Topic: Vote on changing display name here

[Beleth]

One of the strange and (AFAIK) unique features of this forum software is the ability to change the name attached to your posts.  While it can be humorous at times, it also has great potential to annoy and confuse.  It's also halfway to sockpuppetry, and that's a bad place to be.

The ability is enabled by default (which is why it's enabled now), but there's an option to disable it.

A YES vote means: Keep it the way it is now.  Members can change their display name at any time.

A NO vote means: Disable it.  What they pick at account creation time is what they get.  Mods/admins could still change it on approved request.  Current members will have a grace period of about two weeks to change it to whatever they want to before it gets locked down.

What do you think?

[Caffiene]

Depends how easy it is for mods to change it for you if necessary... eg, Febo's name change because he started having privacy concerns.

I voted No. If its still possible by mod if necessary, then stopping it being done at will makes things less chaotic.

[Beleth]

Mods/admins could still change it.  Good catch.  I've now clarified that in the OP.

[whitedevilbrewing]

No, random name changes remove the sense of identity from posters that is necessary to a serious forum.  On a forum consisting entirely of trolls its fine, but this is not that place.  Further, since name changes and avatar changes tend to involve inside jokes, they can tend to alienate new or outgroup posters, which is definitely not what this forum should be doing, imo.

I've been here for 4 years, I'm a regular and involved poster, and I am beginning to have a hard time keeping track of who is who, or even what inside joke is inciting name/avatar changes (the burqa thing?).  What you get from this is cliques, and a social environment closed to all but a few.

[Moloch]

I give a firm no.

As a forum member trying to become a part of the 'community' I find the name changing very frustrating. Sometimes only after a few days of reading posts will I realize who someone is.

While my display name isn't the one I signed up with, it is the only one I've posted under in about 2 years so I'd like to keep it in my case...

[Lead Farmer]

mental masturbation is fun.

[seaotter]

I feel very strongly that you shouldn't change your name, but I don't think the ability should be taken away.

[cerveauxfrits]

I vote no.


Pretty much for the 'halfway to sock puppetry' reason.  The reason why sock puppetry is bad is that it undermines the whole consistent identity thing.  The reason why having it be easy to change your name on a whim is bad is that it undermines the whole consistent identity thing.

Though I guess I shouldn't say 'bad'.  All that stuff is perfectly fine if you're trying to be 4chan.  So maybe you should get to change your username, but while it's changed you're only allowed to post in Explicit and don't get to use the rest of the site until you put it back.   


There should be a way to have your name be changed if you need to, of course.  And it doesn't have to be moderator-controlled - perhaps everyone is limited to getting only one user name change ever, like on GitHub?

[moj]

I changed my name once and probably won't want to again.  I no longer liked the name I first picked and wanted to change it. I voted no but don't think it should be absolute.  I like the one change or even just having to ask a mod to do it and then post something about it in the username/avatar thread.

[Jack]

I say you shouldn't be able to change it on a whim, but you should be able to ask a mod to change it if you have a good reason.

[Belgarath]

I quickly clicked Yes because of my desire to be able to change it when modding a Mafia game, but honestly the more I think about it and the asshattery being done with names in the rest of the forums, I would like to change my vote to NO officially.


My convenience does not outweigh the rest of the mucking about I'm seeing.

[Beleth]

Belg, you should be able to change your vote yourself.  I enabled that option when I made the poll.

[stands2reason]

A time limitation would be good, or maybe requiring a moderator to do it. And how about an option where the profile page lists previous usernames for the account? 

[pandamonium]

Just so it's not people who care enough to voice their opinion in the thread, I'll say that I voted Yes because I don't see that it's such a problem. Only the trollish users have been changing their user names a lot, and you can usually figure them out.

I've only changed my user name once and there was a huge uproar for some reason.

[Boßel]

I voted No. Since a mod can change it if needed. If that was not the case, I would vote yes.

ß is a "ss". So I went from Bossel to Boßel. I will be keeping it that way. I haven't been satisfied with my name since I started the forums, but never changed it (altered perhaps) due to confusion. I'm sure it didn't cause too much confusion... But, I just want to be clear that I took Pasta's old name to mess with him, since he took seaotter's.