Allow new users to purchase purged usernames outright

[zaluzianskya]

Title:
Allow new users to purchase purged usernames outright

Area:
journal creation, renames

Summary:
We can buy purged usernames now. This is awesome! But if you want to use a purged username for a new journal, you have to register a throwaway name and then rename that. Not so awesome.

Description:
Let's say you have a username you really like -- let's call it "loveandkittens". You really want to register "loveandkittens" for your new journal, but it's been deleted and purged! Luckily, Dreamwidth now has journal renaming, which is highly nifty. But in order to rename to "loveandkittens", you need a journal to actually rename.

So, you register a journal to rename. It can have whatever name you want -- if you're savvy about how renames work, you'll probably register something like "sldjcw982198nfckj", something no one would be likely to ever pick in the future. But, alas, not everyone is so savvy. A lot of users, especially new ones, would pick something like "hateandkittens", and then rename that to "loveandkittens". This, however, causes a problem if someone else wants to come along and register "hateandkittens" later on: It's either now a deleted and purged username, and the whole process starts aaaall over again, or it's a permanent redirect to "loveandkittens", which is even worse.

I'm not suggesting that we do away with having to pay for purged usernames; obviously, that's necessary. However, there should be a way for brand new journals to register these usernames without having to register a throwaway name first. They would be asked for payment up-front, and then some behind-the-scenes process would do whatever it has to do to move all of "loveandkittens"'s former activity over to "ex_loveandk123" so the new journal can be "loveandkittens". My suggestion is to register a journal with a username of the form "ex_123456789", and then apply the rename to it without the user ever seeing it.

And, obviously there'd have to be a link to some page explaining why you have to charge $15 for a brand new journal, and explaining that they're free to pick a different username instead if they don't want to fork out the money, but that's just standard for all rename-related shenanigans.

Poll #5132 Allow new users to purchase purged usernames outright

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 82

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This suggestion:

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Should be implemented as-is.
71 (86.6%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
0 (0.0%)

(I have no opinion)
10 (12.2%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (1.2%)