Possibility to return custom user name feature?

Just wondering, since we have new administrator in the forum, I want to ask whether custom user name could be implemented again in the future. I remember bobo or Blah said it was removed from the forum because causing crash(es).

I really hope someday we could use it again, I think it's one of the coolest feature in a vbulletin forum.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Well, we've talked about it before and basically we decided that we'd probably only turn it on for theme weeks. If we were to have it back then we'd have the feature off by default for everyone. That way you choose to view custom usernames.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Worst feature ever. If you want to portray yourself as an interesting or funny person, you should do it through the quality of your posts, not by changing your username every week.

Although having it defaulting to "Off" would lessen the blow somewhat...

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Having it default to off would leave things exactly the way they are for everyone who doesn't want to participate. What is the problem with it, again?

It seems like you're trying to dictate to people how they should have fun, and I don't really agree with that, presuming their way of having fun doesn't cause anyone else undue distress (like trolling, for example). Seeing as how people don't have to have display names on, the only way it causes people stress is if they willingly subject themselves to it.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Brent

Having it default to off would leave things exactly the way they are for everyone who doesn't want to participate. What is the problem with it, again?

It seems like you're trying to dictate to people how they should have fun, and I don't really agree with that, presuming their way of having fun doesn't cause anyone else undue distress (like trolling, for example). Seeing as how people don't have to have display names on, the only way it causes people stress is if they willingly subject themselves to it.

Because it lessens the effect of mass name changes for theme weeks as half the board won't know anything's changed.

I also, personally fail to see the humour in constant name changes but that's just me.

How ya doing, buddy?

No, that's me too.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by AcerBandit

Well, we've talked about it before and basically we decided that we'd probably only turn it on for theme weeks. If we were to have it back then we'd have the feature off by default for everyone. That way you choose to view custom usernames.

I agree it should just be for theme weeks

Tho It would be nice if there was a few in the near future

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Shin

Because it lessens the effect of mass name changes for theme weeks as half the board won't know anything's changed.

Maybe I'm confused, but isn't that kind of the point? I'm pretty sure most of us who don't participate in the name-changing theme weeks don't want to be effected by the members' name changes.

If it keeps everyone from getting completely confused during these weeks and prevents those not participating to keep a list of members, I'm all for it.

But I do see your point that if not everyone participating can be seen by the public, it's not as lol.

Is it a big drain on the system or something? I don't quite understand how that works.

Quote:

I also, personally fail to see the humour in constant name changes but that's just me.

Me too.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

First the argument against it was that nobody would know who anyone was and it was unnecessarily confusing. Now the argument is that if not everyone participates it lessens the effect and isn't as funny. Let's make up our minds here, okay guys?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Well, I liked them before and I still like the idea. But I won't go demanding it or anything.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Shin

Worst feature ever. If you want to portray yourself as an interesting or funny person, you should do it through the quality of your posts, not by changing your username every week.

Doing something that's fun != doing something that's funny.

Shin doesn't want others to have fun.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I thought they were cool for spur of the moment changes (like Skills' THE GRAIN BARON title back on SB). It took a bit of detective work to figure out who THE GRAIN BARON was, and with custom titles, that problem would have been solved. As long as they're defaulted to "off" for the folks that don't like them, I don't see the harm.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Elixir

Doing something that's fun != doing something that's funny.

Shin doesn't want others to have fun.

If that's your idea of fun, I imagine you don't get invited to many parties.

I was speaking idiomatically.

It's funny to change your username (for whatever reason, be it to confuse others or if it's part of a theme week) probably once or twice a year or something, but it gets old really fast if the feature is abused.

Why do we need the custom username feature to be on all of the time when people can simply PM Blah or Miles for a temporary name change? It may be a little less work on their end, but it's not so much work that it takes their time away from other priorities.

I'm probably the only one to say this, but if we were to have this feature brought back, it should be turned on only during theme weeks and have it defaulted to being On, because, like Shin said, if the feature is defaulted to Off most of the board won't know anything's changed (aside from avatars). Besides, people can turn the feature off if they wanted to, and there is almost always a list of participants in the main post of a theme week thread.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Blue_Kirby2

Why do we need the custom username feature to be on all of the time when people can simply PM Blah or Miles for a temporary name change? It may be a little less work on their end, but it's not so much work that it takes their time away from other priorities.

Because the best part of the custom user name feature was that you could click on a person's name and see the original username. That way, haters could either turn the feature off, or at least click the person's name to see who they were talking to. I don't see how anyone could not like this feature. If you have it turned off, you'll never see any username changes, which would be a step up from what we see now.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Blue_Kirby2

It's funny to change your username (for whatever reason, be it to confuse others or if it's part of a theme week) probably once or twice a year or something, but it gets old really fast if the feature is abused.

Well if it's getting old for you, you can turn it off. Problem solved.

Originally Posted by Blue_Kirby2

Why do we need the custom username feature to be on all of the time when people can simply PM Blah or Miles for a temporary name change? It may be a little less work on their end, but it's not so much work that it takes their time away from other priorities.

I think Blah coded it in the first place for that reason alone: with some of the huge events, the admins were manually changing upwards of 50 names. It was a hassle.

Originally Posted by Blue_Kirby2

I'm probably the only one to say this, but if we were to have this feature brought back, it should be turned on only during theme weeks and have it defaulted to being On, because, like Shin said, if the feature is defaulted to Off most of the board won't know anything's changed (aside from avatars).

Having it defaulted to off means you can leave the feature enabled all the time.

I really don't get your argument, Shin. First you say you think it's a dumb feature and then you say that it's lame if it's defaulted to off because nobody will notice the difference. If it's so dumb, isn't it being defaulted to off a good thing?

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Guys, just gonna say this. I made this huge ol' argument back when the feature was turned off by default for everyone that it should be on by default and allow people to turn it off if they don't like it. I lost that argument and by and large I came up with the concept for how custom usernames would work with the whole clicking the custom username to reveal the real username thing. Even though custom usernames only effect the usernames on the forums it was pretty much decided that if we were to use custom usernames all year that the feature would be off by default until you used a custom username yourself or turned custom usernames on.

However, I could see it being argued that they should be turned on by default during theme weeks. We don't have a whole lot of proper theme weeks these days. More or less we have lots of ava/sig chains and when those develop bigger to where possibly we could consider it a theme week it's too late to really implement custom usernames or it might not have even called for name changes at all so no matter.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Name changes for theme weeks is a relatively new development. I'm not sure if Ace Combat ERA was the first, but it was one of the first and one of the biggest ones to do it that way. We've had theme weeks before that had nothing to do with changing names is my point.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I don't see the humor of changing names either, but if it's off by default, I see no harm in allowing the people who do get a kick out of it to change at will and link to their profile in chat every ten minutes.

Acer's rationale that it should be on by default was another one of his brainstorms I can't agree with.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by a lurker

Name changes for theme weeks is a relatively new development. I'm not sure if Ace Combat ERA was the first, but it was one of the first and one of the biggest ones to do it that way. We've had theme weeks before that had nothing to do with changing names is my point.

Sephiroth week is the first mass name change I remember.

Brent, what I'm saying is that if people gain the ability to chop around their usernames all the time, a lot of folk are going to switch the feature off as it would be annoying as all hell. That would mean that should a big theme week come along involving name changes (Such as Sephiroth week where instead of a gay sign up thread, the staff and a few other notable members had their usernames changed for them, many not even realising for a few days) most of the board wouldn't notice.

If you desperately want to change your name, PM one of the boys. If changing your name constantly is that much of a hilarious fun time for you, log into gfchat and change it to your weird little heart's content.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Qwarky

Acer's rationale that it should be on by default was another one of his brainstorms I can't agree with.

Yeah, and I realized after arguing it that it was a battle I wouldn't win and after seeing all the points against having it on by default I also realized it wasn't a great idea after all. However, I do see having it turned on by default for when we have those large theme weeks that involve name changes as a good thing.

As Shin said earlier a theme week that involves name changes as one of its focal points wouldn't be as good if everyone couldn't see the new names for the week. If people decide that they hate that particular theme week and its name changes then they can turn custom usernames off.

I do agree that custom usernames should be off by default if the feature was to be available year-round and it should be up to users to turn it on if they want to see or use it. I do believe that you should turn it on for all users during theme weeks and turn it back to their last setting once the theme week is over. That or have an extra setting for custom usernames that asks if you'd like to see custom usernames during theme weeks and that particular setting would be on by default. It would do the same thing but it would make the switch much smoother and users could decide at any time if they want custom usernames to display during theme weeks. Actually I think I prefer this new option idea better. I don't see anything wrong with that and I'd hope you would agree with me. Seems like a viable solution.

We may just need to add other details like that when you set it into theme week mode all custom usernames are clear so that those with custom usernames that don't relate to the theme week don't confuse those who have had custom usernames off for normal times only. Basically when we go into theme week you'd have to type in a new custom username. That or their would be two custom usernames so that the field for custom username would return back to the older custom username once the theme week was over. Hmmm... this is starting to get confusing.

Okay, let's say I have my custom username as "that kirby guy" normally and then we go into theme week mode for uh let's say Frogs because I dunno we suddenly really like frogs so my name goes back to normal and then I change it to "Keroro". A week goes by and we decide the frog theme week is over so the theme week status for the forums is turned off and my custom username goes back to "that kirby guy". How does that sound to you all?

Or perhaps you can always keep your custom username but then you have to go into a thread that belongs to that particular theme week and agree to joining it with a custom username and then it will take you to a screen asking you to input your theme week username. Then! Then and only then would users that have "View theme week usernames" checked will they see a them week username. Anyone else who isn't participating in the theme week can still use their custom username. Yeah! That's perfect. Also, that allows for the option of people who hate theme weeks but love custom usernames to not see theme week names but still see everyone's custom username they had before joining a theme week. Yeah! Loads of options that work for everyone. Brainstorming is fun. =)

So let's see in the user's profile:
Custom Username input field
View Custom Usernames check field
View Theme Week Usernames check field

And have the user input a Theme Week Username when pressing the Join Theme Week button in Theme Week thread. Theme Weeks time limits can be specified in the opening post by the thread creator and by staff (and possibly an activity staff). The time limit will be public to people so they know when a theme week will start and when it will end. They can join at any time but the theme week username will expire once the theme week is over or they decide to click the Leave Theme Week button. You could possibly not use a theme week username when you decide to join a theme week if you don't want to. There would be a check mark for that "No Theme Week Please" check field or something. That way people could still join in on theme weeks and the thread could keep stats of how many people join the theme week, when the join, when they leave, peak numbers, and any other misc. information. How does that sound?

I was speaking idiomatically.

It all sounds too complicated.

I take my GFF with a little less MySpace.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

tl;dr? =/

FELIPE NO

I thought Id throw in my 2 crappy cents. Custom usernames are confusing as hell at times. I remember back awhile ago, when it seemed everyone was using that 50year-old shaved head ugly dude and "Internet Robin" "BATMAN" and what-not. There seemed to be know way to actually know who the hell was posting, and for me as a casual poster/lurker, it was really off-putting.

Now, I do see and like the idea for custom usernames as a toggle on switch in the user profile. That would be great, because casual users who come here more for informational conversation rather than community events/friendship won't be confused, and those that want more community interaction can enable Custom usernames.

No need for the other fluff. If you know about custom tags, and care, they you will have it clicked, and everyone else that bums around will be happy too.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Dayvon what you saw (Internet Robin) was not a custom username. That was a name change. A name change is the equivalent of custom usernames that are on by default with no feature to ever turn them off. Custom usernames thankfully won't work that way.

Jam it back in, in the dark.