Username legend
 

Okay, despite the fact we resolved a few weeks ago to stop changing our usernames every other week, it seems like this isn't being enforced, which is fine. My biggest problem is that I never know who the fuck anyone is; since the name changes are extremely arbitrary. I anticipate massive CONFUSION coming up with this new "your username is a video game" week. I also don't care to look everyone up when I see a username I cannot identify, so I'm starting to think the only way for this shit to make sense is to:

A. Have some kind of legend that displays who is who.
B. Somehow have the user's real username somewhere around where their new, arbitrary, obscure, unidentifiable username is.

Sorry if I'm supposed to know who PULASKIGONK is, I really don't pay attention to the forum buzz to that extent.

A single centralized name catalog would be nice.

An index of member number -> name would actually be nice.

By the way who are you

I used to play Americas Army a while back and on the aaotracker.com forums you could click a player and view their game profile and see all the names that they have had in the past since account creation plus the number of times they have changed their names.

Thus it would be cool if in the users profile there is a link which provides a history of all name changes that the user has had.

Or people could not be douches and include their normal name in their sig or as their custom title. But I guess that is too much to ask for from people.

Ruzz
http://www.gamingforce.com/forums/cu...vatar222_4.gif
HI I AM RUSSIDEBURNS
Level 24 (54%)
Member 222
Since Mar 2006
Currently Online

Here's a good way to keep the server paid for.

You want your name changed? Paypal $5 to a GFF account.

Want it changed back? Ok, fine, you fickle douchebag. $5.

At the current rate, bobo will have his Puerto Vallarta beach house within a year.

I have to admit, I have been wondering just who the various *GONKS were this week. For some reason, though, I've had no trouble remembering which one was Skills. Go fig.

Isn't skills PICARDGONK? That's the only one I know. Assuming that I'm not mistaken.

Ah great idea Eleo.
I got confused with all the gonks too. I thought I knew which one Skills was but I forgot who else had the similar av with the forehead variant. Lots of random changes :S

Yeah, that's the only one I know too. I think it's because he was actually using a similar (the same) avatar for a while before the name change.

Maybe there can be some kind of temporary username feature implemented; where a temporary username is stored in the database but the real one is never actually overwritten. Maybe there could even be some timer, and the usernames automatically rolled back after X many days.

Of course this takes a lot of programming presumably on bobo's part, it would be easier if there were simply less username changes OR the username changes were less obscure OR people could put their real username maybe in their custom title or signature or avatar or something.

This is ramoth, president of the testing forums or something like that.

I always said that we need a master thread for username changes but nobody's listening...

Why don't you people keep a closer watch then so it won't confuse you.

Maybe people keep on doing name changes for the mass confusion it causes you idiots.

Or we could just have the damn list. What difference does it make to all the name changing guys?

Maybe the admins should stop making these stupid name changes then, or, ideally, ask five dollahs for it, as Crash suggested.

I honestly hope that no admin actually goes along with this week's hilarious Name Yourself After A... VIDEOGAEM LOL theme. Coming soon: name yourself after your favourite brand of canned Japanese Green tea ok!!

I didn't plan on going through with it. I figure they can put the title of the game in thier signature image or something.

Hey did you delete my spam of recognition?

Good =p.
I actually don't mind the idea of just placing the game title in my custom title. Plus, changing over 60 usernames does sound a little bit over the top.

Thank God. Now talk Blah and Styphon out of it, and we're home free.

You can always keep your real nick under Avatart. It would help a bit didn't it?

It would help if people actually did that, except 99% of the time, it doesn't happen.

well it kinda defeats the purpose.

If the purpose of name change weeks is to confuse the masses, then I see no reason for mods to even allow them to go on.

Uhh, I wouldn't allow them (well at least not as extensively as it's being practised right now), it's the admins who fulfill name change requests.

I meant admins, anyway.

I think it would be nice to have a custom username that could override your official username. What would happen is that whereever your temp name would be displayed you'd have a dot or something to indicate that it's a custom username and if you hovered over it with the mouse or clicked it, it would show the official username.

Here let me show you:

http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/5492/blank8pr.gif
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/8...amplep13rw.png http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/1...amplep22dz.png


What do you guys think?

I like the idea of having the real username in the little dropdown box, but if you're suggesting we have free reign over what our username is, I think that's going a bit far. I don't want to see everyone with some completely random name whenever they feel like it, even if there's a mention of their real name somewhere.

Look, if you people can't recognize a certain member after a name change, chances are that they're not worth your attention in the first place anyway.

(oh snap)

While I wouldn't enjoy an MSN style of constant name changes, I'd think people would have some self control. And this way if they had a custom username they'd still be able to login with their official username and admins wouldn't have to change names back and forth all the time. Like blah said, if we lose track of people somehow through this as if avatars, sigs, writing styles, and keeping in touch with members don't allow us to tell members with new names apart then they're probably not worth your concern anyway.

So blah, would this be possible? It certainly would relieve admins from having to do a ton of name changes, theme weeks would have the custom username option for fun times, and it would be much easier to keep track of who is who.

Also, wouldn't it be hilarious to go into a thread where everyone has their custom username as Tails? ='D

One of the message board packages (or perhaps several) have the ability to have a "display name" and a "username." The username is permanent and always displayed in the profile but the display name can be changed by the user at will. This is along the same lines as what Acer was talking about and would make theme weeks even easier and slightly less confusing! I am all for it.

It's easy enough to add another field to the profile, and then that field can be edited by the user. It should also be easy enough to edit the postbit template so that it displays the "custom name" rather than the username. I don't think technical barriers are what pose a problem here... it could be done.

I believe it would be quite easy, but then I'm not the one who would have to do it, so that's an easy thing for me to say. I've not had chance to play around with the guts of vBulletin in a few months, but theoretically it should be a piece of cake to have the postbit display a custom field in place of the username. Then, when you click the profile, it would show you the username. I'm pretty sure the drop-down menu would show the real username too.

The obvious solution is to have an admin-controllable option to turn these custom usernames on and off for theme weeks. When there isn't a theme going on, then the custom usernames are off to prevent mass stupidity.

I'm not saying that I entirely disagree, but why? When you can see the real name at the click of a mouse, what exactly would be the problem?

Well if someone abused it we could always just take the privilege away or something.

Actually, I really like Ultima's idea. If that could be implemented, as well, I'd be all for Acer's idea.

GFF is finished.

Well, considering that you can just turn Custom Display names off, I see no need to disable this, even after theme weeks. After all, a single click reveals the real name of the user, WHY DO YOU NEED TO BE SO FUCKING LAZY?

also bump ftl