GitHub Community
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Hey,
The username Policy has not changed, it is still forbidden to squat a username :
The username I want had no activity since its creation (10 years), and last time he logged was 6 years ago. I don’t understand why my request is denied as the account violates the rules. |
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Replies: 39 comments 91 replies
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Hi @fudjia and welcome to the community. First of all, we cannot discuss account-specific matters on this forum. That’s what GitHub Support is for. Their answer seems clear to me:
The fact that name squatting is disallowed, does not change the fact that currently no new requests for the release of these names are being reviewed. A simple reason for this may be the following excerpt from the Username Policy, although that is just speculating from my side.
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Sure there will be some accounts which are used for purely commercial private repos etc but they are generally named a certain way and part of a visible organisation. In MOST cases if you see an account that exists and has no visible use and no outstanding repos then its probably dormant. Previously Github did deal with these requests and I had 2 names freed up for some projects I was working on, literally the name I wanted on both occasions was a dormant/squatter account. In this case for the ones I would like to be freed up, im sure they are dormant/squatters but without a process for trying to free this up its a problem that will get worse over time. It doesnt matter really to us if we cant see that they are active or not, what really matters is "how much effort is it to github staff to action these requests" and there are many ways to reduce this overhead by changing the paradigm as I say in another post. Possible SolutionDon't handle these requests via the support system which requires feedback to each ticket, but have it as a fire and forget approach where as part of the "report this user" system where anyone can report a user. Then in the github backend they can automatically just bin off these reports for accounts that do have presence (or whatever the factors that deem an account as "active"), then only if it fails all these automated checks will it actually forward it on to a real person to action, or even automatically action if its clear from a user lookup that there has been 0 interactions in 10 years and there are no repositories on the account etc. There are many ways to handle this situation, doing nothing is going to make an isolated problem harder in the long run, at least domain name squatters on the internet have to pay to keep hold of a domain, on here they don't need to do anything and it will currently be held forever. |
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I've told you a trillion times to stop exaggerating.. |
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GitHub can check users' private activities absolutely. |
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Even non-GitHub admins can see private repo activity. For example, I'm not signed into my work profile, but if I navigate to my work GitHub account while on my personal account, I see this: |
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Displaying contributions to private repositories on your profile page is optional. It can also be hidden from other users. |
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I’m a bit late to this thread, but I hope github reverses this policy. Without enforcement, name squatting is rather allowed.
This can’t really be the reason they declined to review the request. Without a review, github wouldn’t even know whether the account has non-public activity. If they simply wished to avoid the hassle of having to review for non-public activity, then they should just remove their stance against name-squatting. |
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@rcias @github can check the last logic date also. What if the user hasn't logged in for 4 - 5 years? |
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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. |
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You’re confusing a few things here. First of all, having a name-squatting ban in your ToS doesn’t actually mean you’re enforcing it. It just means it isn’t allowed, and serves as a good legal basis to remove accounts should they pose a problem. It doesn’t create an obligation to also actively enforce the rule. Furthermore, enforcing anti-name-squatting guidelines isn’t the same as allowing anyone to challenge the legitimacy of an account. GitHub may very well be enforcing this rule by, for example, automated checks on (private) account activity. This doesn’t really mean they have to allow anyone to challenge other accounts.
So this isn’t true, since by definition name-squatting is disallowed.
As I said; they may very well just run automated checks on account activity. User reporting and manual review isn’t the only way to check/enforce these things.
No, they don’t have to do anything. Name-squatting isn’t allowed, but it’s enforced without the help of user reports. Unfortunately those are the rules. If the name you desire is taken but there seems no public activity, I’m very sorry for you. GitHub won’t take review requests. And there is a good chance there still is private activity on the account. Try picking a different name and regularly check back on the other account: who knows some day might be your lucky day. |
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My point is that reasonable people can disagree on the specific length, and even if you picked some arbitrary length of time, there would still be an edge case. Take for example the YouTube channel jawed, to which the first ever YouTube video was uploaded. That account has just one video from 17 years ago.
If that account wasn't famous, you could use all the same arguments to say that Google should "enforce its policy on username squatting" and you could point to jawed's channel and say, "there's no activity for almost twice the arbitrary 10 year limit, surely I can claim this historic chanel because I think the username is cool!". I know that this particular example isn't exactly analogous, jawed has had other account activity since then, e.g. changing the video description, and the view count is conspicuous for an old account. But my point here is that there are edge cases, scenarios that are not as simple as "I just want username @supercoolandawesomeguy". Microsoft is not under any obligation to provide digital vanity plates, and whether you (not you @adamkdean in particular, but you the reader) use GH for personal projects or for work or for any other reason, not everybody else on GH uses the platform in that same way. This isn't a social media platform, at least not for people who just use it for work, and GH shouldn't be thought of as one.
Yes, there are plenty of genuinely good ideas in this discussion thread, some actually good and well thought out ideas. I'm not disputing that it's possible, I'm saying that it's not going to happen because of the overhead and potential for backlash involved, not to mention that there is no benefit to GH itself. Allowing people to take over usernames is purely a change that benefits one person at a time, and always at a detriment to another person. By saying "All we must do is define that activity" you're saying that GH should quantify at what point that detriment is worth it. |
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As mentioned in another thread the validation of "activity" on an account would be quite simple for GH to check and manage, they have all the data needed to make an informed decision, look at specific metrics such as:
If a user has not logged in for over 1 year, has no repositories and no contributions they are adding nothing to the development community, you could argue that 1 year should be N years, but those 3 metrics will instantly tell you if this person is an active user. If not then github is not getting any benefit from this user and neither is the community. These steps could be automated and remove most of the overhead involved as github can see private activity too, so they will know for sure if an account is just sat there. The only issue I can see which no one has really mentioned is if we did get this, it wouldn't stop legitimate name squatters as they could easily make a repo and just do a dummy commit on it so it would never be flagged as inactive, but with that being said, plenty of accounts dont even have this, so its quite obvious that some are just accounts that are dormant, and if that name was re-distributed and they wanted to come back to github they can just make a new account. |
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Guys, let's do something with it 🙏 |
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I actually laughed out loud. |
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Please, nobody is interested in such a lawyer-like statement. So many things are not allowed by definition within a society. We are not living in an ideal world, so the question is rather clear - what can you do about this? I got the standard reply given by OP just yesterday. |
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Hi, I saw that you managed to get the username you wanted. Would you mind telling me how you did it? |
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@simbleau what did GitHub reply when you tried with a trademark? |
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Yeah can we get a follow-up on this? |
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They ghosted me when I asked about using a trademark for takedown. They don't seem to enforce it unless you're a big customer. |
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quick query. If a user changes his name can I use the original one he had? OR does github prohibits that as well.? |
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@johnsoncherian yes, though there may be a wait timer before you can. |
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Is there no recourse to try and get an inactive user removed anymore then? I had to do this twice for 2 orgs I am part of as they both had users who made an account and had no public activity since joining, I am in the same boat again where there is a user account which is squatting an org name I would like to use to split off some private repositories. It feels like removing this feature is a bad move, as you could still allow it but behind the scenes just have the support ticket check when the last user login/action and how many repositories they have interacted with, if they have not logged in for years and have never carried out any actions then take it through as a request for github to look, if not just have the ticket be binned so it doesnt waste peoples time with accounts that do things privately. As it currently stands there is a user who has no activity in over a decade other than making an account and I am powerless to request they be removed so I can make use of it. I implore github to rethink this. |
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@simbleau is it possible to take down inactive user with trademark? |
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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
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@grofit is it possible to takedown the inactive GitHub user with Trademark? |
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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. |
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The policy only allows for trademark requests where there is a violation. Simply having the org name This whole situation needs to change. |
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They ghosted me essentially. I asked if a trademark would force them to uphold their squatting policy and they refused to answer.
Please excuse my brevity as this message was sent from my smartphone.
Spencer C. Imbleau (he/him/his)
… On Sep 9, 2022, at 19:03, Raj ***@***.***> wrote:
@simbleau what did GitHub reply when you tried with a trademark?
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@simbleau same here. GitHub ghosted me too when I asked about the trademark. |
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I get the squatting thing...is it another thing if someone clearly argumented he has no interest in keeping the account, offered you to rename and free up the name already but keeps asking for "payment" to do so? Wonder if that's something I should open a ticket for and if Github still deals with that kind of stuff. |
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You could try to open a ticket but I don't see what the support could do. |
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I think Github should start the name squatting policy again. |
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But there seems no way to let GitHub hear this kind of voice from the community. :| |
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I don't see why i can't dispute an username that has been dormant/inactive for 13 years. I hope they change the policy again. |
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We should all just register many many cool names... that way they'll need to think of some logical way to free names up |
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I hate you Github. Bring back the policy |
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@github-staff This can't be the full story. I'm currently looking into the username "stryker" and the username was only registered in October 2022. There's no way this username wasn't in use before that so unless someone with the username personally signed on and deleted their account out of the goodness of their hearts, something must have happened to make this username available again. Side note, it seems the new user is squatting it, of course. |
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Я просто удивлен, что имя пользователя @russian не использовалось до 2020 года... |
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Thread tl;dr 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. |
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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. |
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Exactly! |
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Cant ask much for a small company like GitHub :( |
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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. |
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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: Consider this: 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. |
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We also encourage GitHub to change their policy and actions and to release dormant/inactive usernames. We had to create a stupid username just because the brand we were using is a dormant username. |
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@eric48906 the way it used to work is accounts were renamed. We're talking about renaming dormant accounts, not deleting them. |
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If you knew anything about Git, you would know renaming an account causes several issues. |
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Without getting drawn into a sophomoric conflict, dormant accounts with no repos will suffer no ill effects of an account rename. |
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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. |
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Can you elaborate @eric48906? Last time I checked, Git only cares about emails. |
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I don’t even think releasing them outright is a great idea. I think it is better served as an “ask and you may receive” type of deal but just actually enforced. If we’re going to involve humans in the process (which should be the case regardless) there should some sort of “good faith” argument where someone who wants some short dictionary word that probably doesn’t represent their identity elsewhere on the web should have to provide something to show they use the name, like owning a domain name bearing the name. Otherwise people using names as vanity plates or bragging points will win and legitimate organizations who cannot afford to change names willy-nilly (like an inactive account with no URL changes to worry about) will be lost on the name they want because a more sophisticated squatter, some user who just wants a fancy name, was able to ask GitHub for the name first. Since this is more detrimental to orgs who place value in their names as well as not having to change them later it would undo the whole purpose of this to just release them freely. |
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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 |
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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 :( |
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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. |
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I couldn’t file a request nor find a way to contact
On Wed, Oct 18, 2023 at 3:26 PM coderipper ***@***.***> wrote:
Have you filled another request?? did you manage to communicate with
github when trying to get a used username?
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Maybe the solution is to go to GitLab.com? |
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That isn't a GitHub solution — a personal one perhaps, but doesn't solve the issue we have here. Only by working together with GitHub staff can we solve this properly for everyone. |
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You're talking about the ideal solution, which would suppose that GitHub does care, but do they? At least, we should be able to contact the owner of the squatting organization, and ask for a voluntary username release. And an automatic release if the owner ghosts the request for like 2 whole months, and hasn't had any recent activity (like no public nor private commits, no download for several years...) |
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Still words, no actions. Damn it. |
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Still words to comfort, no actual actions... |
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A name about an anime counts as DMCA? |
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at least gitlab take request for username squatting for paid customers. |
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really? |
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Throwing my name on the pile of those frustrated by this. I know policies take a long time to review, and I'm sure github has a lot on its plate. But... I recently changed my legal name and was hoping to change my github account to reflect this. I found that my new name belongs to an account that registered it in 2010 and has no public activity since. |
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I gave up, they don't give a shit. A person been using my name for decades without activity for over a decade. Seems I'll just stop using them.
On Wednesday, February 14, 2024 at 07:49:45 PM MST, dkassler ***@***.***> wrote:
Throwing my name on the pile of those frustrated by this. I know policies take a long time to review, and I'm sure github has a lot on its plate. But... I recently changed my legal name and was hoping to change my github account to reflect this. I found that my new name belongs to an account that registered it in 2010 and has no public activity since.
Sure, maybe they've been busy privately. But knowing that it's a short name, knowing that 2010 was the early days of github, a time when domain name squatters are most active cornering all the short, desirable seeming names... I can't help but suspect that this is what happened here.
If the user really hasn't been doing anything with it, I would really hope there's a way to fix this. Username/domain squatters are the worst.
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queenofcorgis we appreciate your previous communication on this matter. Is it possible to share the outcome of the internal investigation with the community? I assume it has concluded over the past 11 months, and the overlords have decided it's not a priority? I guess it's just cheaper and easier to no longer review requests to release dormant or inactive usernames; GitHub is on a tight budget, after all! |
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Much better news than expected; it seems like there is still a tiny glimmer of hope :) Thank you for keeping this matter alive |
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Glad to hear there's still movement here. Add my name to the list, I'm working with a public benefit company and we'd love to have access to a particular username that has been inactive for over a decade. It's frustrating that there's no course of action currently. Please find a way to free names from abandoned accounts 💗 |
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@queenofcorgis thanks! Looking forward to the return of this policy! |
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@queenofcorgis Sorry for the question but just to clarify, will the results be shared somewhere or is there another official thread about this? I'd be nice to know what to keep an eye on. Thanks! |
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Add my name to the list |
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honestly, this is great. i have my first name as my username (which I claimed from someone else), now i can i sleep peacefully knowing I can do absolutely nothing for the next 10+ years because an unenforced policy is basically as if it doesn't exist. it feels great to benefit from something that others cannot. glad to see github is on the right side of progress! |
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I also find it unfortunate that GitHub name squatting is no longer being fought. I don't begrudge active GitHub users a good/short user name at all and am glad that they have one. However, it is a shame that there are users who have been using these names for several years, even though they hardly seem to be inactive anymore. Even if it involves a lot of bureaucratic effort, the re-release of inactive GitHub usernames would certainly be a great enrichment for the community. |
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The username I would like has zero public activity since it was created, and GitHub won't release it. |
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I'm in a similar boat to others in this thread, and it's a shame that GitHub aren't interested in exploring this policy which clearly isn't working in its current state. Well, not working for end users, but probably working for GitHub in the sense of less work to do responding to squatting/abandoned requests! There's an organisation that appears abandoned which has an abbreviated/shorter name of a GH organisation I own. I appreciate that private activity and members aren't visible, but this organisation has no extra metadata (description, URL, etc.), no custom avatar, and no public activity or members. On top of that, I've confirmed with GitHub's GraphQL API that the organisation's created and updated timestamps are identical, so it hasn't been changed since its initial creation. There are some suggestions in this thread about having mechanisms where if an account/org hasn't had activity in x years, etc. then it can be considered abandoned. I'm not sure that kind of strategy is suitable, because there are valid use cases where an org or user might be owning a repository that is archived (no changes), but of significance to still be available. However, in my case, I'd suggest that an org which has seemingly no activity or members, and according to the API has literally not been updated since it was created, is an acceptable candidate for being considered "abandoned." As far as steps I've tried to take: I've reached out to support multiple times, where they've (correctly) informed me that it's not appropriate to divulge whether an account has private activity (completely understandable). I've also attempted to open issues/discussions with an Some folks have suggested a mechanism to contact an org owner/user (without revealing their email). However, in my case, where I have strong reason to believe the org is abandoned, that wouldn't offer any advantage. At the very least, I'd just like to be told by GitHub: "hey, it's actually active, there's some private repos." At least with a response like that, I can give up on this constant chase to see if the org can be acquired. |
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Sorry to hear this Luke. Unfortunately since the acquisition, this is now what happens. Previously GitHub would look at this on a case by case basis and facilitate name and org transfers to active people and teams. This is no longer the case and, sadly, it seems it won't be. The username grab & sale market ruined this for others and now it's active contributors who are choosing GitHub over alternatives that pay the price. @queenofcorgis I know you're doing your best to liaise back to us, but at this point it's becoming commercially questionable for using GitHub. It's losing its place as a social hub of developers and when you have to have usernames like @taketwointeractivedevteam because @taketwo is taken, and so you're advertising your brand as github.com/taketwointeractivedevteam for example, it makes us wonder if we should really bother. The only thing it seems that GitHub still has going for it in this case is familiarity. The community (your community) seem to care more about the product than your leadership team. And that sucks. |
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I guess what's really frustrating for me is that I'm looking at this as a separate "abandoned account" issue, rather than squatting. While I do appreciate the frustration of others in this discussion, I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with GitHub deciding on some arbitrary condition that makes my current account considered "inactive" and able to have its name claimed by someone else a few years down the line because I'm not currently working on projects. But in my case, there could be an entirely automated process, running on GitHub's side as to avoid divulging any information to external users (like myself), which identifies organisations/accounts that are at least x years old and have literally zero activity since creation. I kind of see the viewpoint of "oh, well, they could have private repositories/activity that you can't and shouldn't see." And to that, I'd say: yeah, I know, I'm not asking for a data dump from GitHub to poke around in private data, I'm asking them to do it on their end! With this perspective of abandoned accounts, surely it's in GitHub as a company's interests to not have empty/ghost accounts littering their platform? That's without even mentioning that this org is (presumably) not a paying organisation, which is potentially taking up the place of a would-be paying subscriber? |
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Any updates here? |
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Don't think this will be resolved |
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and others
You’re confusing a few things here.
First of all, having a name-squatting ban in your ToS doesn’t actually mean you’re enforcing it. It just means it isn’t allowed, and serves as a good legal basis to remove accounts should they pose a problem. It doesn’t create an obligation to also actively enforce the rule.
Furthermore, enforcing anti-name-squatting guidelines isn’t the same as allowing anyone to challenge the legitimacy of an account. GitHub may very well be enforcing this rule by, for example, automated checks on (private) account activity. This doesn’t really mean they have to allow anyone to challenge other accounts.
So this …