Changing names

[F.L.]

Okay so we talked about it earlier, but now's the time to talk about it!
Question is should we add a new rule where you need to stick with a name that stays always similar to the old one? Still if the member needs to change his name he'll need to ask for it in which even a thread to change the names or by directly asking a mod or whatever!

Let's debate!

Personally I think it's an important thing to add! If someone changes name, not only we won't reconize him, but it'll be even more difficult for us, staffs, to figure what he did in the past. So for security manners I suggest we do something about it!

[Project-Diddy]

I won't give a whole lecture again. But I will give you two points.


Firstly, -everyone- can see the logon name of however posts on their profile, regardless of their username. That way, as long as you log Bans and Warnings through their logon name, you can easily keep record of which rules everyone breaks, even if they do change their username regularly.


Secondly, I don't think you'd get much popularity on the forum if you start implementing new rules outside of general law and non-harmful conduct. A lot of people, especially the sort who escape to forum communities, are looking for freedom and liberties which they wouldn't be able to do at home - the ability to express themselves, to have a bit of fun and stop being serious, or if they want to be serious (in an agreed 'This is a Serious Thread' thread), voice opinions about an idea or about other people, for instance. All without worrying about it.

And one such liberty (indeed, one I enjoyed having when I first joined) was the ability to change one's displayed username as one's interests and ideas changed and as one's personality developed. As one develops as a person one would change one's profile, as well as general conduct, to reflect this - changing one's profile would include changing the signature, the avitar, the sub-avitar text, and the username. After all, the username often reflects a temporary interest of the individual, or they may have an idea for a new 'internet alias' to adopt, and this would often involve changing username, sig and avis, etc, as the username often accompanies and supports what is contained within sigs and avis.

Taking away these liberties are just going to make joining and posting in this community seem like more trouble than it's worth for many new-comers. even if you do entice them to actually visit the site via marketing or whatever.

[Suicide]

PD, you are exaggerating. The whole thing of changing the name would require a second to say something like "(my) name changed to "X"". I don't think that it would hurt or take that much time.

Also, PD, didn't you think of the point that someone can still change his username while he didn't publish it in the name-changing thread? And when he does, will we know him?
Of course not!
This is why we were looking towards adding a new rule for changing the username - just to know who is who.

However, PD is still right, because this might make the members, and especially new comers, less motived to keep active. I see his point

I think we can make or apply the idea in a friendly way so the members don't get annoyed by the name-changing system. We can be very smartly diplomatic, in which we apply the rule in a way the members still have the motivation of keeping in touch with the forum.

The name-changing matter would be the worst when the user changes all of his avatar, signature and under-avatar sentence (or the personal message/sentence). So I think that we can put this rule in the margin, in which we ask the user to nicely post in the name-changing thread so we can know him.

The best idea would be adding a rule in which we discriminate the member changing all of his older profile information into new ones (i.e., the avatar, signature etc.). We simply put a rule in which a member can't change his profile "entirely". If you change your username, I can still know you from your avatar, and the vice versa
And also, the signature counts

I still don't know whether we should add this rule or not; it needs some regulations and planning.

[Project-Diddy]

I'll accept the point about simplicity, but I fear dreadfully that you may have missed mine about the pointlessness of it as a whole if you intend to implement banning or recognition systems in any sort of systematic way whatsoever. Do read on, and I shall clarify my point, I hope.

On a person's profile, it says the display name, and in brackets next to it the logon name. E.g. "Project-Diddy (blah)" (I apologise for the vulgar logon name, but that's immaterial). It's how I identify member, and tracking who members are, their banning/warning statūs and such through the logon names would be a more proficient system because one can't change one's logon name at all (without creating a new account, and multi-accounts are a different discussion). So any ban I might have would be assigned to "blah", not "Project-Diddy", and so it would be easier to amalgamate offenses. In a similar way, you might recognise a member using their logon name.

I think your idea of limiting how much a person can change -at once- is interesting, but I have two questions about it. Firstly, what about those profiles where everything acts in unison to give an effect of "this is my character and internet alias"? One would have to change all of those at once if one were to change one's internet alias.

The second point is more definitions: what constitutes "at once"? Could one change an avatar one day, a signature the next, and the name the next day? Or maybe each hour one could change one aspect? Or maybe just in separate posts, minutes apart? It seems that "at once" is far too ill-defined a term for the idea to be viable, and I daresay defining it without enabling loopholes or ambiguities may be problematic.

I should clarify, however, those two points above are genuinely questions. There is a question and then my personal conclusion presented as an answer, but I would very much like some sort of answer. If you can present a different conclusion or response, I would be more than happy to accept that. :3

[Suicide]

PD, don't you think that it's annoying to keep on viewing profiles to make sure whether who is who?

Also, I said to put a rule to avoid members doing so - even if it might sound weird to change your whole profile info at once (one day, maybe), but there's still a chance of that happening, so a rule to avoid that is needed, in this case. You know, a "play it safe" philosophy, just incase someone tries changing his whole profile at once.

[Project-Diddy]

Not really. You'd just have to do it once, and then remember. :3
Besides, you can't -work out- who it is from their writing style in their posts, and their post count and karma and rank? I usually can. :3

And in the case of bans/warnings, it saves a lot of time, instead of having to look back over all of the member's previous display names and see how many warnings he/she has had. This way, you can see how many each member has had directly, all within one thread - the bans and warnings thread, rather than having to switch back to the "New Name" thread and look through the entire thing to look at their previous names.

And, my point was, sometimes members wish to do that and it is pivotal that they do this to be able to convey the very point of their new naming system. :3 That rule seems to prohibit expression of individuality through an amalgamated combination of avatar/sig/name/etc.

[Suicide]

Well, we will not abandon name-changing, but just a small notice from you that you did so

[Project-Diddy]

Well, the vote's not finished yet. Theoretically, it might still be abandoned.

Although from what I've gathered about the political basis of this forum, I doubt it will be, even if the vote swings to suggest it a bad idea. :3

[Śp̨͡ê` (҉)]

Here's my take on it:


Maybe you should be free to change your name and your entire profile and everything, you just cannot do it too often. Like you will get a warning if you frequently change your username... Maybe you have to wait a week before you can change your username again, unless it is a minor change, such as me adding those marks in my username. And possibly we could just put people's logon names in that space below their rank, where we have those letters like the F A M E S T O G I and stuff... Just so you will be able to always determine who is who without needing to click on everyone's username. I don't think there should be so much restrictiveness on people changing their names. I mean, if we have their logon name in that space we'd always be able to identify everyone, since only admins can edit that. Or maybe mods can too, I dunno. Doesn't matter... I just think a thread for name-changing isn't too good an idea. I used to think it is but I don't any more...

[Suicide]

I think Spe came up with the best solution, but what about our medals? Where do they go?

[Project-Diddy]

I like that, Spe.

I really like that. :3
It seems efficient, functional, plausible and seems to evade any criticisms I could come up with.

Although the medal concern might be a valid one, for people who have them. I suppose no one wants to lose their medals. :3

[Śp̨͡ê` (҉)]

He he, I love being the one to come up with the best solution to a problem.

Here's my solution for the medals though:

We could tell someone in a private message when they have won a medal, and they can put it in their signature. This way people have the option to display them, in case they don't want to for whatever reason. But instead of having colored letters in their signature, we could give them a little image with a medal and a letter on it signifying that they won that medal. It would look much more professional. There is a section in each person's profile that can only be viewed and edited by admins (or some other high-rankers, I'm not sure which ones...) that we could use to keep track of the medals these people have actually earned. That way, if someone puts the image for a medal they do not have, we can check their profile, remove it from their signature, and give them a warning. Breaking this new rule that would have to be implemented would not be severe, breaking it repeatedly would, at worst, result in a (very short) temporary ban. And that's only because there's not option to ban people from using signatures, or at least that I am aware of. There would have to be some kind of deterrent for people putting undeserved medals in their signature, anyways. I think it would actually look pretty nice seeing small medal pictures in people's signatures, lined up in rows to signify their contributions to the forum. And besides, I enjoy making little images like that. Something to kill the time.

[Project-Diddy]

Yes~~

Just yes. :3
I agree with that idea entirely, yeah. Although the punishment system for pretending to have medals one doesn't have needs refining...

But of course it does! That's all to come next, I assume. :3

[Suicide]

The worst of them all is that a person can pretend having the medals, which PD mentioned already.
I dunno, I think we should keep them.. or maybe not.. or maybe yes...

[Śp̨͡ê` (҉)]

Hmm, yeah it does need to be refined a bit. Any suggestions? I WISH there was I way I could ban people from having signatures, that would be perfect. but sadly there isn't. Oh well.

[Project-Diddy]

I don't think I can suggest much.

Can you change people's signatures? I'm sure if you delete everything on their sig, they'll get annoyed and not pretend to have medalts they don't have again. >:3

Although, deyum, my sense of disciplinary action is a little twisted. :3

[Suicide]

I've already added my medals in my signature - but anyhow

[Project-Diddy]

I've added mine to my signature, too!
I'm rather prou- ... oh, wait...

It's been a long time since I learnt BB-codes. Remind me: Could you give a more complex code to be pasted into the sig for medals instead of a simple picture? It wouldn't be perfect, but it would be more difficult to steal because you'd have to work out what the codes are to copy? Whereas a picture is just, (a) copy, (b) paste, (c) save, (d) upload, (e) [image][/image]. :3

[Śp̨͡ê` (҉)]

Hmm, I wouldn't know how to do that though... But yes, I can edit peoples signatures... >

[Project-Diddy]

Okay, Spe, I've sent you a PM about it.

Basically, complex BBcodes and Proboards really don't seem to go together well.
So it seems that we can't use any truly advanced code in this.

But there are a few, very simple things we could do which might make it a little bit harder for people to copy the code onto their sig.