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Comment by acters | Hacker News Reader

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I have no great fondness for big tech companies, but equally I do believe that society is made worse by people who behave like this.

I am unsure how society is "made worse" On the contrary, this is playful, it is not evil or abusive. also helps keep companies on their toes. Changing someone's username without notifying them AND consent should be frowned on. Taking a large company to small claims will not make the company worse or hurt anyone. Most of the time it is helpful and sometimes brings about the creation of needed regulations. It is feedback in a professional manner for disrespecting one of their users/clients.

I agree with providing feedback to companies, and sometimes the court is the correct avenue. You raise a good point about how that can help to further everyone's interests. I just think that there is often a solution that's less painful for both sides before going to court.

I suppose if you're dealing with a large company that has lawyers on staff but doesn't care about user support, then this is a good avenue. Small companies and non-VC backed startups on the other hand wouldn't see it as playful.

So, contextually, I can see a situation where your perspective makes sense. Like those situations where you can imagine a corporate lawyer laughing at you for taking them to small claims over a username. You just need to read the room and know when it'd be good fun vs when it would cause problems.

Oh, and you also need to have enough money for expensive hobbies. The subset of users who are in a position to engage with companies this way probably differs significantly in many ways from the total population of users, assuming a popular product.

True, which is why it should be a considered a fun activity. Not everything is a hobby but a tool to exercised when needed or wanted.

I mentioned in a different comment how Github's policy and terms of service has no mention of changing an account's username with or without notice. Unless they can prove that they are "squatting" by holding an username considered "inactively held for future use." It is inappropriate behavior for Github to do this to OP.

I also mentioned to talk to support first but I failed to mention why. Instead my comment made it seem as though OP should immediately sue them. I do not condone that kind of behavior and would have edited my earlier comment to reflect this after some of the comments made it clear I made a mistake.(I can not edit it now)

Thank you for bringing this to my attention and grateful for your understanding. Hopefully I can leave this comment behind me as it seems to have run its course.

Civil courts are a service. They have significant delays and backlogs in many places, to the detriment of people with legitimate reasons to use them. Probably in no small part due to frivolous and nuisance suits.

Abuse of the court system is a criminal offence in many jurisdictions.

Using the courts “for fun” is an abuse and misuse of the system. As the grandparent said, I hope people don’t act like this.

You are not damaged by losing a username. You will lose no money, no status, no clients, nothing. If you choose to print your username on the side of your car that's your choice and GitHub isn't responsible for that. Your case would be dismissed immediately, in some states with prejudice, and rightfully so.

> It is feedback in a professional manner for disrespecting one of their users/clients.

NO, this is emphatically not what the court system is for. You don't sue someone (or a company) to "provide feedback." Courts exist for when you are damaged, you need to be made whole, and the parties cannot come to an agreement without a neutral third party.

It really depends on how we treat digital properties, for example, a username on github will link to your identity and work, the same way a domain name might.

If a domain name was taken, it would have major consequences, trotting out “we never told you to spend millions on super bowl ads” would be a weird take.

Obviously it is based on the contract, but it is not far off.

I don't think a username on someone else's service is comparable to a domain name. You buy a domain name. People go directly to your domain name. I would bet 90% or more of navigations to a github profile are linked from some other source (e.g. easy and borderline immediate to change) as opposed to typed into the url bar directly.

To be clear I think it's shitty for GH to change someone's username, especially without a lot of communication first, but I don't think it rises to the level of having any sort of damages you could try to litigate even in the worst cases.

> On the contrary, this is playful, it is not evil or abusive.

Taking someone to court is not playful.

> Playful

That is a bad choice of words.

I will see you in court.

(See- joking about going to court is playful. Actually going to court is not)

If push comes to shove I would play ball and enjoy it, even if undesirable. I would like to say that I suggested OP should speak with Github support before court however people skipped that part because my comment mainly talked about the sueing aspect in deeper detail.

OP should talk to support and get Github communicate with the public more clearly through their policy/terms of service about forcing username changes with or without consent.

What is the claim? In the UK at least SCC requires that your claiming for some kind of (small) financial harm. What's that here?

Even if that's not the case in the USA (small civil claims against un-pursued crime?) it's still not clear to me what the issue is, or what 'right' they've violated. The judicial system isn't there for 'how displeased you are'.

Maybe I have my github account printed on business cards or even plastered on my car as advertising for my consulting practice. Or its embedded on marketing pages for consulting support for my open source project that now I need to pay a dev or dedicate time to update.

Or any other scenario where o have customers and potential customers that discover or interact with me at least partly through my github account.

This is the main issue I wanted to bring the conversation towards. instead I got flamed for making it seem like I am a "sue-aholic." Some people use their Github for business use and allowing Github to change a username without notice is bad blood. On top of that Github has no mention of telling its user base of changing usernames with or without notice. There is almost no mention that they can do whatever they like on their platform with your personal account details. If Github ever does end up changing someone's username and that person was doing what you said. Github would be in deeper trouble than what OP does have.

Obviously OP understands the company's decision for changing his username but he was allowed to have it in the beginning. It is odd to backtrack and force a name change without notice. Github should update their policy with new reasonings for allowing themselves the ability to change your username(or account details) without notice. Afterall If Github can change my username(or account details), I would like that to be communicated to me.

But that does actually need to have been the case, you can't just contrive a hypothetical financial loss.

> requires that your claiming for some kind of (small) financial harm.

There may be very small differences, but I believe it is also exactly the same in USA.

Judge Judy is not going to give you a dime just because GitHub changed your username. You might still get on the TV show though but only so that she can yell at you publicly for wasting everyone's time.

In a more illustrative example, twitter.com/x was up until a few days ago, a protected account owned by someone? and now it is Twitter... X's handle.

I bet he wasn't paid a dime either.

Be careful, Devon. https://github.com/x

that is what the previous owner of the twitter x handle said. No compensation or warning. However, Twitter(or X) was exercising their trademark policy. Github just changed OP's username without any warning or breach of any policy.

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-twitter-takes-over...

As a non-American I’m just curious: where does this ideology start to be pushed?

The whole idea of “I don’t like this, so I will sue” isn’t really present to nearly such an extent in the rest of the world.

I’m just wondering if it’s something they teach in school (like a civics class), or if it’s introduced in a more causal fashion (making jokes like “don’t do that or I’ll sue you”), or is it just popular on the news or TV?

It is not pushed; it is a right. It is just a difference in culture. We americans have a strong legal system that is made for small and large cases. On top of that, we are allowed to do it privately by settling matters outside of the legal system when possible. It is not meant to be a “I don’t like this, so I will sue” however a lot of bad actors have popularized this. In fact, if a business acted in a way that was offensive, we have a right to defend ourselves. If there is no way to do that then we are losing something necessary to prevent a dystopian future. I do believe the american schooling system has become to naive and only teach the abstract general education classes.

I believe a lot of it came down to how much American companies had to be sued in the past and presently are because of the lack of regulations. Especially for a lot of newer technologies, or reduction of cost for previously discovered technologies. With current lobbying practices and ease of influence on our government, many people are forced to take things to court to cementify regulations or rights. Sometimes we are forced to take a business or individuals to court because many americans are uncaring for one another and some have tried to screw each other over.

It is not to say this does not happen all around the world. America seems to very loud. It is easy to see and hear about all kinds of things that happen to a large nation like america. While other larger nations either shut down the press or news coverages and are blatantly corrupted. Some of the large nations in europe are not all roped into one another under a single name like "Europe." It is all odd and complex.

I have jumped the gun too early on telling him to sue. I should have asked if he spoke to github before making that suggestion. my bad.

This is a great, reasonable explanation, and I also believe your original comment is getting unfairly dunked on.

The USA has so little regulation to stop corporate wrongdoing, and the regulations that do exist are barely effective (“kid gloves”). The government is ridiculously lenient on companies. Even when they do break the law blatantly, law enforcement is loathe to do anything. As a result, they can basically do whatever they want. Civil lawsuits are one of the the only ways the general public even stands a chance to influence/correct how they behave.

I got dunked on. I casually commented an opinion without thinking of how to put my feelings and thoughts into words. I made the legal option too upfront. It is an eye catching controversial topic to jump on. I am just enjoying myself for now. typing up random ramblings.

I say this only somewhat in jest:

> The whole idea of “I don’t like this, so I will sue” isn’t really present to nearly such an extent in the rest of the world.

The US is a capitalistic dystopian hellscape where every organization is a parasite trying to extract every dollar of rent it possibly can, regardless of what it does to the host. Without lawsuits, we'd all be serfs.

> I’m just wondering if it’s something they teach in school (like a civics class), or if it’s introduced in a more causal fashion (making jokes like “don’t do that or I’ll sue you”), or is it just popular on the news or TV?

Civics education in the US is crap. We'd honestly be better off if we did teach these things in school.

I think you have a different definition of fun to most people!

Some people do. Imagine the hilarity of all that paperwork!

Lol, imagine how confused people will be. They will think that there is a mistake somewhere when infact this guy rightfully owned the username username!

Johnny Two-Times called, he wants you to go get the paper get the paper.

I have a strange fascination with meetings, legalize, and other boring business stuff.

*legalese

You don't own your username on someone else's service. They don't owe you anything.

Sounds like a good way to get banned from github.

and you'll be suing them for what exactly?

It will be done in arbitrage before anything like that. It is perfectly ok to sue a business for inappropriate actions that are not clearly stated or wrongfully done. After closely reviewing Github's policy and terms of service. They do not state they will change your username(with or without notice). Unless the account is "inactively held for future use." I highly doubt OP had been inactive enough to be considered a squatter. Either way, Github needs to update their policies describing why and how someone like OP had to have their username changed without notice. If this happened to me with a username that I carefully crafted and was unjustifiably acted on. I would certainly speak with support then sue them if there is no resolution, hoping to settle out of court because going through the court process is a giant pain for both parties.

they don't have to update their policies, it's their website and they can do what they want with it

unless you've paid them (which @usernamex doesn't seem to), then there's not even a contract with them

they will call your bluff, you'll go to court, then you'll lose and you'll have their legal fees to pay

If Github has the power to change usernames or account details without notice then I would like them to communicate that to me clearly and upfront. Also, you dont have to pay github to have legal grounds. If the account is used for business purposes(business card, or other forms), then github could cause you financial damages no matter how small. As a business, they should try to be more open and communicative with the users. OP clearly does not have much of a case, which makes that a lame example to bring up this court stuff. This is my bad, however if OP was using his account as we both mentioned then he would have a good case.

Overall, Github should update their policy to communicate more clearly with us. This is something we should demand from them. We can just throw up our hands and say github can do whatever they want. If that was the case and Github came out to say that, I would never do business with them or use their services/platform.

> If Github has the power to change usernames or account details without notice then I would like them to communicate that to me clearly and upfront.

you can want whatever you want, they have no contractual relationship with you and no obligation to consult you about anything.

> Also, you dont have to pay github to have legal grounds. If the account is used for business purposes(business card, or other forms), then github could cause you financial damages no matter how small.

if you haven't paid them there is no contract or any binding commitment or obligation for them to provide you with any service whatsoever

> This is something we should demand from them.

what are you going to demand with? you aren't their customer

> If that was the case and Github came out to say that, I would never do business with them or use their services/platform.

maybe don't build your business on companies you don't have a binding contract with?

see: Apollo, Tweetbot

Great examples of how letting these private companies act however they feel like will ultimately lead us down to a worse experience and quality of life. Apollo and Tweetbot were great software that made those platforms much more useable and brought a lot of dedicated users to the platform. Now we have is poorly made official apps that offer nothing to the users. I don't use either platforms. I don't have an account with them anymore. I removed myself from them. Yet people like you make them important and justify their decisions. Instead of listening to their userbases' feedback, they instead PR it up and wait till there is only dysfunctional idiots left. TickTock started out as that and everyone else is trying to copy that homework. There are too many people in this world with poor mental health.

We should realize that somehow there needs to be an increase in regulation in business behavior. Even to how businesses treat other businesses that use their online platforms. Internet is too much of a wild west. It just does not seem there is modern actions and behaviors at play here. too narrow minded and thinking of how they are free too whatever they like without consequences.

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