Feature suggestions and discussion [READ THE FIRST POST]

@TexasUberAlles  
If you consider 4 times a year, at maximum to be “every fifteen minutes”, sure.
 
But that’s assuming someone wants to change their account name every chance they get. And even if they do. It’s still an incredibly long pause between name changes.  
That, and artist tag aliasing means you’ll still be able to find an artist even if they changed their username/tag name. So you won’t have to worry much about that on any artist you’re following.

@evan555alpha  
Speaking for myself, I am very happy that the site doesn’t force that kind of tracking, but allows a user customizable space (the About Me area) so people can add it themselves if they would like.
 
@TexasUberAlles  
Tracking copyright is a different matter, and I want to make sure that any artists reading this know that if they would like to change their artist tag here on the site, whether they have changed their profile name or not, they can do so on the artist alias request thread - it’s no problem to change your tag, and if you have a profile here we’ll help make sure your user links (AKA verified artist links) are set up as you would like.

tl;dr no solution for names will be perfect

@Zeb  
That doesn’t mean that it’s not a pain to have to find their associated artist tag to know which user is who. What about the users who aren’t artists?
 
 
@Ciaran  
Speaking for myself, I’m very annoyed that that wasn’t the default. It should be.  
Then at the very least, add it as an opt out feature. That way you’re not “forced” to be tracked, and it’s there by default.
 
And another thing. If you’re keeping it so that old comments and such will have the old profile name, how the hell is that any different to having these listed on the user page? Listing it on the user page just makes it centralised.

@evan555alpha  
Well, from what I’m hearing from the developers that simply was not an option. It’s just too big a step from the site’s framework.
 
So we’d still be changing profile names by hand, for those who met the necessary criteria, and telling everyone else to wait.
 
For me, I’m glad that we were able to get something working so quickly, and working as well as it is. For a few months it seemed it was not going to be possible at all, but here we are.
 
I for one am pretty happy that the volunteers helping to develop and maintain the code that runs the site invested the time and effort to get us what we have. As others have already said, it has helped a lot of people already.

@LightningBolt  
Reverting back %)

@evan555alpha  
The way I saw it, the “workaround” absolutely would work. Here’s how: Person McPersonface changes to Totally not a BP, and a new account is registered at /profiles/Person+McPersonface with a link on it pointing to /profiles/Totally+not+a+BP. Then they change their name to Tworlort Sprackle, and a new account is registered at /profiles/Totally+not+a+BP with a link pointing to /profiles/Tworlort+Sprackle. Do you see what’s happening? Even if you tried to visit Person McPersonface’s account, it’d only take you two clicks to get from there to Tworlort Sprackle.
 
Of course, making the list of previously-used names complete and user-visible would help, too. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t be, and we already know such a list is visible to mods.

I think the core issue here is a disagreement between whether it should be easy to keep track of who someone is when they change their name. A lot of people seem to say “yes”, but the general staff stance (although it does seem not all of them agree) seems to be “no”.
 
Personally, I’m of the opinion that in the general case, the site should keep track of the previous name(s) a person has had, and someone wanting to completely disassociate from their old username should be treated as a special case. Of course, I’m not actually sure what the ratio between these two scenarios is, so I’m not sure if it working like this would be viable.
 
I also do feel like profile URLs changing is kind of a big deal; not necessarily because of not being able to find the right person, but suddenly opening the door for it to be able to lead to the wrong person.

@SuperSupermario24  
Would it make sense to make a poll on this? Maybe that would settle it.

@TexasUberAlles  
There’s a limit per period and it tells the previous name though.

Hey, so I asked Wesley Foxx for permission to use his old name as an example of how it would work.  
Check this out: https://www.derpibooru.org/profiles/Keith+Mowz
 
I don’t think that’d be hard to automate, nor do I think it’s intrusive on the original account with an updated name. Link abuse, squatting, and trolling is effectively prevented. It’s also easily undone. Win-win-win.
 
And personally? I don’t think this name change feature can ever be a satisfactory solution for people who want their names dropped. It already connects too much of their past to them, putting their new name on comments they want to leave behind them. To change that would turn this into a “delete my account” button, which I know would never fly, and it would make life harder for anyone else who just wants to change their name.
 
Staff have already acknowledged that creating a brand new account is a better solution for them, anyway. We need to stop encouraging them to use this feature instead.

@WingbeatPony  

 
Yes, please. I don’t know how you got the impression this feature was supposed to be used that way, or that anyone on staff was advocating for that use.
 
If someone genuinely needs to run silent they should report their own profile for a reason of “other” and describe your situation in the text field and we’ll contact you to discuss your options.
 
[edit] And if you need your “name dropped” or something like that, please do NOT create a new profile before contacting us - that is not necessarily a solution or even necessary in most cases, so let us talk with you about your options first.

@Ciaran  
It started with how this was worded:  

 
The first sentence is just poorly worded - I now understand it was meant to carry on from the previous sentence: “[the notification will stop showing after two weeks, but] old comments will show [the notification] indefinitely.” The first time I read it, I thought it meant the old username would be shown indefinitely, which is clearly not the case, so then I misinterpreted it as “your old username is now permanently changed to the new username.” Which, while true, left the impression that the notification would be disappearing from all comments.
 
I can’t be the only one who misunderstood that. It’ll need a rewording later, but at least I know we don’t have a 2-week deadline that’s half-up already before mass confusion breaks out.
 
The bit about name dropping, though, I still don’t understand why this is part of the feature if it was never meant for completely abandoning the name.
 
I’ve learned that I get really bull-headed about problems if there’s a misunderstanding, because no one ever knows what I’m talking about - why would they? So anything you could do to clear that last part up would be greatly appreciated.

@WingbeatPony  

 
Sure.
 
If someone wants to completely abandon their current profile name, including removing any evidence that they have existed on the site by that name, they may report themselves using the “Report This User” link on their profile, select a reason of “Other”, and describe their situation in the provided text field. Someone on staff will contact them to discuss the options that are available.
 
This is not something we do lightly or often - but if someone is at risk or is somehow unsafe because of their profile name, for example if someone used their actual legal name as their profile name, or because of a stalker, we will try to help.

@Ciaran  
No, I mean, why do user names become available for reuse? That’s the same as abandoning the name, the way I see it. The original user no longer has control over what happens to the name, or what anyone does with it, and without a highly-visible presence on their user profile, it is barely even connected to them beyond comments they made in the past.

@WingbeatPony  
Because some users take names like “Rainbow Dash” or “God” or “Dickbutt”, basically not every name a user can have is 100% personal. Sometimes it’s just a character or a general word.

@LightningBolt  
None shall be allowed to claim the mighty name of DickButt  
All Hail Lord DickButt!
 

@WingbeatPony  
Names become available for reuse because I wanted them to become available for reuse. Simple as that.

@Joey  
I bet you if I changed my name wumbl3 would get snatched up in an instant :P

@wumbl3  
Which is a good thing, right?

@wumbl3  
You’ve been a member for 11 months, meaning that the name was available for five years and two months before it got snatched up the first time.

@wumbl3  
Yay thx

@Joey  
Sure lol :P  
@Ciaran  
I mean this name is probably more interesting today than it was prior to me using it :P  
@Pacific Glow  
Uhh… You’re welcomed?…. What did I do?

@wumbl3  
Pointed out where HD stream thumbnail option is.

@WingbeatPony  
Ohhh yeah right… haha. Should of clicked the @wumbl3 thing to see what exactly you were responding too :P