account ยท post 02 of 7 in this channel
Pick a WTN market username that leads nowhere
It is the first box on the form and it gets about two seconds of thought. It deserves more than the password does, arguably.
the three wethenorth market addresses
hn2paw7zfvndw3dovycegeqmvvnf4pl67b3g2p7pohjlzavloosh73id.onionhn2paw7zrgujyhnt6mgxlt2q6uhgbke4itpqitxhyfbumq3wtnckbuyd.onionhn2paw7zadwkcra3qzv5e4q547i7e5lvxm62cfxqftuqdu7moiu2ceyd.onionprinted the way they were handed over. no labels, no numbering, nothing here says which one to try first. this feed never opens them, so it has no status light, no percentage and no date of checking to give you.
the reflex
Most people have a handle. It has followed them across forums, games, marketplaces and accounts for years, and their fingers type it before they have decided anything.
That is exactly what makes it useless here. A handle that appears in many places is a thread, and a thread is for pulling.
what a reused handle gives away
Search a distinctive username and you often find years of activity attached to it. Interests, timezone, opinions, other accounts, sometimes a name.
None of that came from this market. It came from everywhere else, and it arrived here attached to the same six characters.
You can do everything else in this channel perfectly and undo all of it in the first field on the form.
what a good one looks like
Unmemorable, unconnected, and not clever. Two ordinary words joined, or a short nonsense string. Nothing that reads as a joke, because jokes are distinctive and distinctive is the property you are avoiding.
Do not build it out of anything about you. Not a birth year, not a city, not a team, not a pet. Those feel harmless individually and they narrow things down fast in combination.
And do not make it a variation on your usual handle. A variation is a thread with one knot in it.
it is probably permanent
Assume you cannot change it. Markets like this generally fix the username at creation because it is bound up with reputation, orders and messages.
That is the difference between this field and the password. A bad password can be replaced quietly. A bad username stays visible for as long as the account does.
and it will be seen
Your username appears on messages, on feedback and in disputes. It is the part of you that is public here, and it is the only part.
Which means the requirement is simple. It has to be pronounceable enough for you to remember and empty enough to say nothing.
Write it down with the rest of your account details. A handle you invented specifically to be forgettable is one you will genuinely forget.
People resist this because a fresh handle feels like starting from nothing, with no reputation and no history attached. That is accurate, and it is the point. Reputation you carried in from elsewhere is reputation somebody can follow back out.
You will build a history here under this name, and it will stay here, which is the only place it is any use to you.
There is a small compensation. Because the handle means nothing, you will not feel any pull to defend it, explain it or be consistent with it. A name with no story attached is a name you can put down without a second thought.
replies
a reader askedDoes the username have to be unique?
the answerWithin the market, yes, in the ordinary way that usernames are unique. Uniqueness within the site is not the concern here. Uniqueness across the internet is.
a reader askedIs a random string better than two words?
the answerA random string is stronger and harder to remember, which pushes you into writing it down or into a manager. Two ordinary unrelated words are usually the workable compromise.
a reader askedCan I use the same username on two markets?
the answerYou can, and it links the two accounts together for anyone looking. Whether that matters to you is your call, but it should be a call rather than a default.
what this post is not Not a claim that a fresh username makes you anonymous. It removes one specific and very common link. Everything else about how you behave is untouched by it.