8 ms·

Show HN: No more writing shitty regexes to police usernames

19 points by choraria 9mo ago

Every product that allows usernames eventually ships the same broken solution. Someone adds a blacklist. Then a regex. Then another regex copied from StackOverflow. It works just long enough to ship, and then `admin`, `support`, city names, brand impersonation, and obvious slurs start leaking through anyway. Everyone knows it’s fragile, but it gets ignored because "it’s just usernames". I’ve had to rebuild this logic across multiple products, and I got tired of pretending it’s a solved problem. So I built *username.dev*, an API that answers a more useful question than "is this taken?" — it tells you what a username actually represents. Instead of returning a boolean, the API classifies usernames into real categories like brands, public figures, places, system-reserved terms, dictionary words, premium handles, and offensive content, and returns structured metadata you can actually make decisions with. That means blocking impersonation without breaking legitimate users, stopping abuse without maintaining massive regex lists, and even monetizing high-demand usernames if that’s part of your product. Under the hood it’s intentionally boring infrastructure: Cloudflare Workers at the edge, KV for fast reads, D1 for usage and analytics, and a simple HTTP endpoint (`GET /check?input=foo`). P95 latency sits around 300ms globally. There’s no ML magic, no black box, and no attempt to be clever — just fast, deterministic classification. Pricing is usage-based and prepaid because subscriptions for infrastructure like this are annoying. There’s a free tier with 1,000 requests and no credit card. Use it, throw it away, or rip the idea off. If you think regex blacklists are "good enough", usernames don’t matter, or this is a trivial problem, you’re probably already shipping bugs — they’re just not loud enough yet. Tell me why this is a bad idea, what edge cases I’m missing, or what you’ve duct-taped together instead. — Sourabh

sampli 9mo ago
I want all the SaaS in my stack
- choraria 9mo ago
  Hey @sampli — was there some kind of bundling that you were looking for?
maxall4 9mo ago
I can’t tell if this is some complex joke or a real product. This is literally string.contains() as a service. Edit: 300ms?!
- gs17 9mo ago
  I think there's some value in providing a huge dictionary of things to test against, with tagging for what things are to help filter. This doesn't do a great job at it, and it would make 100x more sense as a library, but it's a little more than just string.contains().
  - maxall4 9mo ago
    Sure, but I’m not convinced that producing a blacklist and filtering system is that difficult. More importantly, it’s little things like this that slowly and insidiously degrade the user experience. Sure it starts with one 300ms API call, maybe most people won’t notice. But when you reach for solutions like this to every minor technical problem, the next thing you know it takes 5 seconds to sign-up.
    - choraria 9mo ago
      My take on latency in general is this: You may just use the API to flag (not act) in an async way. This way, you can just alert/monitor and decide later whether or not to take any actions while keeping the flow non-blocking. Another approach would be to run it against existing handles to see what opportunities exist (ex: premium usernames, impersonators etc.).
      - gs17 9mo ago
        Sounds like a good opportunity for some kind of batching feature.
        choraria 9mo ago
        Yes; I've gotten that request from another person on LinkedIn too for bulk checking existing usernames. Will work on releasing that shortly too. Thanks for being helpful and constructive all the way throughout the convo :)
tommy_axle 9mo ago
Ok so taylorswift is reserved but taylor_swift and realtaylorswift can be used? It seems like impersonation would still be a problem.
- chaps 9mo ago
  Hah no kidding. I tried just, "bill_gates" -- { "username": "bill_gates", "isReserved": false, "isDeleted": false, "categories": [] } what's the point of this thing...?
  - gs17 9mo ago
    It's odd that they focused so much on "it's better than regexes" when it doesn't handle these cases where a regex would do well.
    - choraria 9mo ago
      The comment on regex was really because that's what I did when I built internal reserved usernames list of 2 of my URL shortener projects. I love regex, btw. BUT, I don't think they cover all of what we need with usernames specifically. Shared some more insights on the thread about variations too (like underscores etc.).
  - bpt3 9mo ago
    Why would I want billgates to be reserved in the first place, unless I'm Microsoft? And the definition of a "public figure" is absurdly broad and inconsistent. Some very common names are flagged as reserved for what are extremely minor celebrities at best (like an assistant coach of a college basketball team, or a actor with barely any formal credits as examples, and some other obscure athletes are marked as reserved while others are not).
    - choraria 9mo ago
      Well, to clarify, this API is really for folks who're building platforms that require usernames. For ex: imagine if you were building the next Twitter or anything that requires usernames. There, you'd want to know what's happening with these kinds of usernames, where, people are now prepared to pay for too (premium usernames). Similarly, for cases where the names are offensive or profane, you may want to block outright. As for definition of specific categories (more specifically public figures), you're right. Currently, it's just me building this and so I had to decide where to draw the line. I just drew it around the entire earth which I know is NOT the best appraoch but that's the one I went with just to ensure I cover all bases. Honestly, the API would tell if and why a username could be deemed reserved/premium. What to do with this info is really up to the platforms that are consuming it. They could let it slide, do nothing, just flag and monitor, block etc.
CamJN 9mo ago
I hate to say it but checking if a string is ~= some identifier might actually be something an llm might be useful for, since it doesn't need to be 100% accurate and does need to evaluate the string against a massive number of potential transformations.
- bpt3 9mo ago
  Yes, a classifier based on similarity metrics would be more useful than whatever is going on behind the scenes here, which seems to be completely based on string matching and a not very creative dictionary of offensive terms.
  - choraria 9mo ago
    Interesting! Didn't think about it that way. Currently, it's a super dumb system. There's a list of ~1.7 million records and the API simply looks-up against that. Super lazy approach. Was avoid running an API across OpenAI or other model but didn't think about hosting a classifier/LLM myself. Might consider it in the future. Full disclosure: I'm not a developer. I understand tech architectures well. Can code (have coded in JS pre-AI too) BUT will figure this out as I go along. Thanks and truly appreciate the input. Edit note: added million next to 1.7. fml!
Dumbledumb 9mo ago
So, I can’t use my legal name as a username because some random town with a few thousand people is named the same?
- choraria 9mo ago
  That would depend on the folks implementing the API In it's current state, I'd look at the API to check for reserved / premium names (or something that's profane). If it makes sense contextually: imagine if you were building the next Twitter. I'm guessing you'd want to have a way to charge for premium names and in-turn need a way to detect what's premium. For the most part, first and last names are pretty premium and people pay (they do!) for such usernames.
eptcyka 9mo ago
I can easily generate valid yet foul names that I’d prefer to not allow if I was into censoring usernames.
- choraria 9mo ago
  Tell me about 'em. Will add to the list. I doubt I'll be able to stop ALL variations but I really am determined to manually keep this list updated as best as possible. Currently at 1.7 million records; will be at around 2.5 million in the coming months and I suspect this will just keep increasing.
  - warmedcookie 9mo ago
    It's pretty hard to be thorough in censorship because humans are good at spotting patterns and can easily see the masked profanity. Ex. f0u0c0k
    - choraria 9mo ago
      No disagreements there. My goal is to make this THE BEST list (of all, if any) out there. As much as I see AI taking over handling variations, it'll still need an exhaustive source of truth about what's what and I really think I'd be able to provide that with this API.
nicpottier 9mo ago
Congrats on the launch! Do you expect / want this to be a business? This feels like the kind of thing where anybody big enough to pay for it will build it in house. And your pricing seems so cheap that even if you do win some it won't be enough. Genuine curiosity but 300ms seems slow? Am I missing something? How big is the blacklist?
- choraria 9mo ago
  Thanks and I do appreciate the comment too. I'm a bit unsure about it's future as a business but for now, hoping it becomes my first app with some paying users. I typically think small scale but you're right. I suppose most big companies already have an in-house way to deal with it. Idea behind this was super charged because there wasn't a global reserve list already available for folks to access. On the latency, I'll work on improving it. Currently, the list (not a blacklist :P) is about 1.7 million records. I suspect it to go to 2.5M in the next few days. I should probably stop using Cloudflare Workers, KV and D1 to instantly improve on that.
nlh 9mo ago
I love that you’re tackling this problem, and congrats on launching and getting this on HN! This does feel like a real problem. The thing that concerns me (and likely other devs here) is that it adds an additional remote API dependency for a very core part of a system when a lot of people are trying to keep those dependencies to an absolute minimum. When your service goes down (not if), everyone who’s dependent on you will not be able to register new users, etc. Is there any way you can offer this as a library instead? You deserve to get paid of course - maybe provide the library and initial data and charge for updates / premium checks, something like that.
- choraria 9mo ago
  Super valid and fair. Thanks for taking the time and writing this too. In tears (on the inside) because of some validation around problem statement. I am exploring providing this as a pay-once service too, where you get a point-in-time CSV/JSON export and then folks pay to update data. Felt like too much work for the first release so didn't get to it. As for the original concern though, here's some thoughts: You may just use it to flag (not act) in an async way. This way, you can just alert/monitor and decide later whether or not to take any actions while keeping the flow non-blocking. Another approach would be to run it against existing handles to see what opportunities exist (ex: premium usernames, impersonators etc.). BUT, thanks again for the input. I'll definitely make this happen!
- tommy_axle 9mo ago
  I see a service like this as being in the ip lookup API category (like ipinfo.io) but I wanted to mention that for this (and IP lookup, captcha etc) I would expect that if the service is down then you allow the registrations then review later, and not simply prevent all registrations.
  - choraria 9mo ago
    Interesting. I think you're right (on the API category this falls under). Also love the approach on keeping this API async. Makes so much more sense that way.
gs17 9mo ago
I'm not understanding your categories. Every dictionary word is flagged? It seems any first or last name is a "public_figure" ("apple" is a "public_figure" and also a "brand", I guess that means there's someone named Apple? Tim Apple?)? It "blocks profanity", but "shithead", "assfucker", etc. are allowed (not to mention obfuscating a restricted term even slightly, e.g. "sh1t")? Yes, the Scunthorpe problem exists, but you can do better, and should if you're expecting people to pay to wait 500ms. Something that detects these sorts of things very well could actually be worth paying for, although it still would probably be better off as a library.
- choraria 9mo ago
  Thanks and this gives me more perspective too. Here's what I'm hearing: - need to improve categorisation (some are miscategorised, some categories don't make sense) - better list; more subsets to block (fair and very true) — this is an evolving list and so I'll work on constantly adding more to it (currently has ~1.7million records; will go to 2.5 in the next few days) - latency is a killer Again, I said it in another comment too, I'm pretty happy with this (tears on the inside) because the problem at least is validated in some way. I just need to do better in terms of solutioning; which, IMO, is doable.
bpt3 9mo ago
Why do I care as a website owner whether someone uses a brand name (e.g. cocacola) as their username on my site? Same question, but for place names which seems completely innocuous? Instead of us telling you why this is a bad idea, can you tell us why this is a good idea and what bugs we are shipping currently that this prevents?
- gs17 9mo ago
  I could see social-media-ish websites not wanting those names to prevent impersonation. They'd be deciding if they want to risk friction when a big name joins the platform (@cocacola needs Coca-Cola to verify) or risk threats from that big names' legal department (when @cocacola gets registered by someone who just posts furry porn of their mascot bear). It could just set a flag to require the account to verify or be renamed.
  - bpt3 9mo ago
    I get the argument in theory, but then I'll just register coca-cola (which is available), cocacola_furry (which is available), C0CAC0LA (which is available), etc. You're signing up to play a game you can't win preemptively IMO. As an aside, cocacola is also "available", despite being listed as an example of what you don't want to allow on the homepage and presumably would be flagged as a reserved brand name handle by this service.
    - choraria 9mo ago
      You're right about the variations there. I did think about it but decided NOT to add that in this version (felt like over-complicating the process), which I've now come to understand IS a required criteria. Will work on improving this. As for @cocacola — that's on me. I've not yet gotten to the bottom half of the list of categories here: https://docs.username.dev/reference/categories https://docs.username.dev/reference/categories (need to work on "government" and below). "company" is listed there and I suspect "cocacola" should be covered there. In hindsight, I should've reserved names that I'm showing in the flipping text of the hero title but I didn't want to game the system or make it seem more reliant than it currently is. Which, again, I'm learning is not so reliant to begin with anyway. PS. Love the passion around the topic here. One thing that I'm happy about is getting the problem validated. It's not in my head, I'm not the only one experiencing it, this is real. AND I WILL SOLVE IT :)
mococa 9mo ago
Hmm… I do know, certain usernames in one language can have a bad meaning in others
- choraria 9mo ago
  True. I've tried to add language where possible. I think currently, it's only on dictionary words so if the username is a dictionary word in another name, it would be flagged. It may or may not show-up under the "restricted" category though.
cracki 9mo ago
Site is AI-generated. The post to HN is AI-generated. As other comments point out, lots of holes. I think nobody should pay for that.
- choraria 9mo ago
  - site is AI generated: yes. I'm NOT a developer. I vibe-coded it using Cursor and other AI tools - post is AI generated: not 100%. I wrote the whole thing myself (promise). The sentiment is real, so is all the context. I just asked AI to polish it. Had made too many typos in my original text. To avoid being labelled as "AI content", I now make video responses for the most part. Please check my twitter (same username) and you'll see. - lots of holes: you bet! what I'm happy about is though that the problem statement is validated to an extent. I see multiple people ack'ing that the problem is real. It's just that my solution is bad. I can improve it and I will. - paying: yes, you're right. IMO, they should try first. complain, complain, complain so I can get to fixing issues (like from many of the comments here) and only if they need to make more API requests, they could then choose to pay WDYT?
dsfdsfdsffdsfs 9mo ago
Credits need to expire in X months. That way you don't have to keep the service running if it turns out not to get traction.
- choraria 9mo ago
  I think there's a general aversion to subscriptions at the moment so wanted to offer this on a usage-based pricing to begin with. While I may have to (hope not to though) will switch to subscription if that's what most users end up asking for. Thanks for the note and comment though. Much appreciated.
bpt3 9mo ago
As a counter to my skeptical comments elsewhere, one way this could be a more useful service is if you go poll well known social media sites and see what the handle is associated with. If the handle is taken by what seems like the same content/brand owner across FB, IG, reddit, X, etc. then that could add weight to a decision to reserve it (and be provided as useful context to your user as to why you recommend it be reserved), and if it's associated with something like hate speech or just crappy content someone who is doing brand research can know to look for alternatives.
- choraria 9mo ago
  YOU NAILED IT! That's part of what I want to explore next too. One of the other common thing I've heard is to check other social media platforms to check if a username is reserved. But, namevine.com already did that. Maybe it doesn't do it as accurately anymore. Almost all platforms are super protective of their API usage in that way. In any case, that's definitely the next challenge to solve for.
drcongo 9mo ago
You might need to invest in a copy of Roger's Profanisaurus, I just registered something absolutely obscene.
- choraria 9mo ago
  That's helpful. I think I need to beef up profanity keywords A LOT more than I'd originally anticipated. On it!

19 points by choraria 9mo ago

sampli 9mo ago

I want all the SaaS in my stack

choraria 9mo ago
Hey @sampli — was there some kind of bundling that you were looking for?

maxall4 9mo ago

I can’t tell if this is some complex joke or a real product. This is literally string.contains() as a service. Edit: 300ms?!

gs17 9mo ago
I think there's some value in providing a huge dictionary of things to test against, with tagging for what things are to help filter. This doesn't do a great job at it, and it would make 100x more sense as a library, but it's a little more than just string.contains().
- maxall4 9mo ago
  Sure, but I’m not convinced that producing a blacklist and filtering system is that difficult. More importantly, it’s little things like this that slowly and insidiously degrade the user experience. Sure it starts with one 300ms API call, maybe most people won’t notice. But when you reach for solutions like this to every minor technical problem, the next thing you know it takes 5 seconds to sign-up.
  - choraria 9mo ago
    My take on latency in general is this: You may just use the API to flag (not act) in an async way. This way, you can just alert/monitor and decide later whether or not to take any actions while keeping the flow non-blocking. Another approach would be to run it against existing handles to see what opportunities exist (ex: premium usernames, impersonators etc.).
    - gs17 9mo ago
      Sounds like a good opportunity for some kind of batching feature.
      - choraria 9mo ago
        Yes; I've gotten that request from another person on LinkedIn too for bulk checking existing usernames. Will work on releasing that shortly too. Thanks for being helpful and constructive all the way throughout the convo :)

tommy_axle 9mo ago

Ok so taylorswift is reserved but taylor_swift and realtaylorswift can be used? It seems like impersonation would still be a problem.

chaps 9mo ago
Hah no kidding. I tried just, "bill_gates" -- { "username": "bill_gates", "isReserved": false, "isDeleted": false, "categories": [] } what's the point of this thing...?
- gs17 9mo ago
  It's odd that they focused so much on "it's better than regexes" when it doesn't handle these cases where a regex would do well.
  - choraria 9mo ago
    The comment on regex was really because that's what I did when I built internal reserved usernames list of 2 of my URL shortener projects. I love regex, btw. BUT, I don't think they cover all of what we need with usernames specifically. Shared some more insights on the thread about variations too (like underscores etc.).
- bpt3 9mo ago
  Why would I want billgates to be reserved in the first place, unless I'm Microsoft? And the definition of a "public figure" is absurdly broad and inconsistent. Some very common names are flagged as reserved for what are extremely minor celebrities at best (like an assistant coach of a college basketball team, or a actor with barely any formal credits as examples, and some other obscure athletes are marked as reserved while others are not).
  - choraria 9mo ago
    Well, to clarify, this API is really for folks who're building platforms that require usernames. For ex: imagine if you were building the next Twitter or anything that requires usernames. There, you'd want to know what's happening with these kinds of usernames, where, people are now prepared to pay for too (premium usernames). Similarly, for cases where the names are offensive or profane, you may want to block outright. As for definition of specific categories (more specifically public figures), you're right. Currently, it's just me building this and so I had to decide where to draw the line. I just drew it around the entire earth which I know is NOT the best appraoch but that's the one I went with just to ensure I cover all bases. Honestly, the API would tell if and why a username could be deemed reserved/premium. What to do with this info is really up to the platforms that are consuming it. They could let it slide, do nothing, just flag and monitor, block etc.

CamJN 9mo ago

I hate to say it but checking if a string is ~= some identifier might actually be something an llm might be useful for, since it doesn't need to be 100% accurate and does need to evaluate the string against a massive number of potential transformations.

bpt3 9mo ago
Yes, a classifier based on similarity metrics would be more useful than whatever is going on behind the scenes here, which seems to be completely based on string matching and a not very creative dictionary of offensive terms.
- choraria 9mo ago
  Interesting! Didn't think about it that way. Currently, it's a super dumb system. There's a list of ~1.7 million records and the API simply looks-up against that. Super lazy approach. Was avoid running an API across OpenAI or other model but didn't think about hosting a classifier/LLM myself. Might consider it in the future. Full disclosure: I'm not a developer. I understand tech architectures well. Can code (have coded in JS pre-AI too) BUT will figure this out as I go along. Thanks and truly appreciate the input. Edit note: added million next to 1.7. fml!

Dumbledumb 9mo ago

So, I can’t use my legal name as a username because some random town with a few thousand people is named the same?

choraria 9mo ago
That would depend on the folks implementing the API In it's current state, I'd look at the API to check for reserved / premium names (or something that's profane). If it makes sense contextually: imagine if you were building the next Twitter. I'm guessing you'd want to have a way to charge for premium names and in-turn need a way to detect what's premium. For the most part, first and last names are pretty premium and people pay (they do!) for such usernames.

eptcyka 9mo ago

I can easily generate valid yet foul names that I’d prefer to not allow if I was into censoring usernames.

choraria 9mo ago
Tell me about 'em. Will add to the list. I doubt I'll be able to stop ALL variations but I really am determined to manually keep this list updated as best as possible. Currently at 1.7 million records; will be at around 2.5 million in the coming months and I suspect this will just keep increasing.
- warmedcookie 9mo ago
  It's pretty hard to be thorough in censorship because humans are good at spotting patterns and can easily see the masked profanity. Ex. f0u0c0k
  - choraria 9mo ago
    No disagreements there. My goal is to make this THE BEST list (of all, if any) out there. As much as I see AI taking over handling variations, it'll still need an exhaustive source of truth about what's what and I really think I'd be able to provide that with this API.

nicpottier 9mo ago

Congrats on the launch! Do you expect / want this to be a business? This feels like the kind of thing where anybody big enough to pay for it will build it in house. And your pricing seems so cheap that even if you do win some it won't be enough. Genuine curiosity but 300ms seems slow? Am I missing something? How big is the blacklist?

choraria 9mo ago
Thanks and I do appreciate the comment too. I'm a bit unsure about it's future as a business but for now, hoping it becomes my first app with some paying users. I typically think small scale but you're right. I suppose most big companies already have an in-house way to deal with it. Idea behind this was super charged because there wasn't a global reserve list already available for folks to access. On the latency, I'll work on improving it. Currently, the list (not a blacklist :P) is about 1.7 million records. I suspect it to go to 2.5M in the next few days. I should probably stop using Cloudflare Workers, KV and D1 to instantly improve on that.

nlh 9mo ago

I love that you’re tackling this problem, and congrats on launching and getting this on HN! This does feel like a real problem. The thing that concerns me (and likely other devs here) is that it adds an additional remote API dependency for a very core part of a system when a lot of people are trying to keep those dependencies to an absolute minimum. When your service goes down (not if), everyone who’s dependent on you will not be able to register new users, etc. Is there any way you can offer this as a library instead? You deserve to get paid of course - maybe provide the library and initial data and charge for updates / premium checks, something like that.

choraria 9mo ago
Super valid and fair. Thanks for taking the time and writing this too. In tears (on the inside) because of some validation around problem statement. I am exploring providing this as a pay-once service too, where you get a point-in-time CSV/JSON export and then folks pay to update data. Felt like too much work for the first release so didn't get to it. As for the original concern though, here's some thoughts: You may just use it to flag (not act) in an async way. This way, you can just alert/monitor and decide later whether or not to take any actions while keeping the flow non-blocking. Another approach would be to run it against existing handles to see what opportunities exist (ex: premium usernames, impersonators etc.). BUT, thanks again for the input. I'll definitely make this happen!
tommy_axle 9mo ago
I see a service like this as being in the ip lookup API category (like ipinfo.io) but I wanted to mention that for this (and IP lookup, captcha etc) I would expect that if the service is down then you allow the registrations then review later, and not simply prevent all registrations.
- choraria 9mo ago
  Interesting. I think you're right (on the API category this falls under). Also love the approach on keeping this API async. Makes so much more sense that way.

gs17 9mo ago

I'm not understanding your categories. Every dictionary word is flagged? It seems any first or last name is a "public_figure" ("apple" is a "public_figure" and also a "brand", I guess that means there's someone named Apple? Tim Apple?)? It "blocks profanity", but "shithead", "assfucker", etc. are allowed (not to mention obfuscating a restricted term even slightly, e.g. "sh1t")? Yes, the Scunthorpe problem exists, but you can do better, and should if you're expecting people to pay to wait 500ms. Something that detects these sorts of things very well could actually be worth paying for, although it still would probably be better off as a library.

choraria 9mo ago
Thanks and this gives me more perspective too. Here's what I'm hearing: - need to improve categorisation (some are miscategorised, some categories don't make sense) - better list; more subsets to block (fair and very true) — this is an evolving list and so I'll work on constantly adding more to it (currently has ~1.7million records; will go to 2.5 in the next few days) - latency is a killer Again, I said it in another comment too, I'm pretty happy with this (tears on the inside) because the problem at least is validated in some way. I just need to do better in terms of solutioning; which, IMO, is doable.

bpt3 9mo ago

Why do I care as a website owner whether someone uses a brand name (e.g. cocacola) as their username on my site? Same question, but for place names which seems completely innocuous? Instead of us telling you why this is a bad idea, can you tell us why this is a good idea and what bugs we are shipping currently that this prevents?

gs17 9mo ago
I could see social-media-ish websites not wanting those names to prevent impersonation. They'd be deciding if they want to risk friction when a big name joins the platform (@cocacola needs Coca-Cola to verify) or risk threats from that big names' legal department (when @cocacola gets registered by someone who just posts furry porn of their mascot bear). It could just set a flag to require the account to verify or be renamed.
- bpt3 9mo ago
  I get the argument in theory, but then I'll just register coca-cola (which is available), cocacola_furry (which is available), C0CAC0LA (which is available), etc. You're signing up to play a game you can't win preemptively IMO. As an aside, cocacola is also "available", despite being listed as an example of what you don't want to allow on the homepage and presumably would be flagged as a reserved brand name handle by this service.
  - choraria 9mo ago
    You're right about the variations there. I did think about it but decided NOT to add that in this version (felt like over-complicating the process), which I've now come to understand IS a required criteria. Will work on improving this. As for @cocacola — that's on me. I've not yet gotten to the bottom half of the list of categories here: https://docs.username.dev/reference/categories https://docs.username.dev/reference/categories (need to work on "government" and below). "company" is listed there and I suspect "cocacola" should be covered there. In hindsight, I should've reserved names that I'm showing in the flipping text of the hero title but I didn't want to game the system or make it seem more reliant than it currently is. Which, again, I'm learning is not so reliant to begin with anyway. PS. Love the passion around the topic here. One thing that I'm happy about is getting the problem validated. It's not in my head, I'm not the only one experiencing it, this is real. AND I WILL SOLVE IT :)

mococa 9mo ago

Hmm… I do know, certain usernames in one language can have a bad meaning in others

choraria 9mo ago
True. I've tried to add language where possible. I think currently, it's only on dictionary words so if the username is a dictionary word in another name, it would be flagged. It may or may not show-up under the "restricted" category though.

cracki 9mo ago

Site is AI-generated. The post to HN is AI-generated. As other comments point out, lots of holes. I think nobody should pay for that.

choraria 9mo ago
- site is AI generated: yes. I'm NOT a developer. I vibe-coded it using Cursor and other AI tools - post is AI generated: not 100%. I wrote the whole thing myself (promise). The sentiment is real, so is all the context. I just asked AI to polish it. Had made too many typos in my original text. To avoid being labelled as "AI content", I now make video responses for the most part. Please check my twitter (same username) and you'll see. - lots of holes: you bet! what I'm happy about is though that the problem statement is validated to an extent. I see multiple people ack'ing that the problem is real. It's just that my solution is bad. I can improve it and I will. - paying: yes, you're right. IMO, they should try first. complain, complain, complain so I can get to fixing issues (like from many of the comments here) and only if they need to make more API requests, they could then choose to pay WDYT?

dsfdsfdsffdsfs 9mo ago

Credits need to expire in X months. That way you don't have to keep the service running if it turns out not to get traction.

choraria 9mo ago
I think there's a general aversion to subscriptions at the moment so wanted to offer this on a usage-based pricing to begin with. While I may have to (hope not to though) will switch to subscription if that's what most users end up asking for. Thanks for the note and comment though. Much appreciated.

bpt3 9mo ago

As a counter to my skeptical comments elsewhere, one way this could be a more useful service is if you go poll well known social media sites and see what the handle is associated with. If the handle is taken by what seems like the same content/brand owner across FB, IG, reddit, X, etc. then that could add weight to a decision to reserve it (and be provided as useful context to your user as to why you recommend it be reserved), and if it's associated with something like hate speech or just crappy content someone who is doing brand research can know to look for alternatives.

choraria 9mo ago
YOU NAILED IT! That's part of what I want to explore next too. One of the other common thing I've heard is to check other social media platforms to check if a username is reserved. But, namevine.com already did that. Maybe it doesn't do it as accurately anymore. Almost all platforms are super protective of their API usage in that way. In any case, that's definitely the next challenge to solve for.

drcongo 9mo ago

You might need to invest in a copy of Roger's Profanisaurus, I just registered something absolutely obscene.

choraria 9mo ago
That's helpful. I think I need to beef up profanity keywords A LOT more than I'd originally anticipated. On it!