2022-01-27 10:04:03 +00:00
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+++
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title = "ASCII-centric Usernames"
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date = 2022-01-27T18:38:25+10:00
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[extra]
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2022-01-27 11:09:33 +00:00
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updated = 2022-01-27T21:07:32+10:00
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2022-01-27 10:04:03 +00:00
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+++
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I'm working on a web-based side project in my spare time. The great thing about
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side projects is you get to make all the choices and question the common
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wisdom. Recently I've been building out the sign-up flow and I started thinking
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about usernames—specifically the characters that they may be comprised of.
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<!-- more -->
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2022-01-27 11:09:33 +00:00
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I poked around a few sites to see what they did: Twitter, GitHub, Discourse
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all restrict your username to a mostly ASCII alphanumeric character set, perhaps
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2022-01-27 10:04:03 +00:00
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with `-`, `_`, and `.` thrown in.
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It struck me that this is fine for me, an English speaker, but must suck for
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folks that can't have a username in their own language. It is however not
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without precedent. The Internet's origins in the US linger on with similar
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restrictions on e-mail and DNS ([Punycode] is but a workaround) for example.
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Some further thinking and research led to some possible reasons for this:
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1. There's the obvious precedent set by e-mail and other systems: that's how
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we've always done it so it just continues.
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1. Some languages require a dedicated [input system][ime] in order to type
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naturally. That means it would be difficult for people without familiarity
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with that system to be able to type the username such as might be necessary
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when @ mentioning someone.
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1. Similar to above, most keyboards have some way to type the English alphabet.
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1. ASCII alpha-numeric characters are able to be in URLs without [percent-encoding].
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That last one is the most compelling reason I saw. For an application that has
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user profile pages where the username goes in the URL it seems advantageous for
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that to be able to happen directly without encoding.
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Now this is all very biased by my monolingual, English speaking, Western viewpoint.
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Perhaps it is more common to permit native language usernames in applications that
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target non-English markets?
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2022-01-27 11:09:33 +00:00
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I did find a couple of examples that were more permissive with usernames.
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2022-01-27 10:04:03 +00:00
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Discord happily let me set my username to "🦊 こんにちは". Slack rejected the
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2022-01-27 11:09:33 +00:00
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emoji with a cute message, "Of course you want a name with an emoji. Sadly, it
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is not to be. Try letters?", but was otherwise happy with "こんにちは". In both
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2022-01-27 10:04:03 +00:00
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cases @ mentioning the user appears to require typing their name, although you
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could also find them in the people directory first.
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Notably Discord and Slack don't have public profile pages (that would need a
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URL). I'd be curious if there were systems out there with public profile pages
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where the usernames are permissive and the name is in the URL (and not the
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account id number for example).
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[Punycode]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punycode
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[percent-encoding]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent-encoding
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[ime]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input_method
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