# Nickname collision
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/nickname-collision/13315
**Category:** Site feedback
**Tags:** discourse-hub
**Created:** [March 2, 2014, 1:04pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nickname-collision/13315 "2014-03-02T13:04:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@larry](https://meta.discourse.org/u/larry)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2014, 1:04pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nickname-collision/13315/1 "2014-03-02T13:04:54Z")
I’m working on setting up a new discourse instance and found that I can’t use the same username @larry that I’m using on Meta even if I try to register with the same email.
Upon further investigation, it seems that there’s already another user with the same nick: [http://www.discourse.org/users/larry](http://www.discourse.org/users/larry)
Is this a bug? I was under the impression registering on Meta reserves your nickname…
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### Author:  [@haiku](https://meta.discourse.org/u/haiku)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2014, 2:11pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nickname-collision/13315/2 "2014-03-02T14:11:51Z")
> [@larry](#):
>
> registering on Meta reserves your nickname…
It does seem to: [http://www.discourse.org/users/haiku](http://www.discourse.org/users/haiku)
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### Author:  [@larry](https://meta.discourse.org/u/larry)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2014, 2:16pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nickname-collision/13315/3 "2014-03-02T14:16:26Z")
> [@haiku](#):
>
> It does seem to: [http://www.discourse.org/users/haiku](http://www.discourse.org/users/haiku)
Right. It does for some. It didn’t for mine.
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### Author:  [@BhaelOchon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/BhaelOchon)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2014, 6:54pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nickname-collision/13315/4 "2014-03-02T18:54:42Z")
@larry, did you create a standard username/password account? Log in with Facebook, Google, etc.?
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### Author:  [@riking](https://meta.discourse.org/u/riking)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2014, 7:16pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nickname-collision/13315/5 "2014-03-02T19:16:21Z")
The username reservation isn’t quite “released” to the public yet - you need to enable `enforce_global_nicknames` and fill in a `discourse_org_access_key`, which are not being given out yet.
Basically, this means it won’t work on sites that aren’t partnered with the Discourse team.
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### Author:  [@larry](https://meta.discourse.org/u/larry)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2014, 2:43am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nickname-collision/13315/6 "2014-03-03T02:43:48Z")
I created a standard username/password account.
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### Author:  [@larry](https://meta.discourse.org/u/larry)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2014, 2:46am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nickname-collision/13315/7 "2014-03-03T02:46:15Z")
Right. My inability to create a username on my discourse installation was my own problem - I bootstrapped a new docker container but forgot that the postgresql database was stored outside the container, so my user already existed. Apologies for the confusion!
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### Author:  [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2016, 11:40am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nickname-collision/13315/8 "2016-01-08T11:40:56Z")
Continued here:
> [@Revitalizing the Discourse Hub](https://meta.discourse.org/t/revitalizing-the-discourse-hub/15029):
>
> The original basic idea of the Discourse Hub have a reserved @username across all Discourse instances, so when someone sees @username on any Discourse forum, they’ll know it is (probably) you! … seems like kind of a bad idea in retrospect. Why? Well, if you run your own Discourse, and your name is @david, you probably want to be called @david, even if some other David reserved the name in Feburary 2013 here on meta. It is your community, after all, who are we to tell you that you can’t use y…