503091 - Prevent non-alpha chars from being used as leading chars in add-on names

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(addons.mozilla.org Graveyard :: Developer Pages, enhancement, P5)

Description

[Rey Bango]

We've seen several instances where add-on authors use non-alphanumeric chars in their names including spaces, hyphens, etc. This has the effect of skewing add-on sorting by name. I think we should update the AMO submission page to prevent the use of non-alphanumeric characters. 

Currently, if an add-on is discovered using non-alpha chars, it's generally only due to a user complaint. We then "react" to the situation by emailing the author & requesting that they update their add-on name. We then need to follow-up several days later to ensure that they've done so and if not, disabled the add-on.

This process of reacting to an easily avoidable situation makes no sense. If the AMO submission process included validation to prevent non-alpha chars from being used as leading chars, it would have the effect of:

1) Stopping the need for reactive management of this problem
2) Ensuring that add-on developers use correct naming conventions for their add-ons
3) Ensuring that sorting is not skewed
4) Most importantly, prevent the need to disable an otherwise perfectly good add-on due to a naming issue

To quote:

"Using spaces or special characters to bounce your add-on to the top of the list is considered abuse.  In the past we've asked the authors to change the name and if there is no action we'll either change it for them or disable the add-on. "

If this is the case, I think it makes sense to update AMO to prevent this from happening & remove the need to "react" to these types of situations.

Comment 1

[Wil Clouser [:clouserw]]

On IRC we were specifically talking about leading whitespace.  Extending the requirements to non-alpha[1] characters expands the problem.

I'm not sure we can match all alphanumeric characters across all locales reliably.

There are also legitimate uses that will be blocked.  For example, https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4581

[1] I'm assuming you mean alphanumeric

Comment 2

[Rey Bango]

Yes, the problem is expanded because:

1) 
1) We've had instances of "- foo -" where a hyphen is not alphanumeric and is not a valid leading char. 
2) You mentioned that you didn't want to make a special case for the space char so if we're going to tackle this, it makes sense to address it fully

Also, in the add-on you mentioned, I don't see that as valid use and had already contacted the author to rename. I've not seen an add-on to-date that has had a valid usage of punctuation or special characters as the lead char(s) in their name. If you have though, I'm definitely open to discussion.

Finally, I mean what is generally considered non-alphanumeric chars. Basically any characters that don't contain the value of a number or a letter. In some cases, certain punctuation chars are considered alphanumeric so to clarify, I feel that only letters or numbers should be used as a "lead" char for an add-on name. The following should not be valid:

" foo"
"-foo"
"?foo"
"+--foo"
"*foo"
"'foo"

Again, if you know of valid uses for these special chars, I'm definitely open to discussion.

Comment 3

[Dave Garrett]

I agree that trying to get rid of the pointless leading non-alphas would be nice, but at least in the case of valid instances of this would it be too much difficulty to just sort by the first alphanumeric character? (i.e. sort "-foo" as if it were just "foo")

Comment 4

[Wil Clouser [:clouserw]]

We already trim whitespace and we no longer offer sort views by name, so this is half fixed and half wontfix.