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This is a question about the use of profanity on the site.

I am sure this must have been specified somewhere else. Obviously, abuse is not allowed. But profanity/cuss words can be used cleverly. I admit that I cannot remember anyone doing so. Allusions to such words perhaps.

I have recently seen a new user whose name contains a profanity. Is that something that is allowed? Is it something that should be allowed? Is it something that we as a community (or moderators within it) control?

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    $\begingroup$ To your second paragraph: puzzling.stackexchange.com/q/6344/5373 $\endgroup$
    – Rand al'Thor
    Commented Aug 12, 2019 at 9:34
  • $\begingroup$ Here's one. $\endgroup$
    – Chowzen
    Commented Aug 17, 2019 at 2:07
  • $\begingroup$ I just stumbled over this, and the second paragraph reminded me of meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/376774 (I made quite some comments there ... the tl:dr is: Calm down...) $\endgroup$
    – Marco13
    Commented Sep 17, 2019 at 12:38
  • $\begingroup$ @Marco13, why would you assume I'm not calm? $\endgroup$
    – Dr Xorile
    Commented Sep 17, 2019 at 15:30
  • $\begingroup$ @DrXorile This wasn't targeting you specifically - you just asked a question about a policy, neutrally. My comments in the Q/A linked above should make clear that the answer given here (~"No profanity in names") is simply unenforcable. Sure, you cannot buy a en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Pajero in Spain, but we're talking about millions of user names, where "profanities" may be disguised up to a point where every decision is essentially arbitrary. $\endgroup$
    – Marco13
    Commented Sep 17, 2019 at 15:41

1 Answer 1

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Users having profanity in their names is prohibited

See this answer: a user got their name changed from “fuckvimmeanpeople” to something else by a moderator. The user changed it to “fuckmeanpeopleingeneral” after that and then got banned. Quote from the answer about this:

If [the user changing their name to something inappropriate] recurs, we'll need an IP ban.

“fucking garbage community” is certainly inappropriate. I have mod-flagged that user’s post as “Inappropriate username” and I presume that the user’s name will be changed by a mod.

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    $\begingroup$ I have renamed the account. It's now called "garbage community", which is still rude, but I think tolerable. I expect the user will either get over their annoyance at PSE and change their name to something more sensible, or stay angry and stop using PSE; in either case the problem is likely to be self-limiting. (Or I guess they might melt down completely and get a lengthy suspension or something of the sort.) $\endgroup$
    – Gareth McCaughan Mod
    Commented Aug 8, 2019 at 22:25
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    $\begingroup$ For the official policy on profanity in general (not just in usernames), see meta.stackexchange.com/questions/22232. $\endgroup$
    – GentlePurpleRain
    Commented Aug 9, 2019 at 20:24
  • $\begingroup$ In the spirit of the question, should this answer be edited with ***? $\endgroup$
    – Dr Xorile
    Commented Aug 12, 2019 at 20:55
  • $\begingroup$ @DrXorile I've left the name as-is so as to be as clear as possible what I'm talking about. $\endgroup$
    – Stormblessed
    Commented Aug 13, 2019 at 0:44
  • $\begingroup$ @GarethMcCaughan I think that there are several interpretations as to why this username was chosen in the first place, but at any rate nothing indicates that PSE was targeted, a username is chosen for all SE sites. When we see profanity, it is natural to feel targeted, but there is often another explanation - e.g., this user might have been mad at the whole SE community, or even at the actual Garbage Community :) $\endgroup$
    – Arnaud Mortier
    Commented Aug 13, 2019 at 21:54
  • $\begingroup$ I think there are indications that PSE was the specific target; the user was cross about things that happened on PSE to another account he had. But as a general point, you're right: one shouldn't jump to conclusions too quickly. $\endgroup$
    – Gareth McCaughan Mod
    Commented Aug 13, 2019 at 23:28
  • $\begingroup$ @ArnaudMortier I haven't seen this user or anything that happened here but it is worth noting that you can change your username per community, in fact you can have completely different "profiles" per each stack if you click "save changes for just this community" instead of "save changes". $\endgroup$
    – TheLethalCipher
    Commented Aug 15, 2019 at 9:30

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