Page showing recently-purged usernames

[pne]

Title:
Page showing recently-purged usernames

Area:
newpage

Summary:
Create a new page showing purged usernames, as inspiration for people considering a rename.

Description:
LiveJournal has a page that shows purged usernames: http://www.livejournal.com/misc/expunged_list.bml

That page "is updated every day with new usernames that are up for grabs". There's a short list of usernames that became available in the last 24 hours and a big long list of random usernames that start with a particular letter or digit. You can then choose a different initial letter or digit, or click "See more random results" to get some more ideas. The order of the names on a given page seems to be roughly arbitrary.

It might be useful to have such a list on Dreamwidth, too, with similar features: show a list of usernames that are available for renaming to due to a purge.

The exact details might vary, but LiveJournal's implementation might be taken as a starting point.

Except that I'd like a bit more randomness if this is easily possible - when I first load the page (without applying a filter), I usually get names starting with "a0" or "a1"; a mix of "a0..a9, aa..az" would be nicer if this is easily possible. (Perhaps just a "select username from usertable where status = 'purged' limit 100" with no "order by" clause? Then for "see more random results", repeat the query with a "start at 101", "start at 201", etc.? Then they'd be in quasi-random order, presumably the order in which they were created.)

In http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/31382.html?thread=3770518#cmt3770518, Denise said that purges happen comparatively rarely and the number of accounts that gets purged at each go is lower, so perhaps it's not quite as useful here as on LJ, but I wanted to suggest it anyway.

Perhaps one *can* find a nifty username from it!

Poll #8859 Page showing recently-purged usernames

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 84

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
35 (41.7%)

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

Shouldn't be implemented.
10 (11.9%)

(I have no opinion)
39 (46.4%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Abolish 800x800 pixel embed limits

[chagrined]

Title:
Abolish 800x800 pixel embed limits

Area:
Entries

Summary:
Remove 800x800 pixel embed limits so users can embed HD video content in their journals

Description:
Currently DW's code limits all embedded objects (this generally impacts embedded videos) to a height and width of 800x800px maximum. Users can post larger embedded objects but they will be placed inside a scrolling iframe of those maximum dimensions (thus, blocking part of the embedded object from view). Users may want to post larger embedded videos in their journals. My suggestion is to abolish the limit. Here are some problems/issues/alternate implementations and why I think this is the best solution:

1. Problem: Other users may not want to view embedded content of this size.
Why I still support my solution: Users can currently only post embedded objects in journal/community entries anyway, not in comments. A user can already post pictures of any size in an entry without a cut or without resizing the picture. This is a matter of personal decision and community standards which people already address by moderating communities with posting regulations, by deciding what communities to follow, etc. I feel the same should apply to embedded content like videos, with a user deciding what/how they will post in their own journal.

2. Possible now-less-meaningful reason for this in the past: I don't know, but I suspect this bit of code may have been written in times when more users still had much smaller screen resolutions, and also when there wasn't as much HD video content circulating on the web. Now that many users have larger resolutions and there are many more HD videos out there (and users may create their own HD video content they wish to share, etc.) changing the code would let users take advantage of this.

3. Alternative option: Instead of abolishing the limit, it could be increased and changed to some other value. Possibly some common resolution could be used as a maximum guideline, such as 1280x720 or 1900x1080.
Problem: If wider support for larger resolutions continues in the future, this may have to be changed again, but it is easy enough to change that this isn't that big of an issue, I suppose. However, it might still prevent some users from embedding the content they wish to embed.

4. Other issues? I don't know whether the method DW uses of embedding objects causes strain on DW's servers based on the size of the object being embedded, since objects are still hosted elsewhere. However, since I can currently already embed objects with a height or width greater than 800 px (they just end up obscured from view by the containing iframe), I suspect that even if this is an issue, the current implementation isn't saving the servers in any way.

Poll #8876 Abolish 800x800 pixel embed limits

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 66

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
12 (18.2%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
11 (16.7%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
18 (27.3%)

(I have no opinion)
22 (33.3%)

(Other: please comment)
3 (4.5%)