IlIlIlIlIlIl or lIlIlIlIlIlI?

Barcode names have 2 components: “lowercase L /el/” and “capital i /ai/”. These 2 letters resemble each other so well, especially in sans-serif fonts on battle.net match loading screen. Without your own browser setting, TL uses a sans-serif font by default as well I believe.
“Lowercase L /el/” = l
“Capital i /ai/” = I
It is extremely hard to tell the difference among the mixes of these 2 letters, lIlIlIlIlIlI, lllIIIIIIlll, lllllllllllI etc. because they all look a bunch of vertical lines like barcodes for commercial goods. With many other players using similar names, anonymity it provides benefits pro players who wish to hide their build order, style, identity etc. It could have been anything. If original guys decided to use “aaaaaaaaaaaa,” then that would have been adopted by this anonymous club. However, “lowercase L /el/” and “capital i /ai/” are genius choices in that simiIarity of 2 letters let you be more creative while looking uniform at a glance.

It may be human nature that everyone wants to be special in one way or another. Barcode guys are by no means the exception. Practically speaking, you have no reason whatsoever to use both “lowercase L /el/” and “capital i /ai/.” With Blizzard’s 12 characters max name system, just using 12 “lowercase L /el/”s without mixing in a single “capital i /ai/” sufficiently serves the purpose. However, many barcode players today mix in “capital i /ai/”s either because they think it’s cool to be different, or maybe because they simply don’t know that 12 “lowercase L /el/”s is the standard way to barcode. This begs a question: how many different ways there exists to barcode? Using combination from high school math,
C(12,0) + C(12,1) + C(12,2) + C(12,3) + C(12,4) + C(12,5) + C(12,6) + C(12,7) + C(12,8) + C(12,9) + C(12,10) + C(12,11) +C(12,12) = 2^12 = 4096 patterns for 12 letters.
Therefore, introducing unique name system on ladder as some people suggested in the last discussion thread wouldn’t do much to discourage players to use barcode names. Up to 4096 players can barcode under unique name system, and it’s not like 4097th player can’t decide to use one less letter; only a few % of barcode players today use less than 12 letters, but for reference,
2048 patterns for 11 letters
1024 patterns for 10 letters
512 patterns for 9 letters
…

“There are more IlIlIlIlIlIl than IllllllllllI on ladder.” makes absolutely no sense. A naming rule is required to clearly distinguish the former from the latter for further discussion. In examples below, “lowercase L /el/” is replaced by “q” and “capital i /ai/” is replaced by “R” just to be visually clearer.

Step 1: Count how many “lowercase L /el/”s and “capital i /ai/”s a barcode name has. When there are x “lowercase L /el/”s and y “capital i /ai/”s, call it x-y.
Example: RqRqqRRRqRqR = 5-7, qRqRqRqRqRqR = 6-6,
RRqqqqqqqqq = 9-2 qqqqqqqqqqqq = 12-0

Step 2: Then, locate where “capital i /ai/”s are. List all of their positions starting from the left in the parentheses. For x-0 and 0-y, this step is skipped.
Example: RqRqqRRRqRqR = (1,3,6,7,8,10.12), qRqRqRqRqRqR = (2,4,6,8,10,12),
RRqqqqqqqqq = (1,2) qqqqqqqqqqqq = none

Step 3: Put them together
Example: RqRqqRRRqRqR = 5-7(1,3,6,7,8,10.12), qRqRqRqRqRqR = 6-6(2,4,6,8,10,12),
RRqqqqqqqqq = 9-2(1,2) qqqqqqqqqqqq = 12-0

This way, each one of those thousands of barcode patterns has a unique name/notation without confusion. The first sentence makes so much more sense now; “There are more 6-6(1,3,5,7,9,11) than 10-2(1,12) on ladder.” Also, the title of this thread says, “6-6(1,3,5,7,9,11) or 6-6(2,4,6,8,10,12)?”

Let’s face it. Grandmaster league on KR server is THE place. It’s the highest league on ladder, where barcodes are rampant. ln fact, there are whopping 135 barcodes out of 200 players at the end of 2012 Season 5. Now that we know how to name each one of them, here is how it actually looks like:
+ Show Spoiler +

Out of 4096 patterns with 12 letters, 12-0 = “lowercase L /el/” only is by far the most common barcode name out there. In terms of number of players, 12-0 alone > rest of 4095 patterns (64>60). Therefore, a narrow, true definition of barcode name is 12-0 only, and everything else is sort of imitation of it. I am conservative on this matter, so if I were to make a barcode account, I would definitely go with 12-0.

Using less than 12 letters is fairly rare. I wonder if they intentionally chose shorter ones, or they gave zero #$%& about their names and hit “create account” button a bit too early.

It’s harder to hide your leaf in much smaller forests outside KR, but at least EU and NA have decent number of barcodes:
EU = 34/199
NA = 31/199
SEA = 8/130
CN = 3/200

Obviously, there are many more at top/high master level, but I can’t possibly go through every master league division in every region within reasonable amount of time. Anyways, GM alone represents the situation pretty well I think.
+ Show Spoiler +

Interestingly, 0-12 = “capital i /ai/” only is more popular outside KR. Also, Unlike KR, there is no 12-0 dominance, so it is more likely that whoever you want to identify, whether your favorite player or opponent you hate, is using a relatively “unique” barcode so that you can easily track down. Maybe Naniwa is that x-y(a,b,c,d), IdrA is that m-n(e,f), that cheesy bastard is … the hacker is … etc.

On average, which group do you think places higher on ladder? GM only, calculated for KR, EU and NA. Note that placing higher on ladder = lower average rank number.
+ Show Spoiler +

Take it as more of a fun fact. Do NOT take it as hard evidence that barcodes are better. There are millions of factors I had to ignore such as multiple accounts per person, people who play minimum just to stay in GM, win/loss being a better measurement, existence hackers etc. Nevertheless, it’s just interesting that in all 3 regions, barcode players place higher on ladder.

As I said above, l personally think 12-0 is the way to barcode. I even smell slight weakness in other barcode patterns in that they are not serious enough in hiding their identity. At the same time, one could argue that 12-0 is way too standard and boring. So, I came up with some ideas for barcode patterns. Even under harsh restrictions, you can be creative!! Not that anyone else in the world notices it, though.

Symmetry
6-6(1,2,3,10,11,12) RRRqqqqqqRRR
8-4(3,4,9,10) qqRRqqqqRRqq
etc.
Surprisingly, not many players do this. Since “capital i /ai/” has slightly longer interval to the adjacent letters, symmetric ones look a bit better if you look very very closely.

Birthday
9-3(1,3,7) RqRqqqRqqqqq
etc.
Born on July 31st? This is for you. 10-2(1,9) guy on KR server rank 2 just below IMLosirA might be born on January 9th or September 1st. Rank 29,39 and 181 could be all his smurf. 10-2(1,9) is too meaningful to be a complete coincidence from 4 different guys.

Lone L
1-11(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11) RRRRRRRRRRRq
12th alphabet L appears as the only L at 12th letter.

2013
3-9(2,3,4,5,6,8,9,10,12) qRRRRRqRRRqR
011111011101 =binary for 2013

Calendar
7-5(2,4,6,9,11) qRqRqRqqRqRq
February, April, June, September and November ends before 31st.

Ah, I got too carried away. Time to use my free name change!

My recent articles/guides on TL have focused on SC2 gameplay itself and hopefully provided useful information to the readers. This time, I just wanted to write about something that has almost nothing to do with the gameplay. This is my 15th article/guide on TL, and I guess the weirdest topic award goes to this one. It just goes to show that if you are passionate enough, you can turn literaIly anything into an interesting topic. I don’t have a barcode account, but I know many readers here do. Which pattern do you use? Is it 12-0 or 6-6(1,3,5,7,9,11)? Any particular reason you chose that pattern? I would like to hear your story. Also, I have to emphasize that it is reeeeeealy difficult to distinguish “lowercase L /el/” from “capital i /ai/”, especially with sans-serif fonts. How difficult? Well, I bet YOU didn’t notice that I have intentionally misused and switched “lowercase L /el/”s and “capital i /ai/”s in as many as 5 words within the text parts of this thread. Yes, it is difficult.