Chiming in to say I like the idea of renaming accounts because it frees up the names for free, immediate use.
Also I like the idea of restricting account creation within a certain time. Maybe even getting tighter restrictions with each limit one hits. Like being able to get 20 one week, 15 the next, 10 etc. and then just capping it at 5 from then on. That way people just coming over and registering have more leeway, but those who want to just do a bunch find their account creation throttled. Maybe even restricting it to the minute; such as someone can't create two accounts in a row, they have to wait five minutes between.
I think it's understandable to have good-faith usage affected, especially since I'm sure someone using accounts for good reasons can find a way around it. For instance re-using usernames for another character or another version of the character. If they're doing enough to hit limits to affect squatters, I'm sure they'll have plenty already.
And I think it's great that DW is willing to do something about this rather than leave it up to the users who... really can't do anything big about it.
Also, I know you don't want to do numbers, but what about percentages? If a person has 100 accounts but is using only 20 of them, I think that would fall into squatting just as much as someone with 500 but is using only 100. If looking into what constitutes as activity, I think comments posted should definitely be part of it. I didn't like how when LJ started purging they also tried purging accounts that may not have had any posts, but did comment. I think if an account has been created but then never had anything done with it (no comments, posts, even icons) that should be counted as not using.
I also don't think there's anything wrong with using human discretion. If someone has five posts that say "random posting to make sure I don't get purged," it's pretty easy to see that the account is being squatted on regardless of having a certain number of posts. And if someone gets their accounts taken because of squatting they should be able to defend themselves and explain why they have them, and maybe monitored to make sure they're actually using them in the way they explained.
I know that's a lot of human work, but I like the suggestion someone made of having a volunteer team to help out.
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Also I like the idea of restricting account creation within a certain time. Maybe even getting tighter restrictions with each limit one hits. Like being able to get 20 one week, 15 the next, 10 etc. and then just capping it at 5 from then on. That way people just coming over and registering have more leeway, but those who want to just do a bunch find their account creation throttled. Maybe even restricting it to the minute; such as someone can't create two accounts in a row, they have to wait five minutes between.
I think it's understandable to have good-faith usage affected, especially since I'm sure someone using accounts for good reasons can find a way around it. For instance re-using usernames for another character or another version of the character. If they're doing enough to hit limits to affect squatters, I'm sure they'll have plenty already.
And I think it's great that DW is willing to do something about this rather than leave it up to the users who... really can't do anything big about it.
Also, I know you don't want to do numbers, but what about percentages? If a person has 100 accounts but is using only 20 of them, I think that would fall into squatting just as much as someone with 500 but is using only 100. If looking into what constitutes as activity, I think comments posted should definitely be part of it. I didn't like how when LJ started purging they also tried purging accounts that may not have had any posts, but did comment. I think if an account has been created but then never had anything done with it (no comments, posts, even icons) that should be counted as not using.
I also don't think there's anything wrong with using human discretion. If someone has five posts that say "random posting to make sure I don't get purged," it's pretty easy to see that the account is being squatted on regardless of having a certain number of posts. And if someone gets their accounts taken because of squatting they should be able to defend themselves and explain why they have them, and maybe monitored to make sure they're actually using them in the way they explained.
I know that's a lot of human work, but I like the suggestion someone made of having a volunteer team to help out.