# Is it possible to change your FA screename?



## Wheeler-Kun (Dec 26, 2007)

Yeah, I'm sure it's a major crapshoot and the answer is probablly 'no', but sue me.

As the topic says, I just wanted to know if it was possible to change your screename, as I've decides I was retarded for choosing this name...=_=


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## Rhainor (Dec 26, 2007)

The current system does not allow usernames on the main site to be changed.


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## H2O (Mar 13, 2008)

Will ferrox allow this feature?


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## Eevee (Mar 13, 2008)

Should do, although account renaming is a hairy thing on the social side too and we'll need to deal with that.


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## Ceceil Felias (Mar 13, 2008)

Eevee said:
			
		

> Should do, although account renaming is a hairy thing on the social side too and we'll need to deal with that.


Redirections, LJ rename tag-style?

Though that might just make it a technical nightmare all over again.


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## Eevee (Mar 17, 2008)

Yeah, having half the username space consist of rename shells would not be a pretty sight, and given how damn often furries like to change their names...

LJ has the luxury of the infrastructure to charge $15 (or however much it is now) for a rename token.  I don't know what we could do to dissuade renaming.


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## net-cat (Mar 17, 2008)

Oh, that's easy. Refuse to do it more than once every six months or so.


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## Dragoneer (Mar 18, 2008)

When/if account renamings take place they will not be a on a "I'm bored, I want to change my name basis". I honestly think we should go the LJ route and sell rename tokens. Money goes to cover server bandwidth/buy new servers/toss wild crazy FA parties to shower the FA dev team with praise and spiked punch.


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## Ð˜Ð²Ð°Ð½ (Mar 18, 2008)

Wheeler-Kun said:
			
		

> As the topic says, I just wanted to know if it was possible to change your screename, as I've decides I was retarded for choosing this name...=_=



You think YOUR username is retarded...


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## Ceceil Felias (Mar 18, 2008)

Preyfar said:
			
		

> When/if account renamings take place they will not be a on a "I'm bored, I want to change my name basis". I honestly think we should go the LJ route and sell rename tokens. Money goes to cover server bandwidth/buy new servers/toss wild crazy FA parties to shower the FA dev team with praise and spiked punch.


I'd certainly get behind that idea. What would you do about rename shells, though? Have them expire automatically after a while, or...?


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## Eevee (Mar 18, 2008)

I'm not sure.

LJ gives the user the option of forwarding the old name (in which case it sticks around forever) or discarding it (in which case it goes back to the pool once it's purged).  I'm not really a fan of polluting the namespace like that, but I don't want to lead to confusion either..


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## duo2nd (Mar 24, 2008)

I guess it's not possible.


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## Ainoko (Mar 24, 2008)

Talk to the admins on furry-furry.com, they have done name changes in the past and once for me. I used to be known by a different name on that site back in '06 and changed my username there to Ainoko around june of that year. I have no intention of changing this name to something different anytime soon. But I think it would be a good idea to allow FA users to change their username for a modest fee of USD15.00. That way, it would help keep excessive bandwidth usage down to a minimum not to mention that user here could change their names instead of creating another account and having large watch lists.


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## Eevee (Mar 24, 2008)

...bandwidth usage?


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## Bokracroc (Mar 24, 2008)

I could think of better things to sped $15 USD on. I'd just create a new account and slide stuff over at that price.

The longer you keep a name, the cheaper it gets to change it?


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## Veirge (Mar 24, 2008)

I was thinking there could be a way to make a sign-in name/username, then a display name that can be altered in however way. Then it wouldn't conflict with the user's page link and not muddle up the database. Just kind of thinking on the fly with no experience though. X3


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## tsawolf (Mar 24, 2008)

Ane said:
			
		

> I was thinking there could be a way to make a sign-in name/username, then a display name that can be altered in however way. Then it wouldn't conflict with the user's page link and not muddle up the database. Just kind of thinking on the fly with no experience though. X3



This is the way we want to do it.  Unfortunately, the database uses the username as an identifier in several places, and depends on it remaining the same.

Changing that would require major work on the code base, and the code we run on right now is so fragile that we're not able to make the necessary changes without bringing the site down around our heads.


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## net-cat (Mar 24, 2008)

I support the "wild parties for dev team" platform.


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## Javarod (Apr 6, 2008)

Along the same lines, ifn rather than a rename I just wanted to start a new account, is there an easy way to migrate everything from my current account to the new one? I'd be happy to clear out of the old name as fast as possible, but I've a lot of work to clean that one out, migrating would really be the fastest way. I know Micah Fennec did something like that, becoming Moody Ferret.

As to my name issue, this one never quite jelled, so I'm going back to Woggle, my old name ifn possible.


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## MadPlumber (Apr 6, 2008)

One thing that I wanted to mention, hoping that it is not too irrelevant, is that, judging by the pattern behavior of the site code, the userpage URL for the username "RichardNixon" would be the same as for the username "Richard_Nixon".  Underscores seem to be automatically excluded in building our automatic userpage URLs.

Does this hint that underscores can be added to our usernames with minimal trouble?


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## Esplender (Apr 8, 2008)

Eevee said:
			
		

> Should do, although account renaming is a hairy thing on the social side too and we'll need to deal with that.



Mmm. I personally think that it should be up to the name changer's responsibility to notify people about the shift. Or maybe place a temporary tag in the name to notify people that the username has been recently changed.


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## Wheeler-Kun (Apr 14, 2008)

...My, this thread is still alive?

This is on a simular note as my previous question, but is it possible to change your *forum* name? I know that other forums are able to do this, but I don't know how hard it would be to do and whatnot.

On to be more on topic, I don't think the idea of "Name Change Tokens" (Is that what you called them?) is a bad idea. It would theoreticly prevent people from changing their names as much as Myspace (And man, that gets confusing). But the ideas of paying $15.00 isn't very appealing. It would have to be a lot cheaper than that, methinks.

....Unless that was meant as a joke.


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## Eevee (Apr 15, 2008)

$15 was probably thrown out because that's what a rename token costs on LJ.


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## lolcox (Apr 22, 2008)

Rename tokens? I support that concept. 

Maybe it'd get something in your pockets to work with.

/me hands Eevee a meatball sub.


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## Firehazard (Apr 28, 2008)

Bokracroc said:


> I could think of better things to sped $15 USD on. I'd just create a new account and slide stuff over at that price.



Which is definitely something I'd want to generally avoid happening.  It gets confusing, and annoying to have to re-watch them, re-fave stuff... re-comment if you're into that sort of thing.  Bigger hassle for all parties involved than it would be on a blog site like LJ, definitely.

I dunno.  The six-month cap makes more sense, as much as I know this site could use the money.


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## wildrider (Apr 28, 2008)

I know I would love to change my username, simply for the fact that I had this name before I settled on a character name of Maxon, but 15 bucks is pretty outrageous I think just to change a name.  

I like the 6 months wait between name changes, but name changes should only be allowed if they don't screw up artist pages and favorites.  If it creates more hassle than it should, then it mostly like isn't worth it.  People can create a new account if they want a new name that bad.


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