# Why can't user change their username.



## BrothBone (Apr 14, 2009)

I currently don't want to do so, but I'm sure one day I might or someone else might want to change their username.
Why isn't their a function that allows this?
I'm sure there are good reasons, I mean creating a new account will eat up memory/space on the servers, no? (Pardon if I was saying this wrong.)


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## Grimfang (Apr 14, 2009)

I don't really know all the hardware that powers FA, but I don't think memory is as much as an issue as just the way the site is coded. From my understanding, it just isn't very doable unless you had people going through and manually editing code or something.


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## Runefox (Apr 14, 2009)

I'm pretty sure there would be a lot of abuse with regard to changing names, not to mention the current way the site is laid out is to link the username to furaffinity.net/user/(username), meaning a change in username would necessitate a change to that, too. That would break bookmarks, links to the user via :iconusername, and a whole bunch of stuff that would just be much more trouble than it's worth.

Also: Imagine a high-profile artist changes their name (such as blueblur8lover switching to peritian); that leaves the old name up for grabs. So, then, I could become, for example, blueblur8lover and start going around spamming or what have you.


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## X (Apr 14, 2009)

im fairly sure that an admin can transfer your current forum account info into a new one if they agree with your reasons for doing so.


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## Grimfang (Apr 14, 2009)

half-witted fur said:


> im fairly sure that an admin can transfer your current forum account info into a new one if they agree with your reasons for doing so.



Ah, yeah. In regard to the forums, you can request a name change here.

I'm not sure which side you had in mind, but if it is the main site you were talking about, BrothBone, then it just can't happen, at least for now.


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## X (Apr 14, 2009)

Grimfang said:


> Ah, yeah. In regard to the forums, you can request a name change here.
> 
> I'm not sure which side you had in mind, but if it is the main site you were talking about, BrothBone, then it just can't happen, at least for now.



thanks for linking that, ill have to try when i come up with a better name.


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## BrothBone (Apr 15, 2009)

Grimfang said:


> Ah, yeah. In regard to the forums, you can request a name change here.
> 
> I'm not sure which side you had in mind, but if it is the main site you were talking about, BrothBone, then it just can't happen, at least for now.



Yes, I was referring to main website as well. That's why I started the thread. But I guess it will be a big headache to try to change the programming code. 
Any ways I don't need a name change now, I'm just gazing into the future.


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## Bellini Tabloid (Apr 17, 2009)

half-witted fur said:


> thanks for linking that, ill have to try when i come up with a better name.



Me too, I need to remeber this thread for sure.


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## Arshes Nei (Apr 17, 2009)

You can't do that with a lot of sites, emails and apps really. I know people want the feature and maybe in the future, but I just want to remind people before getting upset over it, you can't on Deviantart, you can't with your aim, yim etc. Once you chose a username it's yours until you abandon it or create a new account...(or get hacked).

Newer versions of software or newer versions were able to change this but a lot of times it's a nightmare as in scenarios Runefox mentioned along with other ones.


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## Carenath (Apr 17, 2009)

Grimfang said:


> I don't really know all the hardware that powers FA, but I don't think memory is as much as an issue as just the way the site is coded. From my understanding, it just isn't very doable unless you had people going through and manually editing code or something.


Its not a code issue with regards to changing the username, the option to change it was simply never added to the existing code. So unlike the forum's there is no option to change a user's name from the admin panel. The only way to change it, would be to manually edit the users table in the database.

If the idea seems sound enough, and sensible, than I'll consider adding that option to Ferrox's ACP.



Runefox said:


> I'm pretty sure there would be a lot of abuse with regard to changing names, not to mention the current way the site is laid out is to link the username to furaffinity.net/user/(username), meaning a change in username would necessitate a change to that, too. That would break bookmarks, links to the user via :iconusername, and a whole bunch of stuff that would just be much more trouble than it's worth.
> 
> Also: Imagine a high-profile artist changes their name (such as blueblur8lover switching to peritian); that leaves the old name up for grabs. So, then, I could become, for example, blueblur8lover and start going around spamming or what have you.


Not really.. /user/username is likely rewritten by the webserver into something like /user.php?user=username.. and somewhere in user.php Im guessing a query is run on the database to retreive the user's unique ID number which would be seperate from the username. It is this ID number that would be used to generate the links on other user's pages and on submissions and such, only the process there is reversed. Changing the username in the database would automatically update all those links, if the site is written that way... that's how most other sites do it anyway.

vBulletin automatically reserves the old usernames when you request a username change here, preventing new users from signing up with that username for a set number of days (default is a year).. since username changing isnt written into FA's basecode.. changing your username, would leave your old one open for others to use.. unless one of two things are done:
1. The old username is added to the users table, with default values and set to banned.. preventing anyone from using that username.
2. an additional table with reserved usernames is added, and a check done on registration to see if a username is reserved/blacklisted from being used. This might quite possibly see its way into Ferrox.. (see my above post)


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## Arshes Nei (Apr 17, 2009)

Carenath here's a question for you, would you think VB's id listing instead of username listing be a more flexible option to Ferrox?


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## Carenath (Apr 17, 2009)

Short answer is yes, and IIRC that is how Ferrox has been designed. Internally Ferrox would still use the user's ID because it means, that like the forums, details about the user can be changed independently.. but you would link to the users account by their username. The ID is used mostly in the other tables to relate objects to the user... like submissions.


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## Arshes Nei (Apr 17, 2009)

Carenath said:


> Short answer is yes, and IIRC that is how Ferrox has been designed. Internally Ferrox would still use the user's ID because it means, that like the forums, details about the user can be changed independently.. but you would link to the users account by their username. The ID is used mostly in the other tables to relate objects to the user... like submissions.



Thanks, that's good to hear. Thanks for answering.


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## Carenath (Apr 17, 2009)

You're Welcome.


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