New policy regarding usernames

I've noticed lately that a lot of new user sign-ups are using their full email address as their username. There are several reasons that this is a bad idea, the most notable being your own personal privacy and security.

We hide member profiles from the public because we don't want you to be unnecessarily spammed or contacted without your consent. But if you create a user account and your username is your email address, it's displays to anyone that visits this website next to all of your posts. As you can see, this would be an invitation for spammers to collect your email address and add you to unwanted mailing lists.

Another reason is that some companies will use their email address as a username as a way of getting free advertising. Since we survive mostly on paid advertising and our wonderful supporters, it's not fair to our paid advertisers for someone to come along and advertise their wares for free.

So we are now moderating new users to review their username choices and changing them accordingly. You can see the updated Community Rules and policies here.