First off, I think the end result is that we're just going to have to agree to disagree. Our beliefs are fundamentally different.
If you consider Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development I would classify as "Post-conventional". Rather than looking strictly at a law in a universal point of view and determining from that law what is ethical, I would look at consequences from a more Utilitarian point of view and then determine whether or not the act is ethical in a particular circumstance, regardless of the law, social custom, etc. "After changing your username, your old username becomes available for > anyone else to claim." > The fact that Github allows this, does not make it universally ethical to take it, in my point of view. I would consider it ethical to register a generic name that just so happen to want for personal or business use. For example Root, Sudo, Ninja, Rockstar. I would *not* consider it ethical to take a name which had a high reputation that was associated with a single particular individual or entity. For example: Creationix, CoolAJ86, LinusTorvolds. > There is no indication that the new owner of the username is doing anything > malicious. The act of impersonating my digital identity I consider to be malicious. I *am* coolaj86. They are *not* coolaj86 - in the same way that they are not Creationix and they are not LinusTorvolds. > This means that using abuse reporting systems for this user are > inappropriate. > I disagree. > Worse yet, your attempt to start a mob campaign to *harass* Github and/or > the new owner of the username is still very unethical. I see it as a way to make sure that it's brought to their attention quickly so that there's a chance to intercept before any damaging activity takes place. I believe it is somewhat of a moral responsibility to promote issue known as quickly as possible. In the end, the good news is this: https://twitter.com/archiebaer/status/1109449496113676296 /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
