[NayamAmarshe]

It happened to channels and groups that were inactive for a long time. Durov did mention this in a message a few months ago that username squatters were becoming a problem.

And I was mad at first but it was equally my fault for leaving my public group inactive for more than 10 months, which is probably why the username disappeared.

It's a real problem on other social media websites too. For example, a totally inactive account on GitHub claimed an org name and it has no repositories, no information, It's totally empty and I can do nothing about it. Not even report it so that GitHub can look into it and unfreeze the username.

EDIT: I just checked the dates and the channel was inactive from November 10, 2021 to August 26, 2022. So basically 9-10 months. Previously, I wrote 3 months but time flies I guess.

[420official]

I've successfully taken a username from a squatter by reaching out to github support. As long as the user doesn't have active private stuff they might be willing to help you get the username.

[phphphphp]

That's not an option any more. GitHub used to offer this, but as of about 12 months ago, the policy changed and they will not release a name that is inactive regardless of how long it has been inactive.

[gopher_space]

Using recent activity as a metric seems like it would age finished projects out of the github platform. Active projects that have switched version control several times in their history might refer to previous versions on github without github itself being aware of the connection.

At the free level I could see unmodified forks and anything marked private disappearing over time, then culling empty accounts. If I created an account, forked a project, and then left, how many months would need to pass before I'd be surprised that my account hadn't been recycled without my active consent?

[wink]

I don't like calling them squatters if you don't know what they're doing and I'm pretty sure you can't actually tell if they're 100% inactive. For example at a time I had zero public activity on bitbucket but was using it for private repos and unlike github this wouldn't show. Then at some point someone kinda demanded I give up the name because I was obviously not using it. Same with Twitter. Just being logged in and reading has huge benefits since they broke the logged-out user experience.

Also archival purposes exist, especially for code repos.

[NayamAmarshe]

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll give it a try.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

Three months seems like a rather short time. Twitter gave me 5 years of never having sent a single tweet before telling me they were closing my account.

[NayamAmarshe]

Yeah sorry, not 3 months. I checked the dates again, the last post was on November 10 and I lost the username in August, so 9-10 months and around the same time as Durov's announcement about 70% of telegram usernames being inactive.

[ShockedUnicorn]

My issue is that any external links to my channel now no longer works. Luckily I can update some of the links, but I can't do that with tweets.

I'll just have to be better at uploading so this hopefully won't happen again.

[NayamAmarshe]

Yeah it's definitely an inconvenience. I hope Telegram team listens to the feedback.

[ls15]

> Durov did mention this in a message a few months ago that username squatters were becoming a problem.

This is gaslighting

[NayamAmarshe]

It's not gaslighting if they have analytics to back the claim.

https://t.me/durov/195

> Until recently, 70% of all Telegram usernames had been reserved in inactive channels by cybersquatters from Iran. This created a graveyard of dead usernames that cluttered search results and prevented millions of Telegram users from selecting appropriate public addresses for their accounts, groups and channels.

[ls15]

Like with every other social media platform, this is not an actual issue.

If the username that I would like to have is taken, I can pick another name that is not taken.

It is not unreasonable to take a 3 month break from a messenger app.

Search results don't have to prioritize inactive channels.

Just pulling the rug on people for money makes Telegram look very unreliable.

Compare this to how it works on reddit: people can request to take over a dead subreddit as a mod, but it requires that the subreddit has been dead for at least six months and they will try to contact the previous mod first and only transfer it to the requester if that fails. At no cost.

[stiltzkin]

That's not gaslighting

[ls15]

Having inactive usernames is not an actual issue when people can just use other names. He is just trying to make more money by selling them and he is blaming it on the users. "See, they did not use the names in the artificially short period that I defined. I had no other option than taking them away and selling them to the highest bidder."

Obviously he's not only selling Iranian names.

[Arainach]

Regardless of whether you consider this action just, it is not gaslighting. Gaslighting has a specific definition, and this isn't it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

[ls15]

> manipulating someone so as to make them question their own reality.

That's what he did. Telling users it is their own fault that he had to take their names and sell them. You were causing issues, because you did not log in for three months.

[t-writescode]

Ironically, what you are doing is gaslighting by trying to redefine it and say that’s what it’s always meant.

[Arainach]

Justifying your actions isn't gaslighting. Blaming someone isn't gaslighting.

Gaslighting involves presenting a false history of things that did not happen. There is real data here that there are a huge number of inactive accounts.

[NayamAmarshe]

Ultimately, they are looking to raise money for Telegram.

Durov has been funding it with his own savings for more than 8 years, which is great but a project as big as Telegram eventually needs more funding, especially when it's literally Messenger + Google Drive + Social Media + Privacy Respecting. It's hard to make money when the world runs on selling data and obviously, Telegram Premium has not been very successful.

I do not mind the auction of the usernames to be very honest as I understand why they're being auctioned in the first place.

Arbitrary or not, I'm a Telegram super-user, out of the 20 public groups and channels that I have, only one had its username take away and only because it was inactive. Could be a glitch, could be intentional but I do know that it's partly because of me that the channel looked like a dead one.