Did you find a solution?

But also just remember that although it may look like they don't have any activity, they may have private repositories they're actively committing to and working on.

@SmashingQuasar

Please note, contacting any member of GitHub Staff via unsolicited mentions or pings is strongly discouraged and may be considered a violation of our prohibition against harassment. Please review our Code of Conduct for more information.

Let's work together to keep GitHub Community a place where people feel safe to participate by being respectful of them and their time.

Any repeat and future violations may result in a temporary or indefinite block from the Community. Thanks for understanding.

Hey,
Thanks for your message.

Please not that you are refusing to enforce your own terms of service:

Considering those terms of service are legally binding for users, unlike your forum code of conduct, I will kindly ask you to revise your attitude towards this issue. Regarding your message, I will also mention your own Forum Code of Conduct:

As mentioned here, Github is a professional setting, which means professional conduct is expected, especially coming from Github. Refusing to enforce your own Terms of Service is highly unprofessional.
This behaviour from Github is causing harm to entrepreneurs and companies trying to engage in fair use of Github.

Thanks for understanding.

Same problem here. Should we start building a new RepoHub?

I know this is a couple years old now, but we are currently dealing with this too. Why on earth Github doesn't separate organization URLs from personal URLs is beyond me. GitLab here I come!

My suggestion would be github.com/u/youruser for usernames and github.com/o/yourorganisation for organisations. Of course could also keep users with existing urls, but I actually think it's helpful that the url clearly distinguishes users and orgs... and it also leaves it open for github to easily introduce other categories of users in future if they need to.

You need to see previous posts before posting my friend. Just saying.

Name squatting is prohibited by the ToS, but this topic makes it clear you have no way of actually requesting any action against name squatting, therefore it is a rule with no enforcement, which is called a recommendation. Until Github lives up to their own ToS, this topic stays relevant.

Yes, but I wouldn't expect GH to listen to its users anymore, after all these atrocious changes they've implemented and not rolled back even after the more-or-less generalized backlash.

This definitely seems like something that would make sense to revisit and I would keep this thread open. I agree that currently the name squatting policy in the Github ToS isn't being effectively enforced and there is quickly going to be a problem with lack of usable user and org names if something isn't done.

Totally agree, would at least be better than what we have now...

Hi @graybeal

Please note, contacting any member of GitHub Staff via unsolicited mentions or pings is strongly discouraged and may be considered a violation of our prohibition against harassment. Please review our Code of Conduct for more information.

Let's work together to keep GitHub Community a place where people feel safe to participate by being respectful of them and their time.

Any repeat and future violations may result in a temporary or indefinite block from the Community. Thanks for understanding.

By the way, Heroku have a fair policy for their accounts:

Heroku automatically deletes inactive accounts. An account is inactive if its owner hasn’t logged into the Dashboard, CLI, or API in the last 365 days, and no paid resources were used with Heroku in the last 6 months. To keep your account active, you must log into your account.

Source: https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/account-management#auto-deletion-of-inactive-accounts

Hi there,

@michaelfreund & @miguelpeniche Please note, contacting any member of GitHub Staff via unsolicited mentions or pings is strongly discouraged and may be considered a violation of our prohibition against harassment. Please review our Code of Conduct for more information.

Let's work together to keep GitHub Community a place where people feel safe to participate by being respectful of them and their time.

Any repeat and future violations may result in a temporary or indefinite block from the Community. Thanks for understanding.

Hi there,

First, I want to acknowledge the importance of the community guidelines highlighted in response to my previous post, specifically regarding direct mentions of GitHub staff. I understand these rules help maintain a respectful environment, and I will ensure to follow these guidelines in the future.

I would like to revisit the topic that I believe is crucial for many of us here: GitHub's username policy. This issue significantly impacts our ability to maintain a clear and effective presence on the platform, essential for collaboration and community building.

Many active and dedicated members of the community find themselves hindered by the current policy, which can inadvertently favor long-term inactive accounts over those actively contributing. I propose we discuss potential adjustments that could benefit all users, such as implementing a system to reclaim inactive usernames without compromising user privacy.

Let's discuss this constructively: What are your thoughts and experiences regarding this policy? How do you think GitHub could improve its approach to better support the community's growth and engagement?

Best
Michael

Thank you @michaelfreund I appreciate your response and understanding.

As we've stated before: We are no longer accepting requests to release dormant usernames. We are not able to accommodate this request.

This is not something myself or my team have any oversight on, and we are respectfully sharing a business decision that has been made.

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 to determine if you should submit a trademark policy violation report.

Thank you!

Thank you for the answer @ettaboyle, even if it is not satisfying.

Is there a way to communicate one's dissatisfaction about this to a department that is responsible for it?

Context: We are a company that has been trying for some time to contact a person who is obviously inactive, who we would like to ask if he would be willing to hand the account name over.