Re^2: How to prevent impersonation of other users

[Intrepid]

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.