Username Squatting

[russia]

Hey,
I would really like to change my github username, I have seen a few people reporting dormant accounts username release accepted.
Here is a post from Github Staff
But recently github no longer review release request tickets from dormant/inactive accounts and just reply with a generic email :

Thank you for your request. It appears that you are asking about releasing a dormant or inactive username. We no longer review requests to release dormant or inactive usernames. You can view our Username Policy here:

GitHub Username Policy - GitHub Docs

If you hold a trademark to this name and believe there is a clear case of confusion between the account and your trademark, please review our Trademark Policy

Thank you,The GitHub Team

The username Policy has not changed, it is still forbidden to squat a username :

Accounts violating this name squatting policy may be removed or renamed without notice.

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.

[mpboom]

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:

We no longer review requests to release dormant or inactive usernames.

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.

Keep in mind that not all activity on GitHub is publicly visible; accounts with no visible activity may be in active use.

[grofit]

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 Solution

Don'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.

[jsmcm]

It has been said a billion times in this thread, but you simply cannot know if an account is dormant. Many GitHub accounts simply only have private repositories. The account owner might use GitHub every single day, and you wouldn't know a thing.

I've told you a trillion times to stop exaggerating..

[vollowx]

GitHub can check users' private activities absolutely.

[kinland]

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:

[17ms]

Displaying contributions to private repositories on your profile page is optional. It can also be hidden from other users.

[rcias]

I’m a bit late to this thread, but I hope github reverses this policy. Without enforcement, name squatting is rather allowed.

Keep in mind that not all activity on GitHub is publicly visible; accounts with no visible activity may be in active use.

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.

[ssakib4050]

@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.

[grofit]

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.

[mpboom]

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.

Without enforcement, name squatting is rather allowed.

So this isn’t true, since by definition name-squatting is disallowed.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[norwd]

There isn't a time span that you could really say "it is safe to assume that this account is inactive" and just give it to somebody else.

There is though, isn't there? If I asked you if 10 years was too long you'd likely say yes. If I asked if 10 days was too long, you'd say no. And so on this we have two bounds and the answer is somewhere in between. It's not an easy problem to solve but by by virtue of the two questions above, we know the answer exists.

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.

There are other things we can put in place to stop this, as mentioned in this & this.

At the end of the day, GitHub's policy is for accounts to be actively used. All we must do is define that activity. And accounts aren't deleted, they'd just be renamed if unused.

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.

[grofit]

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:

• How many repositories does the user have
• How many contributions does the user have (code/issues etc)
• How long ago was the last login

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.

[landsman]

Guys, let's do something with it 🙏

[plaukiu]

since by definition name-squatting is disallowed.

I actually laughed out loud.

[VigneshVSV]

So this isn’t true, since by definition name-squatting is disallowed

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.

[shuyec]

Hi, I saw that you managed to get the username you wanted. Would you mind telling me how you did it?

[ssakib4050]

@simbleau what did GitHub reply when you tried with a trademark?

[bcstryker]

Yeah can we get a follow-up on this?

[simbleau]

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.

[johnsoncherian]

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

[TheGiraffe3]

@johnsoncherian yes, though there may be a wait timer before you can.

[grofit]

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.

[ssakib4050]

@simbleau is it possible to take down inactive user with trademark?

[grofit]

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

[ssakib4050]

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

[grofit]

@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.

[adamkdean]

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.

[simbleau]

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? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe. You are receiving this because you were mentioned.

[ssakib4050]

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

[DeeJayTC]

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.

[russia]

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

[w3samiulazim]

I think Github should start the name squatting policy again.

[vollowx]

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

[kyotometus]

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.

[jsmcm]

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

[ghost]

I hate you Github. Bring back the policy

[bcstryker]

@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.

[norwd]

Я просто удивлен, что имя пользователя @russian не использовалось до 2020 года...

[angelsvirkov]

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.

[ghost]

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.

[norwd]

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

Exactly!

[ghost]

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

Cant ask much for a small company like GitHub :(

[grofit]

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.

[adamkdean]

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 [email protected]:cocacola/something.git
git clone [email protected]: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.

[hosseinitabar]

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.

[adamkdean]

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.

[ghost]

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.

[adamkdean]

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.

[ghost]

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.

[notpushkin]

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.

[0x1DEA]

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.

[adamkdean]

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

[grofit]

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 :(

[adamkdean]

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.

[Htin]

at least gitlab take request for username squatting for paid customers.

[Baphomet]

really?

[ftlbiped]

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.

[I-am-B-Frank]

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. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe. You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[Sledro]

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!

[evadecker]

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 💗

[alex-telpis]

@queenofcorgis thanks! Looking forward to the return of this policy!

[LuisOskar]

@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!

[rafed]

Add my name to the list

[danvisx]

Hey thanks - I'm always happy to share what I can, where I can and what I can share here is that these conversations have not concluded and are still open.

has the staff reached a conclusion?

they could simply create a form in site where you would be listing the username(s) you want from possible inactive users, and thus they would have an idea at least about the number of users who want this, and which accounts to check for inactivity.

[fahd]

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!

[unordentlich]

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.

[fishb6nes]

[wdhdev]

The username I would like has zero public activity since it was created, and GitHub won't release it.

[lukecarr]

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 @ mention to the organisation, but this has gone nowhere.

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.

[adamkdean]

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.

[lukecarr]

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?

[HeitorAugustoLN]

Any updates here?

[crazy]

Don't think this will be resolved

[Putrus]

I’m facing a similar situation with the account at https://github.com/Putra. I want to establish a small business under my unique surname, Putra, and having this username would make accessing my repositories much easier. Unfortunately, I can’t use it because the account was created in 2010 and hasn’t shown any activity on GitHub since then.
I’ve already submitted a support ticket explaining my case, and now I’m waiting for their response. I’m optimistic and hopeful that it will work out in the end. I think this policy is stupid and hurts the active users who keep this portal alive and growing.

[Putrus]

Too bad, it's comforting that I'm not the only one with this problem. Maybe GitHub will listen to its community and do something about it.

[TheGiraffe3]

Perhaps you could make an empty repository and invite the user to it.
Make an issue in the repository asking them if they're using the GitHub account, and if not would they please rename. Explain your reasons.
It's not necessarily going to work, but it won't hurt to ask.

[Putrus]

@TheGiraffe3 good idea. I'll try to do that, but I suspect that since there has been no activity since 2010, this person probably doesn't even check this account/no longer has access to it :(

[Putrus]

I got the response from support:
IMPORTANT: Support Ticket Declined
Thank you for your request. It appears that you are asking about releasing a dormant or inactive username. We no longer review requests to release dormant or inactive usernames. You can view our Username Policy here:

https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-trademark-policy

If you hold a trademark to this name and believe there is a clear case of confusion between the account and your trademark, please review our Trademark Policy:

https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-trademark-policy

Thank you,
The GitHub Team

[VigneshVSV]

As I stated. I got the same reply about 3 months back.

[victor-borges]

Maybe some big change would be one solution, like linking custom usernames to domain verification as Bluesky does?

[wdhdev]

I highly doubt this would get implemented but it would definitely be quite cool.

[Deley189582]

Yes, hello there.

I have found myself at this thread because I too ran into this issue with the dreaded "we are no longer accepting requests to release dormant usernames" response.

I was disappointed contemplating the reality that Deley189582 will forever be my name on GitHub that a small part of me would refuse to accept.

I find it frustrating too because I did some research and someone else was able to have success, though seeing how this post was from 2020, this was sometime before they locked it in for good next year.

Seeing the responses to this thread not only gave me comfort that I’m not the only one, but it did give me hope when a staff member of GitHub is also aware of this issue.

Really, I find this misleading that they have a policy against name squatting and yet they did not go forth with my request to free up the username that I desire.

The question that I want to ask is, what exactly did they change specifically to where the “deley18” account fails to be in violation of name squatting?

I get that they have a stance when they say that “it is not possible to determine if an account is inactive based on publicly-exposed information,” but if that’s the case, then I whole heartly agree with @lukecarr that they should at least tell me they have some private repos, only then can I close the book that my desired name is out of the question officially and for good.

In the end, all I can say is that, to @queenofcorgis, PLEASE ADD MY NAME TO THE LIST!

This is Deley18 being frustrated that they’re forever known as Deley189582 on GitHub.

If you’re wondering how I came up with 9582, it was my discriminator number back when Discord used to have those until they started to phase out the old username system on May 3, 2023.

[zbikkk]

funny how i can't claim a username of an account that's been dead for 14 years @zbik

[crazy]

funny how i can't claim a username of an account that's been dead for 14 years @zbik

Do some OSINT, seems like he had one follower, most likely colleague etc. Reach out to him and try get in contact with owner.

[TheCrockett]

Okay, got it.

An open source project links to the person to (maybe passed away unfortunately), and github is like - f you community.

Sounds like a Microsoft answer, tbh.

For those interested in the details, I simply want to help update the snap for amazon workspaces but after arguing for 20 minutes with an AI who doesn't understand the problem, I'm finally met with "Yea - go away, we don't do that"

https://github.com/Nightmayr-snaps/amazon-workspaces-snap/issues

So thanks github - You're killing our trust.