Ask Slashdot: Name Conflicts In Automatically Generated Email Addresses?

New submitter matteocorti writes "I work at medium-sized university and we are considering reducing the number of domains used for email addresses (now around 350): the goal is to have all the 30K personal addresses in a single domain. This will increase the clashes for the local part of the address for people with the same first and last name (1.6%). We are considering several options: one of them is to use '[e-mail]' and the other is to use '[e-mail].' The first case will avoid any conflict in the addresses (usernames are unique) but the second is fancier. Which approach does your organization use? How are name conflicts (homonyms) solved? Manually or automatically (e.g., by adding a number)?"

Re:Go with usernames.

[Scoth]

I wish the designer of my company's setup had read that. I called an analyst from India who moved here Fnu for about a year before someone finally gold me that was an acronym for "First name unknown" and her real name was her "Last" name.

a few ideas

[stewsters]

I have 3 solutions.
First is to misspell names. Science has proven that you can unjumble all but the first character.
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

Second one is to increment the punctuation. This may be a bit confusing, but at least everyone has their correct name.

[e-mail]
john,[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
etc.

Third idea is to have them share. Why do they all need their own? Things will be addressed to the correct name. If don't want to share emails, just change your name.

Re:Do not use usernames in email addresses

[radiumsoup]

"Hey there, I'm Gary Wilson. I'd like to get more information about this petition you're circulating, but I'm running late to class... can you email me more info?"
"Sure, Gary. Thanks for your interest. What's your email address? [e-mail]?"
"No, it's generated using a salted hashing algorithm, it's actually 8msMWlk09$1)[e-mail]"
"uh...... yeah, why don't I just give you my card, you can contact me later."

Re:DO NOT ASSUME WESTERN NAMES!

[larry bagina]

I prefer full.name@.

Sincerely,
Pen Islicker

Re:a few ideas

[ssam]

how about firstname.lastname.dateofbirth.mothersmai[e-mail]

Re:fname.lname.incrementer

[cheater512]

My name is a hyperintelligent shade of the colour blue.