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I wonder what happens if you still get to choose a username, but the service appends at least 3 digits (randomly; the first doesn't get 001; in fact let's say n
by rzwitserloot 9y ago
I wonder what happens if you still get to choose a username, but the service appends at least 3 digits (randomly; the first doesn't get 001; in fact let's say nobody gets a number below 101), and does some mangling especially for really short usernames (appends something or prepends something).
This gives every 'username' an effectively unlimited space of identifiers via the number suffix, and it trains users to realize that 'person who controls the account with username X' is not necessarily the same person as 'person who I know on other sites as username X'.
- corobo 9y agoDiscord (and I believe Blizzard/Battle.net) does this. Your site-wide username would be something like Example#5436 but on individual servers you can be tagged with @example
- andrewaylett 9y agoWhen Google introduced account names in G+ (separate from gmail account names), they started by doing this. But I suspect it was a fairly big turn-off for people who are used to getting their usernames.
- Crespyl 9y agoAlternatively, the service provider could implement a procedural jingle generation system to produce a short, catchy customized song to help them recall the number. 0118999881999119725....3