A question about usernames

[Sweetley]

I was wondering if it is ever planned that usernames, which are taken by users,
which aren't even been activ here for years (like not even made one post at all
etc.) are gonna be availabe again one day so that other people can use them.

When I wanted to change my username, I actually wanted to have the name
"Merry", which was however already been taken by someone who joined the
forum almost 4 years ago and doesn't even have made one post at all and
wasn't been activ in general. And to be honest, that annoyed me. Of course
it's another case when the user is actually activ here, but at that case the
name is been taken by someone who just made a account and probably forgot
about it or so.

I know from another forum that they have this one rule, that when you want a
name, which is taken by a user, which doesn't show any activity on the forum for
two years (like no post etc.) that the staff make the name availabe again (like
they change the name from the inactiv account into something like "user16" or
so) so that you can use it then. I was wondering if something like this is here
possible too?

So yeah, I'm just curious about this.

 

[Oblivia]

We do not currently allow any username that's already taken to be transferred to another person. This may change in the future, but for now people have to choose unique names.

There have been many examples of people returning to the site after having taken a multiple year forum absence, so I can safely say the "two years" rule you mentioned won't ever be implemented here on TBT. If and when we allow something like this, it'd be done on a case by case basis and it's likely that we'd only allow username transfers from accounts with zero activity/no posts.