Comments on: Twitter, how about liberating some usernames?

By: Rafael

Rafael — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 03:23:38 +0000

Ben, the replies are tied with a internal, secret, user unique ID. They follow you whenever you go (if you change your username for example…) so that’s not an issue.

By: someone

someone — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:59:12 +0000

By the way, Facebook should let me to delete my user name.

By: Ben Wojcik

Ben Wojcik — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 17:29:43 +0000

Not as easy as that. Since they started archiving the entire fire hose and many people are looking forward to using it for research the username points to a specific individual or business reassigning it would create problems of continuity.

I accidentally abandoned a username a couple of years ago and they will not even let me reuse it now. There will be a problem in the future if they do not come up with a solution, but what if you take an abandoned user name and people have already blocked the previous owner. What of people who are following the unused account, what if it is the account of a child that passed to early, how would the parents feel about the posts from the new user.

Many, many problems to solve. #firstworldproblems

By: Michael Ojeda

Michael Ojeda — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 06:27:52 +0000

@Constantinos Coudounaris, they’ve been saying that for years now. Yet nothing has happened.

By: Constantinos Coudounaris

Constantinos Coudounaris — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 19:52:30 +0000

Guys, has anyone read http://support.twitter.com/groups/33-report-a-violation/topics/148-policy-information/articles/15362-inactive-account-policy

Twitter already has an Inactive Account Policy and they are working to delete inactive accounts in bulk…

By: Constantinos Coudounaris

Constantinos Coudounaris — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 19:45:07 +0000

Another reason why Twitter should delete inactive accounts is that businesses close down every single day – imagine all of the Twitter Accounts that belong to all of these non-existent businesses.

By: antrik

antrik — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 23:59:38 +0000

This request is quite silly. It really matters squat whether there are 100000000 or 200000000 user names in use — either way, poeple with a “good” name will just be a tiny fraction! A few guys might get lucky to hit one of the “good” ones having been just freed up; but it would not change the overall picture at all. (And it would be a rather unfair lottery on top…)

Reusing existing names doesn’t really help, while on the other hand it would create a lot of confusion.

Just get over it. Any service that big will have the “good” names taken. There is nothing you can do about it.

By: redwall_hp

redwall_hp — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 23:54:58 +0000

@Gregory Ciotti: Yes. Supposedly a very large percentage of Facebook accounts have been abandoned. But those large figures sound nice, so they don’t want to remove them. Not that I would support their removal, as I believe in the contents of the internet being archived forever.

By: ...pat.

...pat. — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 21:09:23 +0000

I’m glad that Twitter didn’t have such a policy in the early days… I got my account in 2007, but it took a few years for Twitter to have enough traction to make me use it on a regular basis. Now that it does have the traction, I think that the laws of supply and demand might need to come into force in terms of a “use it or lose it” policy. But don’t try to take my @digiteyes away from me!

By: Hari

Hari — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 19:24:53 +0000

What would happen to any existing @username handles if the username is reassigned to someone else? BTW, there are a many who don’t tweet but follow others, so the number of tweets should not be considered as a criteria for dormancy.