Request HN: An open source list of disallowed usernames | Hacker News Reader

Request HN: An open source list of disallowed usernames

21 pointsneya18 comments

Hey HN, I would like to compile a list of disallowed usernames that will be open-source. I'm sure most of you use a pre-compiled list of usernames that you don't want people to signup with for your startup. I'm trying to build a bigger, useful and open source version of the same list.

For example, you wouldn't want someone signing up with 'support' or 'admin' as username, right? That would mean they would be able to generate a URL like http://example.com/support or http://support.example.com.

I'm planning on consolidating this list into one single huge database that all startups can benefit from. Hence, as a humble request, I kindly ask you to donate me your list so we can put everything in one place, together!

You can contribute via Github: https://github.com/dsignr/Disallowed-usernames

Let's get this list up so everyone of us can benefit from it. Thanks!

Neya

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Feel free to merge in this list below I created a long time ago. You may want to create a short script that lets someone compare the list they have to the current list so that they can quickly see what they have that is missing from the list and it then prompts them to decide which ones to merge in, and then it merges and submits a pull request with the new usernames.

"restricted": [ "about", "abuse", "account", "accounts", "activate", "add", "admin", "administrator", "ajax", "api", "app", "apps", "archive", "archives", "article", "articles", "auth", "better", "billing", "blog", "cache", "cancel", "careers", "cart", "changelog", "checkout", "codereview", "compare", "config", "configuration", "connect", "contact", "create", "css", "customer", "delete", "developer", "developers", "direct_messages", "documentation", "download", "downloads", "edit", "email", "employment", "enterprise", "facebook", "faq", "favorite", "favorites", "feature", "features", "featured", "feed", "feedback", "feeds", "fleet", "fleets", "follow", "followers", "following", "font", "fonts", "forum", "forums", "friend", "friends", "group", "groups", "gist", "help", "home", "hosting", "hostmaster", "idea", "ideas", "image", "images", "include", "includes", "index", "info", "invitations", "invite", "is", "it", "javascript", "javascripts", "js", "json", "job", "jobs", "legal", "lists", "login", "logout", "logs", "mail", "map", "maps", "mine", "mis", "misc", "module", "modules", "news", "node", "nodes", "oauth", "oauth_clients", "offers", "openid", "order", "orders", "organizations", "plans", "poll", "polls", "popular", "privacy", "profile", "profiles", "projects", "public", "put", "post", "postmaster", "rdf", "recruitment", "register", "remove", "replies", "root", "rss", "sales", "save", "script", "scripts", "search", "security", "sessions", "settings", "shop", "signup", "sitemap", "space", "spaces", "ssl", "ssladmin", "ssladministrator", "sslwebmaster", "stat", "stats", "statistics", "status", "story", "stories", "styleguide", "subscribe", "subscriptions", "support", "survey", "surveys", "sysadmin", "sysadministrator", "template", "templates", "terms", "theme", "themes", "tour", "translations", "trends", "tutorial", "tutorials", "twitter", "twittr", "update", "unfollow", "unsubscribe", "upload", "uploads", "url", "user","users", "username", "weather", "webmaster", "widget", "widgets", "wiki", "ww", "www", "wwww", "xfn", "xml", "xmpp", "yml", "yaml"]

Thank you! That's a pretty exhaustive list :) I'll add them soon!

Cool idea. Initially I thought you just meant usernames with swears in them, etc, but I can see the value of such a list!

Another possible use is as a filter email addresses for actual human beings. For example, sales@example.com is probably not a human, while neya@example.com probably is.

> while neya@example.com probably is.

Probably? :P

Thanks though :) Including a HUGE list of swear words very soon.

Thanks!

Please do not bother with swearwords -

firstly everyone enjoys rolling their own regexes for such things (woohoo - two days of fart jokes,

secondly everyone realises the rules do not work well (I had to unban scunthorpe explicitly some years ago)

third you do not know how to swear in all the languages possible

fourth this is a useful security/annoyance check - policing swear words is not part of that.

Hmm, some actually want a list of swear words too. So, what I'll probably do is create a separate file for swear words. This way, if you don't need them, you can just ignore them.

Yeah, this is definitely the way to go. Create lots of groups that people can import the ones they want.

Culturally, politically, racially, or religious sensitive names such as:

god allah mohammed jesus evil satan 666 13 taliban terrorist terrorists jahar hitler nazi georgezimmerman arielcastro etc

Cofounders' names and their variations.

Maybe..will put 'em in a separate CSV file...

Any reason for CSV instead of JSON?

No particular reason mate, just that CSV is easier to compose and also to import via admin panels like PhpMyAdmin. Would gladly provide a JSON too, if you need it!

Not a bad idea. Might help to keep the list in alphabetical order too, so that people can check for duplicates more easily.

Yes, you're right. I'll re-arrange it soon! :)

Thanks!

I've sent a pull request with alphabetic ordering.

Merged it, thanks :)

Submitted a pull request. I merged the list I personally used in my webapps.

Please have another pull request : Add format to capture non-english spelling of bad-usernames

the example I gave is to disallow www.example.co.fr/administrateur

This way the list will be effective also for non-english speaking devs.

When unicode DNS becomes prevalent, this will be a long list :-0

Very good suggestion. Will create a separate CSV for this :)

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