nah, let us change our names.

But changing a user name is crucial part of NG and is loved by most users at some point when they begin to hate their username.

ugh, I hate all the people saying this is a good thing.

FREEDOM. stop taking the freedom out of this site. Freedom to have a big sig, freedom to make a review, now freedom to change our name

It's silly. Don't do this Tom.

The "Account name" and the "Display Name" seems to be a good idea for me. However, I have some suggestions.

I know that this goes against the "Grand Scheme" of NG. But is it possible to have users decide?

Like I mean that users who want to have a personal page must lock down their names before they can have one. And users who want to be able to change their names not be able to have a personal page. So then now users must decide whether or not to lock down the names for the sake of a personal page.

Also, each user who has their name locked down would have a special indicator (like a boarder or something) so when visiting their profile or replying on the BBS, that other users can see that this name is locked down, and that this name cannot change.

Also, in the case that a locked username wants to change, they would have to be of a certain level and wait 30 days or something before they can do so. If you really wanted to, you could make the users pay a small "fee" in order to have their name changed.

Pros:
-satisfies everyones needs

Cons:
-NG becomes less uniform
-User renaming may become a problem
-More alts for people who want both

Another alternative, which probably has been already mentioned, is to have the ID # in the webpage:

So instead of InsertNameHere.newgrounds.com it would become 1234567.newgrounds.com

Pros:
-Takes away the problem of user name switching

Cons:
-Doesn't look as nice

But whatever you decide, I won't complain if we have to lock down our names. Just make sure you give us an announcement before you do so.

I'm glad you liked my idea, Keep wearin' out the mouse homie, Peace.

i don't have a problem with my name being locked down as i have only changed it once (used to be mrb1) but i don't wanna change it againg so it's fine with me.

What ?! No !
Name changes please...

Lock the names seems like it would make things easier for many things such as alts but mostly the dilema you have, so lock em up.

~X~

I could really give a fuck about my own personal webprofile on NG. It would be to much like myspace, and that would suck ass. I would love to change , my name to a permanant name in the near future... keep it as it is.

At 11/7/06 04:32 AM, squeakytoad wrote: Yeah, just lock them up. DeviantART does it and everyone over there is fine.
If someone wants a name change that bad they can just delete their old account and get a new one. Or something...

That's fine for small artists who don't have anything worthwhile in their profiles dude, if we wanted a namechange on here, it would mean making a new account and abandoning flash, music, portal awards, exp, b/p points, forum posts and more.

I'm not affected by the name change, I think it'll do some good, but it'll be problematic for the important changes.

Well... seriously, i am really glad you gave us a heads up...

i really dont want this to go down, every time i think of a name, i hate it 2 weeks later. this is a huge problem on the net, because i can never change my name if i end up hating it...

i love newgrounds, because i can change my name whenever i get tired of my old name (i hate the name seercentral by the way... im glad you gave me this oppertunity to change it, i just havent thought of a new one yet).

please tom, think of another way than cutting of the ability to change our names... it what makes ng special :P

At 11/7/06 03:39 AM, N-Antichrist wrote: FREEDOM. stop taking the freedom out of this site. Freedom to have a big sig, freedom to make a review, now freedom to change our name

1. how has freedom to review been taken away?
2. this change on the whole would give users MORE freedom, individual customizable profile pages.
3. you have the FREEDOM to choose a name when you signed up, theres more ways to be creative on a holiday then changing your name to BigBadSanta or whatever.

I've basicly stuck with my username throughout.
The only change I made was from "Little_Rena" to "Little-Rena"
So it's not really a big deal.

Name changes aren't that important.
If you stilc with a name, people will remember who you are better.
In my opinion anyway.

Also, a custom profile page beats username changes.

I dont to lose the username change, who knows when you might want to change it?

I reccomend asking people like Channel Cat (creator of Sheezyart) about how to handle this kind of thing.
Also I see you're not dead. Always good.

Well... you could always set it up so the users must send you an email saying why they want to change it, do they have a reason etc etc etc. and then you can choose who's aloud to change and whos not and change it personally, but only if the request is good.

I dunno if it's a good idea, but it was just a thought.

You could have a couple of different options. There is already the first name, last name and alias options, well why not have a 'primary name' or something for the profile link. This could be changed, but not often as it wouldn't be a simple fix. For example a site admin could have to do it or something.

I don't personally have any issue with locking the names down. The name I have here won't be changing in the forseeable future, and the only change that did happen was when the underscore was changed toa hyphen.

If you do go with a lock-down, I'd give at minimum a month's notice, so everyone has the option to select the name that they feels describes them best.

At 11/6/06 08:26 PM, TomFulp wrote: Consider this post a sort of heads up... There's a chance your name might go on lockdown, so be sure it's the name you want to have. This is also a chance for everyone to share their opinions concerning this course of action. Go for it.

Well, whether changing usernames will be disabled or not, I thought I better change back to my usual name before it may be too late. Thanks for the notice about this. I did think maybe redirect the URL of a user to its current alias (e.g. if my old URL was http://helloween.newgrounds.com and when I changed to Bahamut, it redirects to http://bahamut.newgrounds.com), but that would cause a lot of mess if people changed names and took other names all the time.

The opt in idea seems to be the best one. If you opt in for a user page, your name then gets locked. All that would need is an aditional field in the db with a true or false value. That will mean that if you want to change your name, just don't sign up for a user page (sign up could be via the account options, much like the NG fan net is, but whether or not you can unregister is a whole new topic). Should keep everyone happy. Not sure about the suggested "border" wihtin profiles though. A simple link to the NG user page under the username would be easier and better in my opinion.

The idea of display names is't a great one. That would lead to even more names being used and unavailable for new users. It's not really fair that anyone can have 2 names registered, it's hard enough to find a name that you like as it is.

If opting in isn't an option that will be considered, then I say just lock them. It's been, what, six years of name changes? A good run, but the site's changing and there's no point being nostalgic about features that have been abused so much.

Alot of people are going to die...slowly, at the thought of locked names.

Warn them.

I personally do not have a problem with this. I'm happy with my screename now after searching for many years.

At 11/7/06 05:38 AM, mightyalrd wrote: Stuff

GENIUS CHRIST!!!!

lowercase

I think its ok to go ahead an lock the names. Personally it will help keep track of more users etc.

You certainly won't lose any newgrounds users just because names are locked down, the site is about MUCH more than that.

I didn't even know names could be changed, i just changed it before this post

i had a name i hated and still was a newgrounds member

goes to show username lockdown isnt the end of the world

just add a disclaimer so people know this is your perm name

Myspace has a system where users who first sign up have a unique number at the end of their URL, then once they decide on something better, they can change it and there it will stay.

Maybe Newgrounds could do something like that, where individual Aliases are changable, but the URL always stays the same?

I haven't even noticed that you can change your profile name so I don't really care about it being locked since my name is the same for 5 years straight. Go for it!

Why dont we have a user name and a display name? Thats how it works on WiiTogether. (in my sig)

You sign with the name that is used in your URL and the name that everyone sees is your Display name.

At 11/6/06 08:26 PM, TomFulp wrote: The question is... Do we allow users to change their names at this point? If you change your name, you are essentially changing your URL, meaning all existing links to your page will become dead links.

Well, give every user an email to say "If you want to change your username, do it now!" and then say a deadline of 1 month before creating all of the URLs

The sacrifice of not being able to change our names is one I am willing to make to have such an awesome thing as my own little NG URL

Hm I can't say I mind just yet, but I may wish to change my name in the future (as this is my third incarnation). I'd like that option to stay.

Maybe this has been suggested already (a LOT of posts to read through here) but could everyone have a separate Display Name and Username? The username could be used for the URL and logging in, and is permanent. The display name would be changeable and appears by submissions, BBS posts and such. Initially everyones display name and user name would be the same by default, but the Display name can be changed when the user wishes.

I think it would be a bad move to make names permanent because that would lead to many people having multiple accounts when then wish for a new name, which would get very confusing.