User talk:Egbokalaka

Simpler Times

Wikipedia decided that my username - hbo@mydomain.com - violated their username policy since the initials HBO were taken by a big media company 20 years after I was born. I guess that's not so unusual, but in my case, I've used the handle on computer networks since 1987, starting with BBS, then usenet, HEPNET, BITNET and the Internet. Search for hbo@sbphy.ucsb.edu for references to my first address on the latter internetwork. (You'll likely see my handles on all the others, since in those bygone days, most people included all their addresses on list and news article postings.)

I'm unreasonably annoyed by this I guess. The caution of corporate lawyers, reflecting the rapacious nature of their clients, is a consistent damper on individual expression, where it happens to cross commercial interests. I just long for the days when the only damper on choice of (non-anonymous) online identity was taste and minimum uniqueness. (HBO isn't unique, but my email address certainly is.)

Hbo@egbok.com (talk) 20:04, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Update: unique it may be, but my email was booted due to policy prohibiting email addresses as user names. Of course, that still forces me to abandon another piece of my old identity. But at least the policy seems to be based on a security consideration, and not litigation avoidance.

Hbo@egbok.com (talk) 00:12, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

All is sweetness now. Goodbye hbo, hello egbokalaka.

Egbokalaka (talk) 03:46, 23 March 2010 (UTC)