Are there any users like @mike.marc whose username contains characters other than alphanumeric characters, hyphens, and underscores? (Excluding * for Scratch Teams)

Doesn't seem like a real user, otherwise when I type “followers” at the end of the regular Scratch link something would appear.

TheCreatorOfUnTV wrote:

Doesn't seem like a real user, otherwise when I type “followers” at the end of the regular Scratch link something would appear.

They do exist, it's just that Scratch's backend doesn't fully realize it- using the API, we can get more information:
https://api.scratch.mit.edu/users/mike.marc

there’s a lot of ‘invalid usernames’ that were created when name validation was more lax. a while ago the scratch team ran a query to make sure invalid usernamed accounts don’t show up on the site by setting the accounts to be deleted, but of course they can still be accessed using the api (like you’ve done with mike.marc)

i looked into this, and a lot of them have PII (eg. full names) but here’s one: wat\

definitely an interesting oddity! at some point the scratch team should probably randomize all of these invalid usernames to prevent weirdness…

Jeffalo wrote:

there’s a lot of ‘invalid usernames’ that were created when name validation was more lax. a while ago the scratch team ran a query to make sure invalid usernamed accounts don’t show up on the site by setting the accounts to be deleted, but of course they can still be accessed using the api (like you’ve done with mike.marc)

i looked into this, and a lot of them have PII (eg. full names) but here’s one: wat\

definitely an interesting oddity! at some point the scratch team should probably randomize all of these invalid usernames to prevent weirdness…

wow!!! thank you!

is there anything else?

Jeffalo wrote:

there’s a lot of ‘invalid usernames’ that were created when name validation was more lax. a while ago the scratch team ran a query to make sure invalid usernamed accounts don’t show up on the site by setting the accounts to be deleted, but of course they can still be accessed using the api (like you’ve done with mike.marc)

i looked into this, and a lot of them have PII (eg. full names) but here’s one: wat\

definitely an interesting oddity! at some point the scratch team should probably randomize all of these invalid usernames to prevent weirdness…

Wow I thought mike.marc is the only such username

SCRATCH---PIXEL wrote:

Jeffalo wrote:

there’s a lot of ‘invalid usernames’ that were created when name validation was more lax. a while ago the scratch team ran a query to make sure invalid usernamed accounts don’t show up on the site by setting the accounts to be deleted, but of course they can still be accessed using the api (like you’ve done with mike.marc)

i looked into this, and a lot of them have PII (eg. full names) but here’s one: wat\

definitely an interesting oddity! at some point the scratch team should probably randomize all of these invalid usernames to prevent weirdness…

Wow I thought mike.marc is the only such username

mike.marc is definitely the most popular as AFAIK they were a Scratch Team member, but mike is NOT alone here.

DifferentDance8 wrote:

(#8)
mike.marc is definitely the most popular as AFAIK they were a Scratch Team member, but mike is NOT alone here.

source? api disagrees

As Jeffalo pointed out, invalid usernames have no known method to be created anymore. Mike.marc was most likely either a widespread bug of was grandfathered in. Although I can say there are most likely more invalid usernames that mike.marc.

jellyfishfisher56 wrote:

As Jeffalo pointed out, invalid usernames have no known method to be created anymore. Mike.marc was most likely either a widespread bug of was grandfathered in. Although I can say there are most likely more invalid usernames that mike.marc.

It was likely created when username requirements were less strict.

Sorry, what's PII?

-yeldarbnivot- wrote:

Sorry, what's PII?

Personally identifiable information