New Premium Feature: Change Your Username

[BHarry]

Wouldn't a username change apply retroactively to all past posts, like avatar changes do? In that case for searches you'd only need to know the current username.

I'd bet you are correct, but there are some posts that reference members previous posts without a direct link (I think @kronin323 posted about that a while ago, but I don't remember exactly where). Also, some users are not currently as active but have lots of older useful posts. If @BriP were to change his username, it would be tough to find all of the valuable older info if you didn't know he recently changed names.

I don't think these would be huge issues, I just use the search function for research quite a bit and was a little bored this morning

 

[kronin323]

I'd bet you are correct, but there are some posts that reference members previous posts without a direct link (I think @kronin323 posted about that a while ago, but I don't remember exactly where). Also, some users are not currently as active but have lots of older useful posts. If @BriP were to change his username, it would be tough to find all of the valuable older info if you didn't know he recently changed names.

I don't think these would be huge issues, I just use the search function for research quite a bit and was a little bored this morning

I wonder how the "quote" feature would work... I mean, though a member's old posts should update the username, I bet where they're quoted, like the "BHarry said" at the beginning of this post, would remain unchanged...

 

[QLR1]

From what I can derive, if one quotes a post with an old name, the quote is not updated. Words escape me at the moment.

But in the future, a new quote will reflect the name change.

My example:

Hello! Wanna get to 15 posts! :-)

 

[QLR1]

I think I just confirmed The Fouker's theory.

 

[kronin323]

From what I can derive, if one quotes a post with an old name, the quote is not updated. Words escape me at the moment.

But in the future, a new quote will reflect the name change.

My example:

Hello! Wanna get to 15 posts! :-)

Yeah I was thinking about an old thread from x-man before he had his username changed to x-man; has his original username in quotes...

But stanleybb50 is a much more recent example...

 

[OakleyBoss]

Is there already a function preventing duplicate identical usernames? I guess so?

Wouldn't a username change apply retroactively to all past posts, like avatar changes do? In that case for searches you'd only need to know the current username.

I was thinking of changing to my porn star name, Randy Bare, but probably not...

Yes duplicate usernames should be detected and prevented.

 

[saulsaul]

I don't understand! Seriously, what's the thinking here? If we all change our names, no one will know who anyone is. Am I missing something?

 

[Kory]

I don't understand! Seriously, what's the thinking here? If we all change our names, no one will know who anyone is. Am I missing something?

Maybe someone used their wife's name as their user name and got divorced?

 

[kronin323]

Hey @OakleyBoss...

Perhaps this idea should be refined a bit.

Saulsaul originally made the point that name changes would prevent us from knowing who's who.

In the three months this has been in effect, I'm only aware of two people noticeably using it, giving themselves a completely different handle. The first, he kept the same avatar (at least for a while), so it was easier to know who he really was, though even then some got confused.

But the other, he changed his handle and avatar at the same time and it was impossible to tell who he'd been. I'm like, "who's this guy? He's made that many posts and I don't remember him?"

Frank had the same reaction, but finally figured it out who it was by seeing all his sale threads he kept bumping...

So, the suggestion is that there be some way to see what a former handle was. Like go on their profile page and see a field "formerly known as XXXXX". It doesn't have to track the whole history, just the last previous, since you can only change every 90 days.

I mean, as-is it's practically like creating a new account, identity-wise.

Or maybe scrap this whole functionality altogether. Doesn't seem to have taken off.

 

[OakleyFrankFMJ]

Hey @OakleyBoss...

Perhaps this idea should be refined a bit.

Saulsaul originally made the point that name changes would prevent us from knowing who's who.

In the three months this has been in effect, I'm only aware of two people noticeably using it, giving themselves a completely different handle. The first, he kept the same avatar (at least for a while), so it was easier to know who he really was, though even then some got confused.

But the other, he changed his handle and avatar at the same time and it was impossible to tell who he'd been. I'm like, "who's this guy? He's made that many posts and I don't remember him?"

Frank had the same reaction, but finally figured it out who it was by seeing all his sale threads he kept bumping...

So, the suggestion is that there be some way to see what a former handle was. Like go on their profile page and see a field "formerly known as XXXXX". It doesn't have to track the whole history, just the last previous, since you can only change every 90 days.

I mean, as-is it's practically like creating a new account, identity-wise.

Or maybe scrap this whole functionality altogether. Doesn't seem to have taken off.

I CONCUR!!