Re: How to prevent impersonation of other users

I've been a member of many online communities over the years, from online fora to newsgroups to muds. This is a topic that gets brought up from time to time in all of them, it seems. The "regulars" in a group all get to know each other over time, and get very comfortable around each other.

Now, as with any group, there will be people who are not considered "regulars" -- I would be one of those people on PerlMonks. Sometimes, people feel left out not being a part of the "in crowd." Other times, you'll just run into people who want to cause a stir. (Note: I'm not saying either is the case with im2., for I simply don't know.)

This leads to someone asking "How can we make our "entrance requirements" (name choosing, password auto-creation, email verification, what-have-you) a bit stricter so that <some situation> doesn't happen again?

In my experience, this is usually a bad idea, as it has the tendency to limit who will/can be a part of the group.

"But," you say, "that's exactly what I'm asking for!"

Here, I would ask if that's really what you want. Do you intentionally want to turn potential new members away? Is that the best thing for the community?

I have rarely seen the case where an intentional limit placed on community registration turns out to be a good thing for the community as a whole. In addition, even if you were to change the registration process so that new users "Yendor.", "Yen-dor", and "!Yendor" could not be created, would your process also check for, say "Ynedor"? There's always another way to get around that filter... Even if you place someone in charge of "approving" all incoming users, that's only as good as that person is at checking against all current users -- and that system is therefore fallible, as are all people.

In this case, my experience tells me that you will get fooled once -- maybe twice -- by the new user, and then you will learn what to watch for, and likely not get bitten by it a third time.

-Yendor

IWeThey
HOPE Ride

Comment on Re: How to prevent impersonation of other users

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Re^2: How to prevent impersonation of other users by FoxtrotUniform (Prior) on Oct 27, 2004 at 18:39 UTC
In my experience, this is usually a bad idea, as it has the tendency to limit who will/can be a part of the group. "But," you say, "that's exactly what I'm asking for!" Here, I would ask if that's really what you want. Do you intentionally want to turn potential new members away? Is that the best thing for the community? Bravo! I have a strong dislike for programmatic content filters. If we must have an editorial policy on too-similar usernames (like, for instance, tye  or im2.), let's make it part of the consideration system. This is not the sort of thing that belongs in code. I'm not convinced that it's the sort of thing that belongs anywhere else, either. `--` Yours in pedantry,`F o x t r o t U n i f o r m` "Lines of code don't matter as long as I'm not writing them." -- merlyn	[reply]
Re^2: How to prevent impersonation of other users by Intrepid (Deacon) on Oct 27, 2004 at 19:03 UTC
Yendor writes: Here, I would ask if that's really what you want. Do you intentionally want to turn potential new members away? Is that the best thing for the community? As someone who has also been a member of many online communities over the years, I was sorely tempted to reply "Yes, that's exactly what I'd want". It seem to me that a false scenario - a concern being raised about a thing that isn't happening - is being invoked here. Who is being made to feel "excluded" by a 'clique' of Monks (well, I know somebody who had this feeling, but he has left ... and made his own bed)? Is this like when there were the "popular" kids in school, and then there were the "unpopular" kids, and you had to choose a seat in the lunch room based on which category you fell into? If that's the scenario, i'd like to humbly (not really, actually) suggest a jumbo dose of "Grow Up". People who bring their issues to the Monastery will find exactly what they are carrying around inside them. The contention being made - that people we want will be turned away by some limit on how they can choose their user name - sounds like an old joke: "I'd never want to be part of a {club / church / country} that would allow me to be a member", heh. I personally find it very troubling to see many people agree with this kind of thinking that denies all personal taking of responsibility for our experiences. Keeping it effortless to entry the Monastery with an unsuitable Nick contributes to guaranteeing that people with an agenda to cause trouble for others will find PerlMonks a congenial place to begin playing out their infantile or mentally-disordered plots. Furthermore I contend that it is human nature to see a membership that involves some degree of effort or investment as a far more desirable thing than one with no bar to go over at all. By setting the bar at entry just a little higher, we could not achieve anything other than an enhancement of the quality of participation in this community. I'd like to see the juveniles spend some time out in society first - becoming socialized and overcoming their baby-ish tendencies and neuroses elsewhere. We here could then spend a bit more of our time on developing fine ideas about how to enjoy Perl and so on. The juveniles would be welcome here in a few years when they've achieved some degree of maturity and learned how to behave. Soren A / somian / perlspinr / Intrepid -- Cynicism is not "cool" or "hip" or "intelligent". It's like Saddam Hussein's piss mixed with 004 grit and nitric acid. It's corrosive to everything it touches, destructive to human endeavors, foul and disgusting. And ultimately will eat away the insides of the person who nurtures it.	[reply]
Re^2: How to prevent impersonation of other users by mhi (Friar) on Oct 28, 2004 at 04:53 UTC
I do not find Yendor's intentionally wanting to turn potential new members away a valid description of the scenario of someone not getting their chosen nick approved on first try. This is something that will happen on all kinds of systems these days. You're rarely the first and you definitely not always have the option of checking whether your chosen name is avaliable beforehand. This is something I think people are used to, so it would not normally turn anybody away. Annoy for a moment, yes. But turn away, not normally. On first thought FoxtrotUniform's nick up for consideration idea seems much more viable, but on second thought: What will some novice (or better!) think of the other monks if after some amount of time, they decide that he's had his nick long enough, just because he (possibly even unknowingly) hit too close to home? I wonder... In my opinion, this option would have to be limited to something like the first 24h of a monk's life, at most. And even then, I still don't like it.	[reply]


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