Admin attention - User wants to take over existing user name

A) support requests aren't critical
B) I don't know that use of erunix in a username is trademark infringement
C) you make claims about timing without providing any proof

I'm hesitant to remove somene elses account (even if there are no posts) without other drupal.org admins commenting.

I talked to him on IRC and it seemed like a reasonable request. The other account has no posts and really nothing to lose except a lower UID if they come back and need to make another account. I suggested making a webmaster issue because it's not something I want to unilaterally decide to do.

Michelle

relax chief were working on it, it isn't something that is just going to be done without discussion.

@ Michele it should be easy enough to alter the email addresses of both accounts, and allow erunixinc to request a new password for erunix. However, now erunixinc has posts in the fourms attributed to it. Thus erunixinc will also need a valid email address I'd think.

Personally, I'd talk with Kieran or someone else from the drupal association before hand.

@erunixinc: No need to get testy. The account has been there over a year. Giving it a bit of time for the admins to comment isn't going to hurt anything.

Actually, this really isn't about taking over the account itself at all. My suggestion would be to change the other account's user name to something else so erunixinc can use the name. If the original user of the name comes back and complains, we can deal with it then. I suspect that's not going to happen if he hasn't used it in over a year, but that way the account will still be there if needed.

Michelle

I didn't say your email was invalid but a single email address can't share a account as far as I know and no one is questioning whether or not you own the domain. That said, what to do with your erunixinc account and the email address it is using.

Michele nor I own drupal.org and this is not something she nor I, have handled before.

were stepping on one another didn't mean to change the title.

@ Michele, Yes I didn't think about altering the usernames to make this adjustment. Doing that would also maintain this users posts in the forum. Makes sense.

I'm headed to bed in a few minutes. If there isn't a resolution overnight, I can bug a few folks on IRC in the morning.

Michelle

someone may need to check the last login of erunix to make sure we aren't about to cut off an active user who just doesn't post. (Though I highly doubt this to be the case) but if it is an active user it may be best to handle this through the contact tab.

@erunixinc, have you tried to contact the user in question?

without divulging the .tld, the email address uses erunix also.

of course no email is coming. It's going to the other users email address. There is nothing you on your own can do about this right now. Michele and I need guidance from people above us. As Michele has stated if this isn't resolved tonight she will get in touch with the powers that be tomorrow.

I renamed the other account if he wants to log in , he can ask for a password reset with that email address and he will immediately know as I renamed the account to "file_a_webmaster_issue_your_username_was_claimed_a_TM". I have renamed erunixinc to erunix and mailing him of the fact.

Thank you chx stepping in here.

@ erunix, the other email address is erunix@somedomain.com it isn't an email on erunix.com. Either way this issue is fixed.

For posterity the other guy is http://drupal.org/user/266472

Was this user name change done based on a legal requirement? or just as a personal decision of Drupal admins (like giving priority to a drupal organization member over an inactive user )?

Just for the record: I don't think we should entertain such requests (name change for whatever reason) at all. We have better things to do.

I agree with #25.

This should be rolled back. I don't understand how the use of trademark as a username is infringing on that trademark.

If we do believe this is an issue, I propose to ask a lawyer (via the Association?) for guidelines instead of going for adhoc decisions.

My feeling is this should be reverted too. IANAL, but:

• Erunix is being used as a business name, by the OP.
• The fact that the business, and the username here, was registered within *weeks* of each other is a bit shady. That's too much of a coincidence for me to ignore. My story-builder smells something like "the first user used to work at Erunix back in 2008, registered the account on Drupal.org, the first and second user had a falling out, and now the second user is trying to recover from the actions done by the first". All heresy, of course.
• It's not our job to respond to trademark infringements.
• Considering that the original user has not posted on Drupal.org at all, there is no "likelihood" that the two usernames (or company names) will get confused or diluted, thus there's no basis for infringement. In fact, none of the 8 criteria listed on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_infringement have been met.
• Theoretically, erunix, the original user had the name prior to the business registration - use of a domain name prior to registration doesn't grant any real privileges.
• A business registration does not automatically grant a trademark, as far as I know. "Disobey" is a business in the state of New Hampshire (much like "Erunux, Inc." is a business in the state of Connecticut), but the fact that it is doesn't grant me any trademark licenses. And, unregistered trademarks "may be protectable only within the geographical area within which it has been used", which means that a Connecticut company has no business cease and desisting an Indonesian user. Mentioning a 2008 domain registration, or a 2008 business filing, is not adequate proof of trademark registration.
• And, to show my colors, I've never met a SEM company, or individual, that has a shred of quality ;)

+1 to reversion.

And "Erunix" doesn't show up in a trademark search from the US .gov.
http://www.uspto.gov/main/profiles/acadres.htm

Two additional notes:

- I searched for erunix on the general US trademark database (Tess), and came up with 0 result on Erunix
- the logo at the top of http://www.erunix.com/ has, shall we say, some annoying (given the context) similarity with an other copyrighted logo

As far as I know, Drupal organization is in EU. If erunix is registered as a trademark in US, does it apply in EU where Drupal is officially located in? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#International_trademark_laws says "it is currently not possible to file and obtain a single trademark registration which will automatically apply around the world. Like any national law, trademark laws apply only in their applicable country or jurisdiction, a quality which is sometimes known as "territoriality"".

You think i did not know there is no legal ground? obviously i knew, i just wanted to be kind to a newcomer. sheesh.

Reverted.

No reason to be nice to a search engine marketer. Or marketers in general.

Ok, I woke up to find this thread has gone insane. Can someone check the last access of the other user? If he hasn't accessed in over a year, what's the big deal? On Freenode if you don't use your nick in 8 weeks it can be taken from you. That's how I got "Michelle". My own username here on drupal.org was MichelleC until I found out the person who had Michelle wasn't using it and asked for it. In that case I had consent from that Michelle, so it's not quite the same, but it's the same basic idea. If someone isn't using the account and it has no post history attached to it, why not be nice and give the name over if someone requests it? This isn't a legal matter; it's simply being open and friendly. Unless we are suddenly innundated with requests, I don't think this is even a manpower issue. We've spent more time arguing about it than it took to do.

Michelle

I think most of today's discussion was mainly based on legality, as the username of the other account was renamed to "file_a_webmaster_issue_your_username_was_claimed_a_TM" as written at the comment #19 that shows the reason for name change as a legal trademark claim. Later, chx explained that the motivation was different.

"I won't stop here tho"

What do you mean by this?

Should this imply any threat of legal action? If yes, I'll happily block your account.

Your website has "marketing" all over the place, so the classification is appropriate.

Someone asking nicely to pick up an unused username is totally cool. I'm sure Drupal.org has thousands of good names that were squatted and never posted to, or even logged in to.
No harm in being nice.

Immediate legal threats however are not a good way to make friends.
A total ignorance of the difference between one domain name registration and a username on any open forum in the world is just annoying.

IMO, It's fine to leave - certainly not worth a revert - but this person should know it was done to be polite - not because the fake bullying carried any weight. There is no recognition of anyones "right" to a username beyond first-in-first served.
Just pull your head in and realize you are lucky it's not worth an argument.

I got a new username I don't think it would be a problem tho. Using some else identity is fine.

I wonder if http://drupal.org/user/534544 (considering Morbus isn't from the Ukrane) and http://drupal.org/user/534152 will have the same IPs now. If so, that's a great way to make a point.

http://association.drupal.org/user/2852 who is who? If I am him, some one else is me, you the other one, some one else is you.

blocked both accounts.

LOL. Man, this person just doesn't get it. Heh.

Why not block my associate account? Why not ban my IP? Is a better solution than giving me the original account or blocking the original account.

excellent suggestions.

In addition, I also blocked your domain's email accounts from being abused to create accounts here.

Erunix stop this. I was like "hm, this has no legal ground but let's be nice" I made a mistake of not posting this clearly because I feared you will post even more shit -- count how many times you posted in less than one day and what tone you had all the time. The community did not accept that and now it is your time to stop and think on what you are doing.

I stop when the issue was fixed, I even join the association. I understand the first come first serve. But I have work hard on my name is not fair for no one. But nobody has think on a happy term. Did any one check if the user has login with that account or it was maliciously register. I can think on a few that knows I am a developer and I will be entering here. But let's make this short. There is hundreds of proxies, and hundreds of emails and yes I wont stop until we get a happy medium. Why not block the erunix, unblock the erunixinc and my IP and we start all over.

I don't think you guys wants to keep dealing with this all day and neither do I. We get a happy term we shake hands and we start all over.

This build unnecessary data on drupal.org data base. I offer a happy term the ball is in your court now.

Blackmail won't get you anywhere and I'll consider to resort to legal consel myself if you do not stop to this actions immediately.

You can call it black mail. But you know my request is legit. I am even offering a term here so we can leave this behind us and move forward with a new relationship. So if you not willing to get on a happy term I suggest you request legal consul.

Very simple what you need to do block the other user, unblock mine, unban my ip and we done.

As a normal user, I know most people in the community are nice to the new users, but I feel a little bit disappointed when I saw webmasters taking away one user's property(username) without the appropriate reasons (being nice isn't good enough). But, I do appreciate you guys reverted the action.

Your request is in no way legit.

The other guy was here first.

The fact that you founded a company somewhere which happens to have the same name doesn't change anything about that.

Also, you are in no position to offer terms here.

I am.

I offer you to reactivate your first account. Take it or leave it.

Ok,

If you prove me that the original user has logged in with this account since it was register I will accept your terms. If the user has never logged in proves my point a deam spammer or one of my competitors register with the intent of using my identity. At witch I will accept the block of that account or the transfer to me.

Thank you

"Proving" to you anything was not part of the terms.

We can reactivate your first account, or not. That's it.

Don't worry don't do anything. Keep an account that has never login to the site and was register with malicious intended use. The multimillion companies I was looking to move out of Joomla besides my site not going to happen. The business I could bring in like sidejob to developers here not going to happen. All those clients request I get that are based drupal guess what I am going to do? Move them to another CMS since I been banned from drupal. That the greatness of internet. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. The $104 i paid to be an associated take it as token of my honest appreciation for the development of drupal.

Once more be happy with the contributions from a fictitious member. Hope he can bring more to the table than me.

Good Luck.

BTW Twitter.com can work a claim and drupal.org can't is a shame

edit: he's quit, so I will save it.

Troll? Hardly. Yes, he's behaving badly now but people who are angry and powerless and being treated unfairly often strike out in spite. That doesn't make him a troll. He came here with a reasonable request. He wants to use his company name as his user name and it's being used by an inactive account with no post history. chx did the right thing and gave it to him while leaving the door open for discussion should the original user come back and have an issue with it. Then we had a bunch of others swoop in and declare that they don't like his chosen profession and jump all over him because he mistook a company name for a trademark. I am ashamed of the actions in this thread and I think it reflects very badly on the Drupal community.

Michelle

Obviously we now need some kind of duplicate/abandoned account name policy so we can avoid renaming accounts as "file_a_webmaster_issue_your_username_was_claimed_a_TM" when that kind of thing is a legal issue and caused the response of the rest of the d.org webmasters. We can point users to that instead of having to deal with this kind of thing happening every single time. If someone has already registered "davereid" on a site, I deal with it and move on. If this is actually a copyright or trademark infringement (unlike this situation), refer people to the d.org association.

@wootwoot: I'd be interested to know if you successfully manage to fix a similar username issue with twitter. I tried and never heard back from them. not sure their support is better than drupal's.

As far as I can tell, based on my previous explorations, http://twitter.com/erunix remains the ownership of the first user, not our beloved http://twitter.com/erunixinc. EDIT: Twitter's policy for inactive accounts is here: http://help.twitter.com/forums/26257/entries/15362 - they appear to treat an inactive account is 6 months, regardless of posting history.

Might be good to get policies from other major community sites?

last.fm does not delete or block inactive accounts and will not rename:
http://www.last.fm/forum/21713/_/542615

Michelle,

I thought everyone knows his request was understandable. I also thought chx did a good/nice thing to give him what he needs. But, I think what chx did was wrong even though it was good and nice. I am not a lawyer, and could be wrong, but it doesn't matter if it's trademark or company's name. Username on a website is a user's property, so it cannot be taken away even it is same as other existing names. Otherwise, if a username cannot be the same as other existing names, then the website holds the responsibility to screen username at the registration stage.

You have another point that the username hasn't made any post and possibly registered by spam. I would love to see that you propose a solution, so drupal.org can periodically get rid of all no-post and never-login users. So many users, including me, can get 'better' usernames as well as this angry user can get his.

I suggested in IRC that http://drupal.org/project/inactive_user be used.

I don't agree that a username is property. I would not consider taking a name from someone who has used it, of course, but that's simple curtesy. There are other forums, other places that expire usernames either automatically or on request. If you don't identify on freenode for 8 weeks you can lose your name. If you sign up for an account somewhere and never use it, why should you get to keep hold of the name forever?

But that doesn't really seem to be the point here. The issue seems to be that he didn't ask nicely enough. He came on too strong and he's not one of the in crowd so he can just screw off. That's what it's all about.

Not a good day for Drupal.

I don't really have anymore to say here. I'm tired of being one against the world. This has drained too much of my time. I'm sorry, erunix, for the way you were treated. Hopefully whatever community you settle in will work out better for you.

Michelle

But that doesn't really seem to be the point here. The issue seems to be that he didn't ask nicely enough. He came on too strong and he's not one of the in crowd so he can just screw off. That's what it's all about.

No. What this is really about is that he claimed the username on questionable legal grounds, and #4 smelled an awful lot like a threat. This means that the decision here sets a precedent for how we deal with similar demands in the future. The decision was reverted because we need to come up with a policy. Then, instead of allowing the webmasters work out said policy, the OP resorted instead to incredibly childish and further threatening behaviour.

I guess the good news to come out of this is that thanks to Drupal.org's excellent SEO, anyone searching for "erunix" will come across this post and draw their own conclusions about giving them any money. :P

@Webchick - My goal is to help get as many new developers as possible as obsessed with Drupal as I am. <-- you should change that from your profile. Any way webchick you need to be smarted, I been catalog as a marketer you don't think I will suppress this post to lower pages as I have done with others? Clients will give me money, I can deliver something you can't.

@Everyone

I am not interested on joining the drupal community. I might had use different approach from good behavior to bad behavior. I can make a phone call to my attorney and fight this and make it cost money. I have the money to spend and that's what lawyers are for. But I decided to stop simply because where I am not wanted I do go. You guys have catalog me as marketer due to my business. Yes, I am marketer but I am also a developer. My business can be a small kioks of peanuts in a mall and that dosen't mean I am not a developer. Yes, I pushed as hard as I wanted to be in the community on the name I have spend money for, twitter is still under work and I will get it. Hey I won't die without trying.

Drupal is not the only CMS in the market, good comments and bad comments as other cms. I wanted to give it a try and make it work but is not just possible. Suddenly everyone knows about law here. So from developers they just have switched to lawyers. Look at the bright side now you will be thinking of me for a while. So I made an Impact in your life.

Any way the best is to close this. It will be the smarter idea.

Once again good luck!
att,
Sad developer owned by a spammer and his protectors.

Any way the best is to close this. It will be the smarter idea.

Yes, I agree that's probably wise. Too many bridges have been burned at this point on both sides for this issue to ever be productive.

To the webmasters team, let's reconvene at #496728: Develop policy around username expiry.