I’ve been seeing a lot of usernames formatted “[lowercase][fourdigits]” or “user-[randomletternumbers]”.
Normally, I’d assume that that just means the name was already taken and the numbers are manually entered to make it unique, but the formatting is too consistent. Is that something google is doing automatically?
The other one is real weird. Is that something some proxy sites are doing for anonymous posting?
deleted by creator
Ok. It seemed to appear more in certain types pf content over others, but can be explained by certain hobbies having users that care more about fixing their online identity. I’ve noticed it for a while, but seeing almost nothing but these user- type names in a single comment chain finally made me ask.
It is the aftermath of forced Google+ integration. Not everyone care that much to correct it.
My username got changed for me by Google. Now it’s (previous username, spaces removed) (random numbers)
This is exactly my case.
It seems like Google changed the format of their YouTube usernames. I assume usernames need to be unique now, but I don’t know for sure.
In any case, Google automatically added a string of numbers after my username, and I simply haven’t bothered changing it back
Bots? What are they doing?
No, actually real users. YouTube used to use user names. When they tried to force Google+ integration they gave the option to use your real name or split your account and have two “profiles”. One with your username and one with your G+ name. When G+ was unceremoniously brought to the backyard and old yellered, the G+ profile was changed to your old YouTube username plus a bunch of random numbers. Some time later they fused all profiles, leaving a bunch of people with just a word and random numbers. It can be changed now, I think, but most people don’t bother.
Oh yeah I remember that now.
If they’re bots, they’re some of the laziest usernames. Even worst then the [firstname][lastname][number] that infected reddit.
Can only answer this for me. I always use a username generator and usually it’s a word with four numbers following.
