"Package name too similar" filter degrades developer experience with no remedy

[bwthomas]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

Body

Words that may appear too similar algorithmically (i.e. "vicary" and "vary") are easily distinguished by a human and yet denied by the filter. This owing to the fact that "vicary" is a valid dictionary word and, based on keyboard layouts, "vicary" is a highly unlikely typo of "vary."

The net result is that a package like vicary (http://github.com/bwthomas/vicary) that is maintains parallel implementations in python, ruby, and JS, is published as pypi package 'vicary', ruby gem 'vicary' ... and as '@bwthomas/vicary'

At a minimum, npm support should have the ability to override the classifier. I would also suggest the classifier add rules that take into account dictionary words versus misspellings.

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[JOSEPHYT7]

I agree that this is a valid developer-experience issue. Automated similarity checks are useful for preventing typosquatting, but they can also produce false positives when a package name is intentionally similar to a legitimate word or an established project.
In cases like vicary vs vary, it would be helpful if npm provided a way for package authors to request a review or override the automated classification when they can demonstrate legitimate use.
A review mechanism, along with better handling of dictionary words and keyboard-layout-based typo likelihood, could reduce unnecessary friction while still protecting users from malicious package names.
Thanks for raising this — hopefully npm can provide a documented path for legitimate package authors to resolve these cases.