1 year+
because it would be confusing if the name of someone who was once an active streamer's name got picked up by a new streamer after just 6 months of inactivity.

Xangold, theres been an account i have been waiting to free up for 2 years! the guy has no followers and no information it was an old justin.tv account. I would love for this to be a feature sometime soon.

It would be best to delete the account after 4-6 months, so people who want a username taken by someone not using the account don't have to wait a year for the name to be freed up. This would be great, because this guy took my main username, and no one would know it's me if I choose something else. There are also no ways to remake "Supercojo" either. Also, if the person was just taking a break, they would get an email once a week in the 4-6th month stating their inactivity and potential account deletion, so someone taking a break wouldn't just lose their account for taking a break. I, and many others would be very grateful if this went into effect soon, and if the current number of months of inactivity applies when this goes into effect!

6 months to 1 year inactivity with warnings of course giving them a month or two in which they could login and let the world know they still exist or care.

I think 6 months with a notification one month in advance and on the final day it would expire. I am waiting for some of the old unused name(s) to be re-released. However, I would want the ability to change my current name to one of the old ones. I'd rather not let my months of subscriptions go back to 0 on a new account. However, having the name you want is better than nothing.

Please make it happen.

Pls make it harder for other people to copy my username. they just replace one of the "l"' in my name with a large "i" and it is really annoying. why would you even impersonate another human being without their permission? thats such a retarded thing to do!
im not alone with this problem, pls fix.

Please release the old Justin.tv user names. I have a really old acount on Justin.tv that is under a old gmail account that got hacked by someone in China(Because the secret question is in Chinese) and i cant get access to the account to retrieve the password. Google hasn't been any help either. So please delete the old user names that have been inactive for a very long time so many of us can get the names we had before back. I'm sure there are other people that have had some kind of issue like this with an old unassailable email account. Also, I think anywhere between 6 months to 1 year inactivity would be grounds for the account being abandoned.

I just went to create a twitch account only to find out the name I wanted is an old Justin.tv account. Then I find out that Justin.tv has been shut down, the accounts deleted and the usernames locked. I just don't understand this. If the accounts were actively deleted after a certain date, why are the usernames locked in limbo? Please release these usernames.

...what's a username refresh?

Accounts that have had heavy activity would probably be best to never allow to be opened. Accounts with moderate activity could be about a year (this happen and you can't go on). Light activity about 6 months, and virtually no activity about 3 months.

Possibly allow account to 'bench' their accounts if they're going away for a while, which would triple the duration of how long until it's freed.

Anything around 6 months to 1 year would be fair in my opinion.

Any update on the possibility of username refresh? I think it would make some people happy :)

The user should make the username they desire in the first place.

If you contact twitch they can do this for you I believe however there might be certain conditions or something not sure. I have def seem people change name without making a new account however.

Users should have the ability to change their username so that they don't have to result in creating a new account so that they may have the username they desire.

6 months would be enough I guess
Who would make an account then leave it for 6 months anyway

Month or 2

Since it's all just a database, I'd propose that a Username only gets flagged for expiration if someone tries to sign up and gets a collision. If you have a rare/unique username that there has been no interest in it could avoid being expired.

Extending the expiration could be in 6 month chunks with monthly, then weekly, and perhaps 2 or 3 the last week before the expiration.

18 months. Give warnings every month starting at 12 months.

I'd have to say about 2 years with warnings every month from 18-23 months and maybe a warning once a week in the last month.