Username Squatting · community · Discussion #23495

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I have the same problem. I need a username, which is also my website (drblockchain.org), but it is owned by someone and never used. It has no history, no repository even though it was created 8 years ago. Probably the user has completely forgotten about it. Why can't I have it?

I haven't trademarked anything but the username @tomatofu is taken by someone who doesn't seem to have any activity after they joined in 2018 :/

I was able to attain this username in 2018, right after Github was acquired by Microsoft.
Nowadays they care more about developing (and monetizing) Github Copilot than the actual open source community experience.

@rcias @github can check the last logic date also. What if the user hasn't logged in for 4 - 5 years?
This is clearly username squatting.

That alone isnt enough though, as someone could have made a repository that others use and then never logged on again, so the repo could be active but the person is not, so while yeah last login is definitely a piece of the puzzle I feel they also need to take other things into account. If there is a single repository that potentially should not be taken down.

quick query. If a user changes his name can I use the original one he had? OR does github prohibits that as well.?

But there's no way to find people with zero commit history and fake names, like the one I own the trademark for: @autonomo. No idea how to contact them. GitHub told me I have to wait an additional 18 months until the trademark is finalized. I've had the same problem with @phpexperts for 13 years. "PHP Experts" isn't a trademarkable name, as it's two descriptors. so I have to use the much worse @PHPExpertsInc.

Hi, I did get it, but it was only by chance.

Hey, what does this mean? 😅

You have to register a trademark and is a legal process to my knowledge, copyright is more likely but even then a copyright is not registered to then it becomes he said she said.

I don't know why there can't be a section in report user for squatting. This way it isn't an explicit support ticket process but would allow the community to flag potentially inactive accounts and have an automated/manual process evaluate them at some point in time.

Currently as mentioned there is no way to solve this problem, unless you want to enter into a potentially pseudo legal process i.e

• Trademark dispute
• Copyright dispute
• DMCA dispute

@grofit is it possible to takedown the inactive GitHub user with Trademark?

@grofit is it possible to takedown the inactive GitHub user with Trademark?

Anything is possible but I doubt github will take it further unless you can show legal documents pertaining to your ownership of the trademark, otherwise it is not legally enforceable and is a waste of their time.

I feel the crux of this whole thing comes down to "github doesnt have time to deal with these requests" which is perfectly valid if we look at it the way it used to be done, so instead do as I mention in the other threads, make most of the process automated as they have the data to know if someone is actually using an account, its pretty clear if there is no repos and no activity after 5 years that the account is dormant, if they deleted it and the user decided "oh I really wanted that account" they could always go and recreate the account and MAYBE it would make them actually use it this time 😂

Another thing to think about is since MS has taken over, user data is potentially more valuable, so just having someone's email address on an active account gives them certain data about that user that they can legally use for analytics and marketing etc, so maybe its a case of they see even empty accounts as valuable these days.

You can submit a trademark takedown. That has a different process.

The policy only allows for trademark requests where there is a violation. Simply having the org name cocacola wouldn't be enough to confuse people. You could commit once to a totally unrelated repo, and it would be allowed. Of course, they'd take it down because it's a well known name. If it was grofitcola they wouldn't be interested, even with a TM.

This whole situation needs to change.

This problem is simple work for the Copilot.

@simbleau same here. GitHub ghosted me too when I asked about the trademark.

Yeah, damn Microsoft. Ruining GitHub.

You could try to open a ticket but I don't see what the support could do.
Personally I would just block that guy.

I've run into a similar situation. What did you end up doing? Did support help in any way?

But there seems no way to let GitHub hear this kind of voice from the community. :|

Guy pay £200 for a trademark and hope they'll give it to you.

Names now cost £200 to get on GitHub and take months.

Because you need a trademark.

Soon to create a repository you will need to register it with the gov and trademark the name.

We should all just register many many cool names... that way they'll need to think of some logical way to free names up

Its already like this jsmcm

Thread tl;dr GitHub is like, we do not allow name squatting but if it happens we would barely do anything about it.

There are so many examples given by the community where it is apparent that accounts are dormant, so please don't try to fool us that they are all doing private stuff 24/7.

GitHub was made for development, not to be a social media platform and focus on usernames. You do realize they have other things to deal with? The support team cannot be held up because you want your dream username.

The support team cannot be held up because you want your dream username.

Exactly!

The support team cannot be held up because you want your dream username.

Cant ask much for a small company like GitHub :(

GitHub was made for development, not to be a social media platform and focus on usernames. You do realize they have other things to deal with? The support team cannot be held up because you want your dream username.

This is only one aspect of it, it's not just about usernames but orgs. You go off and make an app which ends up getting bigger than one single repo and you want to group them, but turns out the name of that app is taken so you have to come up with some derivation.

This is more development related and the reason I'm in this conversation, 3 times this has happened and the previous other 2 times github were able to remove the unused accounts so I could create an org for grouping repos.

This 3rd time though I am stuck unable to do anything, and it seems pretty obvious the user in question for me is inactive.

So if I have to pick another name that potentially will have a dev impact as I will need to refactor names paces, update nugets and other 3rd party settings etc.

So while this can be seen as a purely social media thing it's also got a dev impact as well, and tbh github sitting doing nothing will just make the problem worse over time.

The support team cannot be held up because you want your dream username.

On a personal level, developer accounts, I agree.

On an organisational level, with organisation account names, I disagree. There are no policies in place for dormant accounts using trademarked company names. This is absurd, as usernames and accessibility matter more with GitHub than other platforms. If you want people using and contributing to your repos, which works better, a short name that matches your org name, or a longer one with hyphens or numbers at the end?

Look at this:
https://github.com/cocacola <- seemingly dormant since 2013
https://github.com/The-Coca-Cola-Company <- much less easy to use org name

Consider this:
git clone git@github.com:cocacola/something.git
git clone git@github.com:The-Coca-Cola-Company/something.git

There is a material difference here.

GitHub have their policies and that's fine. They have their reasons. In the case of orgs, I think they're wrong.

I hope they can improve their policies on this though.

Thankfully, they're not ignoring us, @queenofcorgis is reaching out and that's all we can ask for right now.

Sorry but we'll have to agree to disagree. Regardless of orgs or individuals, trademarks or none, GitHub should be a place (and the policies state this) for active developers. Abandoned accounts add nothing to the community whatsoever.

That's like removing the whole history of GitHub and all commits of someone just because they're inactive. But whatever, it's clear that deleting the entire history of someone's contributions simply based on their activity status is what you want.

@eric48906 the way it used to work is accounts were renamed. We're talking about renaming dormant accounts, not deleting them.

Sorry but we'll have to agree to disagree. Regardless of orgs or individuals, trademarks or none, GitHub should be a place (and the policies state this) for active developers. Abandoned accounts add nothing to the community whatsoever.

That's like removing the whole history of GitHub and all commits of someone just because they're inactive. But whatever, it's clear that deleting the entire history of someone's contributions simply based on their activity status is what you want.

@eric48906 the way it used to work is accounts were renamed. We're talking about renaming dormant accounts, not deleting them.

If you knew anything about Git, you would know renaming an account causes several issues.

If you knew anything about Git, you would know renaming an account causes several issues.

Without getting drawn into a sophomoric conflict, dormant accounts with no repos will suffer no ill effects of an account rename.

If you knew anything about Git, you would know renaming an account causes several issues.

Without getting drawn into a sophomoric conflict, dormant accounts with no repos will suffer no ill effects of an account rename.

That's not what you're saying though. You've said inactive accounts don't serve a purpose to the community; thus, you apparently deserve their username.

If you knew anything about Git, you would know renaming an account causes several issues.

Can you elaborate @eric48906? Last time I checked, Git only cares about emails.

Fully agree with you. There should be a process in place for orgs & users. e.g. if you have exampleuser.com and twitter.com/exampleuser and so on, and there is already a github.com/exampleuser that is dormant for 10 years, you should be able to claim this. If you're founding a new startup e.g. exampleco and you have example.co, twitter.com/exampleco but github.com/exampleco is dormant 7 years, you should be able to claim it. We all benefit while orgs and active developers are choosing GitHub for their scm, so it makes sense to work with us (the devs) than against us. cc @github-staff @queenofcorgis

This is how it used to work, I have requested 2 names for org use which were previously in use by an unused account and they granted the requests, it was only when I needed to do the same again recently I realised this was no longer possible :(

Same experience here, @grofit. It wasn't an issue but I believe people did this and sold the names, and that's what caused this current situation, sadly.

Good things take time.

Remember where you're going to be 10years from now.

We need to all stop using GitHub, this is the way to rebell!

Its the exact same way to rebell against Copilot and their nonsense policy!

Who's with me?!

Bro this days everyone is sleeping and the ***Microsoft and github give name to big companies or enterprises who pay dollars.
If we didn't use this github it will collapse in weeks but we have no other choice what can two or three people alone do

what can two or three people alone do

Move to Gitlab. :-)

what can two or three people alone do

Move to Gitlab. :-)

Ironically my username is taken on gitlab, because I didn't care to register early enough. It looks like a legitimate account based on a real name, but my username is based on my real name too.

Good things take time.

Remember where you're going to be 10years from now.

We need to all stop using GitHub, this is the way to rebell!

Its the exact same way to rebell against Copilot and their nonsense policy!

Who's with me?!

A better reason to not use Github is that it and copilot is ironically not open source. The git repo is portable but the Issues and Actions and etc systems aren't easily.

Hi @ifrunruhin12

GitHub no longer issues usernames that have already been taken.

Your Sincerity,
Aurelian Spodarec

Not enough clout for github sorry

You need to throw some $$$$$$$$$

This is fucking annoying tbh.

No idea what you mean by that. Please elaborate.

No idea what you mean by that. Please elaborate.

GitHub won't do it.

No, I was not holding breath. There is so many other things, even more important such as basic functionality, that Microsoft don't care to fix/improve.