[PATCH] doc: provide guidance on user.name format

It's a frequent misconception that the user.name variable controls authentication in some way, and as a result, beginning users frequently attempt to change it when they're having authentication troubles. Document that the convention is that this variable represents some form of a human's personal name, although that is not required. In addition, address concerns about whether Unicode is supported.

Use the term "personal name" as this is likely to draw the intended contrast, be applicable across cultures which may have different naming conventions, and be easily understandable to people who do not speak English as their first language. Indicate that "some form" is conventionally used, as people may use a nickname or preferred name instead of a full legal name.

Point users who may be confused about authentication to an appropriate configuration option instead.

Signed-off-by: brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
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There are a *lot* of users on Stack Overflow who have difficulty with
what user.name controls, such that it may be one of the top questions.
Additionally, we occasionally see issues from new contributors to Git as
well.  Furthermore, other VCS systems do things differently, so it's
best to document the conventional expectations for users explicitly.

Users may or may not read the documentation, but at least we've done our best at providing them helpful information should they choose to do so.

 Documentation/git-commit-tree.txt | 6 ++++++
 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+)