User:Boredzo/NOIDPREFIX

[ I have now added this to the freenode article. &mdash; boredzo (&#x270d;) 19:54, August 9, 2005 (UTC) ]

NOIDPREFIX controversy
A small controversy has emerged regarding one of the features, called NOIDPREFIX, of the hyperion ircd. When NOIDPREFIX is enabled, users who have not identified with NickServ have a tilde (~) prepended to their nickname.

The controversy arises from a secondary part of the NOIDPREFIX feature, called "base nicknames". A base nickname, which is the part that you register with NickServ, consists only of alphanumeric characters; any other character forms a user-defined suffix that is not considered when you identify. The result of this is that anybody whose nickname consists of two or more words (e.g. The_Tick) or containing a hyphen (e.g. Mac-arena) will be forced to pick a new nickname if the leading alphanumeric portion ("The" and "Mac", respectively) is already taken.

This has at least two ramifications:


 * The available namespace of nicknames is greatly reduced (for example, "The_Tick", "The_Rat", and "The_Walrus" are no longer separate nicknames).
 * "Status" nicknames (e.g. "fred-work", for somebody who is at work) are encouraged, since you can change from "fred" to "fred-work" and still be recognised as "fred" by NickServ.

Levin has defended the feature as intended to bring new users to the network.