shadownet opened this issue on Dec 20, 2005 ยท 30 posts
XENOPHONZ posted Tue, 20 December 2005 at 3:23 PM
It's a hazard online. Anyone can grab "your" nick on any board that they like. Particularly when it's a commonly known term or name. Like when the online handle is derived from the name of an ancient Greek general/historian/philosopher.
Anyone that wants to can appropriate the name for their own use, so long as it's not on a website where you've already registered under that sobriquet.
There's not really anything that you can do about it, other than complain to the site's admins. And the average admin isn't going to bump an existing member for the sake of a new sign-up. Except perhaps in the case of inactive accounts -- where someone joined under "your" nick back in 1998, and hasn't logged back onto the site again since then. Under those circumstances, you might have a chance of obtaining the nick for yourself. But not if the name is already claimed by a currently active member.
Lots of people are named "Fred". None of them hold a copyright on the name.
Message edited on: 12/20/2005 15:25