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goddessliss

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How can I change my name - someone who had no business in seeing what I'd written on this forum has tracked me down - not fun but I guess it's a public forum so what can you do but it would be good if I could change my name.
 

Trojina

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Hilary told me we can change our own names now. You could ask her how but i imagine you would do it through the settings page in your profile.
 
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goddessliss

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Thanks Trojina I had a look at settings but I couldn't see how to do it ....maybe she can start a thread or something.
 

Trojina

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I tried going to membership>settings>my settings>edit profile.customer user title....but that's not the name.

To find the answer to this question you need to send a PM to Hilary because she doesn't always look at threads here. I will nudge her
 

Trojina

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Oh and for anyone who is thinking of a name change might I request that it isn't a terribly long name. The fashion for very long user names here seems to be growing but it means those who reply to you or need to refer to you have to spend ages either typing out the whole name or figuring how to abbreviate it. In effect abbreviation will always happen if you have a very long name. 'Goddessliss' isn't a very long name but everyone writes 'Liss'. If your user name is even longer like 'heisthesunthatlightsmyheart' or something then no one is going to want to keep writing that out and you will get abbreviated to 'heis' or something so that is something to consider when name changing.


Of course you can call yourselves exactly what you want I'm just saying if you want people to use your user name it's better for it not to be about 20 characters long IMO.
 
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goddessliss

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haha yes agreed on that - I've no idea what I'm going to use now....
 

Liselle

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The name setting is on the Member Profile page:

http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/amember/profile

or click on the "Members" tab and then "Edit profile."

Here's what it says:

You can choose a new username here. (This will change the username displayed by your future posts in the I Ching Community, but not your previous posts.)

so it won't do what you did, Trojina, when you changed from Trojan to Trojina.

Liss, you have a stalker here?? :eek: :hug:
 

Tohpol

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Yes, it's not very obvious.

Follow exactly the same directions that Trojina provided but click on "Edit Email & Password". This will allow you to edit a new user name which should be more than 6 characters.

I took the liberty of changing my name Topal to the more accurate Tohpol, being more phonetically true. (It's pronounced "Top-ole").

All very important of course....:D
 
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oceangirl

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Thanks very much everyone - done!!

Yeah kinda sorta Lisa but not anymore....but just wanted to make sure by removing my photo and changing my name.
 

Trojina

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No ! It's pronounced 'Toe Pull' and you will always be Toe Pull to me ! :hissy:
 

Trojina

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But ocean girl what if they read this thread ? They will know you changed your name.
 

Liselle

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Sorry Tohpol but when I see "Tohpol" and say it phonetically my reaction is still "topple" same as before. (I suppose I could try, you know, remembering.)

Seeing what has happened already I'm not sure I like this. It's like everyone's donning costumes and I don't know who anyone is. ("Get used to it" is of course an option.)
 

Liselle

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You can choose a new username here. (This will change the username displayed by your future posts in the I Ching Community, but not your previous posts.)

Actually that's not what's happening.

[Note: have edited this from the original - removed screen clips etc.]

It appears the name change function does change the name on old posts. But Forum Search is a mixed bag. For example Oceangirl's old username has been removed from the names list, but searching for "oceangirl" shows her old name in the results list.
 
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Trojina

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Seeing what has happened already I'm not sure I like this. It's like everyone's donning costumes and I don't know who anyone is. ("Get used to it" is of course an option.)

Yes I really am not sure this is a great move primarily because of Shared Readings. You know when people post the same questions over and over again till in the end no one answers them ? Well if they can change their names just when they want to that is what they will do so that people will keep answering them. I find that both exploitative of the goodwill of the core of those who answer regularly and unhelpful in terms of learning for them and us. I already told Hilary that in PM. She said well it's still one user name per person but effectively if you can change your name every 5 minutes we won't know who is who which is an issue in SR.


Worst case scenario, and a not uncommon one, is a person starts maybe 20 new threads on whether their ex is going to return. Lots of people spend lots of time answering them but nothing really gets through all they want to hear is 'yes'. In the end people give up responding so the person has to rely on their own resources for a while...but if they can change their own name they will just start posting the same questions under a new name. In the past they did this by creating multiple ids now they can do it with same id multiple names.

On the plus side it used to be a lot of trouble for Hilary to change names I think so this new way saves her a lot of time. But I still think people being able to change their own names is not a good thing for the above reasons. I shall be wary of who I answer in SR for sure now. Not that I answer there very much but I'm not keen on the sense of being duped. Of course most people would say they changed their name but many won't. Only this week I was baffled as to why someone appeared to be posting with 2 names, her old in the title and her new in the thread.

Obviously I have no issue with old timers like Liss having a name change but what I don't want is people who just come here to get answered changing their names all the time. I think a sense of continuity is better in SR.
 
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Liselle

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I see your point - I guess we can hope it takes an outlier personality to pull stunts like that?

But wait, you're saying it's "not uncommon"...
 
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Trojina

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I guess at least you can tell if it's an old member with a new name because the number of posts they have made stays the same. So even though Topal became someone else he still has the same number of posts. This means a person couldn't change their name and pretend to be totally new to the forum because you can see the number of previous posts they made.
 

Trojina

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But wait, you're saying it's "not uncommon"...

Over the years I mean. A tactic that some use/d when they want more responses and people have quit answering is to make a new id. But that's stopped more or less for some time now. My concern would be if name changing is so easy we will get some people in SR making a new name to get people to answer them again on the same question they just posted 20 threads about. But it may never happen I guess, it's just something I'm wary of. Anyway it's up to Hilary. If she thinks it's fine then we will just have to see how it goes. Perhaps in practise it won't trigger the scenarios I'm thinking of....although I am going to be looking at the post count of any new names appearing in SR before I answer there because I don't want to be answering the same question I answered 3 times before when the person had another name. That's just me, others may not be bothered.
 

Tohpol

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Sorry Tohpol but when I see "Tohpol" and say it phonetically my reaction is still "topple" same as before. (I suppose I could try, you know, remembering.)

Well, that's OK because that's exactly how it's meant to be pronounced... My own reasoning was some folks heard the sound "Toe-pal". But anyway....

And of course, my "toe" is always available to be "pulled" by Trojina. :D

Over the years I mean. A tactic that some use/d when they want more responses and people have quit answering is to make a new id. But that's stopped more or less for some time now. My concern would be if name changing is so easy we will get some people in SR making a new name to get people to answer them again on the same question they just posted 20 threads about. But it may never happen I guess, it's just something I'm wary of. Anyway it's up to Hilary. If she thinks it's fine then we will just have to see how it goes. Perhaps in practise it won't trigger the scenarios I'm thinking of....although I am going to be looking at the post count of any new names appearing in SR before I answer there because I don't want to be answering the same question I answered 3 times before when the person had another name. That's just me, others may not be bothered.

We'll rely on you then as the resident watchtower and searchlight sentry to root out suspects and make sure they don't step out of line. :D
 
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oceangirl

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But ocean girl what if they read this thread ? They will know you changed your name.

Yes good point but I guess unless they read every thread they won't see this and I've taken by photo/avatar off.
 

hilary

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Thanks for the nudge, Trojina.

It's always been possible for someone to 'change their name' by re-registering with a new email address and username. In the past we have had trouble with people who (for a whole interesting variety of motives...) have kept two or more names going at once. Then you do get the situation of not knowing who's who and the whole basis for the forum crumbling, and so we have fierce rules about not doing that.

However... anyone changing their own username keeps the same user profile so you can always click on their username to see all their posts. You can still recognise the person under the costume without too much difficulty; making a new name to get new answers is probably not going to work.

This doesn't work as efficiently/ comprehensively as having me change the username for you; the original name will probably show up in the forums' history somewhere. On threads or in search results or somewhere. This is because - to the best of my understanding - the forum software doesn't go back to the database to check everything before it creates every page. Instead it 'keeps a note' and uses its notes. Simple example: to put the 'post count' next to your name when you post, it doesn't run a search of the whole forum database for all your posts, count them, and put the result on the thread. It looks for its 'note' of how many posts you've made and adds one. Likewise, when writing old thread pages, it isn't necessarily going to bother checking what your username is now, if it has a note of what it was then.

Anyone who actually understands this stuff is going to be cringeing...

Anyway...

This means that to get a complete, retroactive change of your username, leaving no trace of the old one anywhere, all those notes need to be overwritten at once, which is something that has to be done from the admin end. It involves getting the software to re-check the database for every username and every thread and post in the whole forum to get them up-to-date. As you can imagine, that takes a while: 30-40 minutes or so. And I'm nervous - rightly or wrongly - that while it's checking and rewriting, if we also ask it to keep track of its normal load of new posts, something might break and the database might be corrupted. (Which would mean loss of some or all of the forum archives.) So before running username updates I download a database backup (it's huge - takes ages) and close the forum for maintenance. Then I start each update required, watch it anxiously until it's done, and re-open. Not a huge chore, but stressful.

From time to time, though, I will be running this sort of update, and then all the oddments will get tidied up.
 

Tim K

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Cool feature!

I've been waiting for this for a long time.
My internet handle is 19 years old and I think it's time to update it.

Now the hard part - picking a new one, oh boy :)
 

Trojina

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Let's have a re naming Ashteroid competition. The name he picks gets a prize...not sure what yet.

I say 'Toby'

It's a bit like 'name the bear' competition except in reverse.

I also like the name 'Ash' which is what he is often called anyway.

If he doesn't pick any name there's no prize
 

Tim K

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Oh Trojina, please no Toby :))

Ash is kinda ok, but since your comment about it meaning a falling shooting star I started to think that I don't really connect with nickname at all.
It does describe a kind of tree, but also remains of a burnt wood :(

The only reason I got it - to play internet games and register in various online services/sites, like email, forums and stuff. And it was with an 'h' because it made it unique. I didn't have any name-collisions during registration for a long time.

I think I'll choose something space/magic/sun/aviation themed, but here I suppose just Tim or 'Tim K' will do, since there are not so many users.
 

Trojina

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Ash is kinda ok, but since your comment about it meaning a falling shooting star I started to think that I don't really connect with nickname at all.

:confused: I don't recall saying that.



I think I'll choose something space/magic/sun/aviation themed, but here I suppose just Tim or 'Tim K' will do, since there are not so many users.

It's funny you mention 'sun' because my first thought was your name should be to do with the sun.

I was kidding re Toby
 

Tim K

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You did mention that in my 29-30 thread, about 'will my body switch to prana'.
 

Tim K

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Please enter valid Username. It must contain at least 6 characters
So Tim, Ash, Toby are all out of the question :(

Or can I add trailing spaces? :mischief:
 

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