davy (05/09/82)
Well, the results are in -- about a week and a half ago, I asked
people to send me mail describing the types of login names your
site uses, along with any standing rules you may have. I didn't
get a lot of responses, but here's a summary of what I did get:
cwruecmp last names, although exceptions are allowed
duke user's choice - usually initials
ima first names, with initials to disambiguate if
necessary
phs "free-form". Now split 50-50 between initials and
first names
sii initials, although if someone has a strong
preference, it would be honored
tucc user's choice - usually initials
unc two or three initials, and an occaisional
first name
utzoo user's choice, except that the name should identify
you in some way
uwvax student accounts: last names with truncation
or initials if needed
all other accounts: user's choice
common choices are last name or initials (faculty),
first name (secretaries & grad students), and special
names (warloc, oracle, etc.) (primarily undergrads)
watmath person's initials ollowed by their last name, truncation
after 12 characters. If there is no middle initial, a
"." is used
we13 3-character initials wherever possible. In cases of
duplication, a new middle initial is chosen
Now, so as not to leave our site out, I'll tell you folks what we do. In
general, as new students get accounts (about 500 every fall!) they are simply
given their user id's as a temporary login. In this way, the accounts can
be given out in class, and the students can fill out an information form,
which is typed in later. Gradually these logins are changed over to names,
usually the person's last name, with initials added for uniqueness.
The accounts which have been around for a while (i.e., before this method was
used) have somewhat random names, some are initials, some first names, some
nicknames. If a person wishes his login changed, he simply has to ask, and
in most cases, he shall receive. There has been a big flurry of login changing
recently, it seems a lot of people want two letter logins ("jb", "cb", "gb",
etc.).
We run about a dozen computers on the network, and the biggest problem is that
since they are all "hooked together", people must be unique net-wide. We have
decided to do this by user id, i.e., no two accounts, regardles of machine,
may have the same uid. This seems to work well, and I don't believe there have
been any major problems as of yet.
Well, thanks to those of you who sent in responses, and if any of you reading
this now have any interesting situations with logins to describe, send them
to me, and I'll digest them once again.
--Dave Curry
pur-ee!davy