User Name Tweaks

[medusa]

Because if you could then certain groups of people would be changing their names all day long, causing confusion, annoyance and upset amongst the other forum members.

 

^^^This

 

Each forum has their own rules and ours is that we only change usernames if there is a good reason for doing so.

 

We also like to keep a track of username changes, which is another reason for doing it by contacting the Helpdesk rather than allowing users to do it themselves.

 

Can you imagine a problem user who changes their username every few days? How do you know which user you've warned for abusing other people when they've had 3 username changes since then? More to the point, if one user is being harassed by another user and they put that user on Ignore, that means that you can get around it just by changing your username, which is really very unfair on their victims.

 

This topic really isn't up for discussion though- we don't allow name changes at will and we aren't planning on changing it.

[Resident]

^^^This

 

Each forum has their own rules and ours is that we only change usernames if there is a good reason for doing so.

 

We also like to keep a track of username changes, which is another reason for doing it by contacting the Helpdesk rather than allowing users to do it themselves.

 

Can you imagine a problem user who changes their username every few days? How do you know which user you've warned for abusing other people when they've had 3 username changes since then? More to the point, if one user is being harassed by another user and they put that user on Ignore, that means that you can get around it just by changing your username, which is really very unfair on their victims.

 

This topic really isn't up for discussion though- we don't allow name changes at will and we aren't planning on changing it.

 

A decent forum system with ignore capabilities would use the user id rather than the user display name to block individuals, purely for the reason you state.

[dosxuk]

A decent forum system with ignore capabilities would use the user id rather than the user display name to block individuals, purely for the reason you state.

 

The problem isn't the software, it's the people using the software. People remember names well, not numbers. So if you're moderating and you know you've warned "bob" three times, user ID 49572726749, and then you warn "dave", user ID 49572726748, you don't get the names mixed up, but the numbers are easily confused.

 

It's easy to remember the names of trouble makers. Letting them rename themselves constantly makes keeping an eye on them much much harder.

[Phanerothyme]

meh every user has a unique userid on the database, and that never changes. The username is just another field like postcount or location (except that unlike location, it may not be blank [although it can be "blank"])

 

From a moderation perspective it would be a bagatelle, and if it doesn't already, would easily be able to list the usernames belonging to that ID in the past. Users with dozens of previous usernames would be flagging themselves up as potention troublemakers.

 

From a user's perspective however, it would be a nightmare.

 

But I know quite a few users who've changed their usernames on SF - and as a result I probably ended up relating to them quite differently, having forgotten who they were the first time round.

 

Of course it stands out a mile when you see usernames in quotes in other users' posts, and they've since changed their username