I just saw this and, since I'm not accusing anyone, I'm curious if deliberately changing username to match the username of a diamond moderator is within the rules of Stack Exchange.
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5$\begingroup$ I also wondered that---the owner of the stolen name is aware. $\endgroup$– kjetil b halvorsen ModCommented Nov 5, 2020 at 21:10
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2$\begingroup$ I saw some tangential questions on meta meta.stackexchange.com/questions/188555/… & meta.stackexchange.com/questions/37942/policy-on-display-names Nothing too conclusive $\endgroup$– FirebugCommented Nov 5, 2020 at 21:16
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https://stackoverflow.com/legal/acceptable-use-policy
Identity Theft and Privacy. Users that misleadingly appropriate the identity of another person are not permitted. Users may not post other people's personally identifying or confidential information, including but not limited to credit card numbers, Social Security Numbers, and driver's and other license numbers. You may not post information such as other people's passwords, usernames, phone numbers, addresses and e-mail addresses unless already publicly accessible on the Web.
Also, keep in mind that the discussed case is using username that is rather distinct (there are other "Tim's" on the site and I wouldn't bother if anyone used same username as me, I probably wasn't the first one as well). Moreover, it was about using username of one of the diamond moderators of this site, so this may lead to impersonating the moderator.
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$\begingroup$ Do you take the last sentence to mean that I can't post your display name, even though it's publicly accessible? $\endgroup$– FirebugCommented Nov 5, 2020 at 21:17
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4$\begingroup$ @Firebug I added edit to clarify. I wouldn't go that far, but this case is pretty special. $\endgroup$– Tim ModCommented Nov 5, 2020 at 21:20
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3$\begingroup$ I saw some discussions on impersonating Jon Skeet & Jeff Atwood (it seems like users got the hammer that time) in meta meta.stackexchange.com/questions/99914/… $\endgroup$– FirebugCommented Nov 5, 2020 at 21:21
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$\begingroup$ i.e. matching your interpretation $\endgroup$– FirebugCommented Nov 5, 2020 at 21:22
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15$\begingroup$ I think this threads indicate we can do something, first contacting the user and asking they to change back, if not we could escalate this. This is a case of trolling, clearly. $\endgroup$– kjetil b halvorsen ModCommented Nov 5, 2020 at 22:10
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2$\begingroup$ I missed the details, perhaps fortunately, as that means the question can be answered as a matter of principle. The benign interpretation is that this was a prank or arose from a particular sense of humour, but it is not acceptable and should always be reversed, ideally by persuasion rather than force or censure. $\endgroup$– Nick CoxCommented Nov 13, 2020 at 10:21