Alan Cox

Username

Hello, I noticed that your username, Alan Cox, may not meet Wikipedia's username policy because of similarity to User:AlanCox. If you believe that your username does not violate our policy, please leave a note here explaining why. As an alternative, you may file for a change of username, or you may simply create a new account and use that for editing. Thank you. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:00, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

How about because that was my old user name for which the password was lost ages ago and I was told to create a new one because there was no way to retrieve it ? Alan Cox (talk) 09:49, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Ah, OK, thanks. It might be a good idea to mention that - and your former IP edits - on your old and new user pages;or to redirect the old ones. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 10:52, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

This account has been blocked indefinitely from editing Wikipedia because your username, Alan Cox, does not meet our username policy.

Your username is the only reason for this block. You are welcome to choose a new username (see below).

A username should not be promotional, related to a "real-world" group or organization, misleading, offensive, or disruptive. Also, usernames may not end in the word "bot" unless the account is an approved bot account.

You are encouraged to choose a new account name that meets our policy guidelines. Alternatively, if you have already made edits and you wish to keep your existing contributions under a new name, then you may request a change in username by:

1. Adding {{unblock-un|your new username here}} on your user talk page. You should be able to do this even though you are blocked, as you can usually still edit your own talk page. If not, you may wish to contact the blocking administrator by clicking on "E-mail this user" on their talk page.
2. At an administrator's discretion, you may be unblocked for 24 hours to file a request.
3. Please note that you may only request a name that is not already in use, so please check here for a listing of already taken names. The account is created upon acceptance, thus do not try to create the new account before making the request for a name change. For more information, please see Wikipedia:Changing username.

If you feel that you were blocked in error, you may appeal this block by adding below this notice the text {{unblock|Your reason here}}, but you should read our guide to appealing blocks first. -- Cirt (talk) 14:42, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who accepted the request.

Alan Cox (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

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Request reason:

I am the Alan Cox that the page happens to refer to, and I had the name first. If I can't have both the name and a wikipedia article about me then delete the article. BTW if anyone in Wikipedia looked at the history of the account they'd have seen we've been through this once before and unblocked it some years back

Accept reason:

I hope my fellow admin will pardon my boldness, but I have gone ahead and unblocked. After reviewing the timeline of this block it seems wholly inappropriate. Look up there, a discussion was had, the user explained themselves to the satisfaction of the other participants, and then six months later Cirt comes along and blocks with no further discussion, and this is not the only time he took such action. I find it wholly inappropriate to block a user who responded in good faith to a request to discuss their username, especially in this case where six months had passed with no further objections. At most this was a case for WP:RFC/NAME, but even that was not needed as the account it was supposedly confused with had not edited a few years and this account was not active at the time of the block. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:17, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't see any sign of a block and unblock "some years back". Was that on another account, apart from AlanCox and Alan Cox? However, if you really are Alan Cox then I can't see that the username infringes any part of the username policy, unless I have missed something. However, the username policy does say "If you have been blocked for using your real name, please don't take offense; we're trying to prevent somebody from impersonating you! You are welcome to use your real name, but in some cases, you will need to prove you are who you say you are. You can do this by sending an e-mail to info-en@wikimedia.org; be aware that the volunteer response team that handles e-mail is indeed operated entirely by volunteers, and an immediate reply may not be possible." I suppose that it will probably be best for you to do that, to make sure. JamesBWatson (talk) 16:46, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I am much inclined to agree with Beeblebrox. An unnecessary block. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:12, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Happy to drop an email still if that would make people happier Alan Cox (talk) 13:23, 24 August 2011 (UTC)