
|Narrator | |Narrator | ||
− | |In books, radio plays and movies it is quite common to have a narrator explain parts of the story. In an online forum however, it is not. | + | |In books, radio plays and movies it is quite common to have a narrator explain parts of the story. In an online forum however, it is not. |
|- | |- | ||
|Internet | |Internet | ||
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|- | |- | ||
|NPC | |NPC | ||
− | | | + | |Non-player character |
|- | |- | ||
|Password | |Password | ||
− | |If the user accidentally typed their password into the username field, this would be the result. | + | |If the user accidentally typed their (not-very-secure) password into the username field, this would be the result. |
|- | |- | ||
!colspan=2|Permissive Character Sets | !colspan=2|Permissive Character Sets | ||
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|- | |- | ||
|<nowiki>@ é |</nowiki> | |<nowiki>@ é |</nowiki> | ||
− | |The @ | + | |The @ seperates the local part from the domain part of email addresses. If a service decides to create email addresses for their users, they will have a hard time if they allowed the "at" character as part of a username. |
é is encoded in many character sets, like Latin-1 and Unicode. In Unicode, it can even be described either "U+00E9 LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE" or as the sequence "U+0065 LATIN SMALL LETTER E" and "U+0301 COMBINING ACUTE ACCENT". If a system uses {{w|Unicode normalization}} after the check if the username is available, this might allow someone to take over someone else's account. | é is encoded in many character sets, like Latin-1 and Unicode. In Unicode, it can even be described either "U+00E9 LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE" or as the sequence "U+0065 LATIN SMALL LETTER E" and "U+0301 COMBINING ACUTE ACCENT". If a system uses {{w|Unicode normalization}} after the check if the username is available, this might allow someone to take over someone else's account. | ||
|- | |- | ||
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|- | |- | ||
|<nowiki>– - _ /</nowiki> | |<nowiki>– - _ /</nowiki> | ||
− | |Includes both the em-dash and the hyphen, which are easily confused and are highly unusual for user names. The forward slash is also the path delimeter for URLs; if user profiles are located at e.g. | + | |Includes both the em-dash and the hyphen, which are easily confused and are highly unusual for user names. The forward slash is also the path delimeter for URLs; if user profiles are located at e.g. http://example.com/user/the_username, this can cause obvious issues. |
|- | |- | ||
|<Any emoji> | |<Any emoji> | ||
− | |Current databases are not set up to store emojis as characters. | + | |Current databases are not set up to store emojis as characters. |
|- | |- | ||
|"," | |"," | ||
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|- | |- | ||
|<nowiki>&NBSP</nowiki>; | |<nowiki>&NBSP</nowiki>; | ||
− | |The special entity in HTML (web page language) for a non-breaking space, or a space that prevents an automatic line-break at its position. When rendered as part of an HTML page without sanitization, this would only display a space | + | |The special entity in HTML (web page language) for a non-breaking space, or a space that prevents an automatic line-break at its position. When rendered as part of an HTML page without sanitization, this would only display a space. |
|- | |- | ||
|<nowiki></HTML></nowiki> | |<nowiki></HTML></nowiki> | ||
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|- | |- | ||
|</HTML> | |</HTML> | ||
− | |& | + | |< and > are special character entities in HTML that represent < and >, repectively. So all together, when rendered as part of an HTML document, this would print "<nowiki></HTML></nowiki>" Although this would look similar to the previous <nowiki></HTML></nowiki> entry, it would be unlikely to cause problems as the symbols are not interpreted if encoded as special entities. |
|- | |- | ||
|OkThisIsKindOfConfusingButIt's <LessThan\ForwardSlashHTML GreaterThanActualGreaterThan Symbol>Yes,ThatWasAllPartOfThe Name,ButSoIs...Ok,LetMeStartOver” | |OkThisIsKindOfConfusingButIt's <LessThan\ForwardSlashHTML GreaterThanActualGreaterThan Symbol>Yes,ThatWasAllPartOfThe Name,ButSoIs...Ok,LetMeStartOver” | ||
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{{comic discussion}} | {{comic discussion}} | ||
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