Display names

[Paianis 489]

Users of this forum will have a username that's tied to their Poniverse account, and a display name that shows alongside their posts.

 

Some users change their display names frequently, which can make it difficult to identify a user by their posts as a non-administrator.

 

Is there any possibility of being able to view usernames instead of display names, alongside their posts?

 

I ask this as a year ago I attempted a cumulative chart of the 'Count to million' thread, which I had to abandon as I realised if users kept changing their names, there was no way I could possibly complete it to an acceptable degree of accuracy.

[Jeric 46,854]

This is currently not a function of MLPF.

 

Moving this to Feedback

OK. Now that that move is done, I would not be in favor of changing the name currently shown in posts to username for several reasons.

 

1. Having a display name changed is a fun element of the forum.

 

2. You can view the history of display names in the members profile.

 

3. Displaying both is a bad UX concept in design.

[Jokuc 8,174]

I would also like to add the fact that some users change their display name because they no longer want to be associated with the old name. If they want to change their behaviour maybe or like a friend of mine from this site, if they feel that users have come to think of them in a certain way and they wish to start fresh with with a new reputation or whatever. It should be up to each member what they want to identify as, it's similar to how you should respect transgender people. If a known user changes their display name, they can change their signature, user title or profile to say what their old name was if they so wish.

[Lunar Echo 10,335]

I'm on the side of keeping it the way it is but I will admit it's annoying trying to figure out who's who sometimes. I hate to forget a friend because they changed their name. But I guess that's a consequential action that user has chosen and therefore isn't my fault if that user is forgotten or lost to myself since they chose to do it.

 

That's just my little tidbit into this thread topic, I agree with what Jokuc has to say also.

[Lightwing 12,978]

It is clear that people, myself included, doesn't like this idea for multiple reasons:

• Part of the fun of the name changes is to simply have fun, like doing a small deal with a friend, joining a trend, or things like that. Just look at my display name list, it is quite long.
• Jokuc also mentioned one key part of it. Sometimes people wants to adapt a new identity, and they don't want to be linked to an old name for any reason, whenever it was because they didn't longer liked their old name, or anything of the style.
• Even if you got somewhat confused about one's new username, Display Name history is avaliable for users through someone's profile, so finding the name changes isn't really hard.
• It would look aesthetically bad, so it also gets a no from me.

I see the point that you try to make, but users do get the tools to know when someone changed their name, and you can always check one's profile to know about their name changes, so it is not really needed in general.

[Paianis 489]

I'm not sure I specifically asked to remove changable display names, I solely asked to be able to view a member's Poniverse username just for reference.

 

By the way, about 12 months ago I changed my username to my current one on all the predominant forums I frequent. This involved PMing the admin or a relevant mod for all of them. A couple I had trouble with, but for most of them the relevant parties did the job just fine. One of them even put a 'Formerly Paspie' subheader beside my posts. Why can't MLP Forums be the same? Why do people need to change their names every week, or even month?

[NullAccount 287]

I don't think that would necessarily be the best way to do it. I personally think that the idea suggested in the included topic might be a bit easier to manage, and from my limited knowledge of programming, I don't think it would be too difficult to do.

https://mlpforums.com/topic/143727-subtle-fix-for-the-name-changing-confusion-in-topics/