Wikimedia Bugzilla is closed!

Bureaucrats on enwiki go through almost a thousand renames per month. We're thinking of making the Renaming function an integrated feature that is accessible through the "my preferences" tab. The immediate advantage would be preventing non-logged in users from making a request.

On the interface page, this is what I envision:
------------------------------
    New name: [Textbox]
    Reason: [Textbox]
    Automatically recreate old account [checkbox] (to prevent a Grawp-like situation.) (Note: Should be unchecked if renames are done for privacy concerns)
    Place a request (button)
-------------------------------
Mediawiki then checks the following:

   1. Place a warning if restricted characters are present, or if the change is to do with just underscores or first letter caps.
   2. Will the current account be detached from SUL? YES => Warning to user
   3. Is the requested name similar to existing user? == YES => Warning to user (that the request might be denied)
   4. Is requested username available? == NO => Warning to user AND
         1. If requested username not available, does requested username have 0 edits? == Yes => Display usurp instructions. Make the user confirm, and place the request at CHUU
         2. If requested username not available, does requested username have <10 (edit: an arbitrary number) edits to mainspace? YES => place it on CHUU. Clerk or Crat can evaluate the criteria.
   5. If warnings, user needs to confirm a go-ahead.

Finally

   1. Display the request on CHU
   2. Display the block log of user and Display rename history
   3. Places a Google search link. (to check if the username is a commercial enterprise.)



Additional details are available here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Changing_username#Change_to_CHU_process