I just changed my user ID.  That seems rather strange for a social site like this, as people get to know you by your user ID only, and if you change it they might have no idea who you are.  Also, this could allow user ID stealing and a kind of identity theft (just here on the site of course) if someone changed their user ID and then someone else took it.  Could get pretty confusing if you ask me, however unlikely it is that people will be changing their ID's all the time.  What's the reasoning behind being able to change it?

There are those of us who edit our ids... for example, i like to add adjs infront of my name (decaffinated dekrazee1 etc)

But as you have pointed out, I have stopped doing that cos I didn't want anyone else to 'take' dekrazee1. 

+1 - I agree - userids should be sacrosanct.

Yeah, I actually agree. Have a screen name you can change, but not userid.

userid is your email (which is private). we debated this a bit internally when making the decision. In the end we decided it was up to the user to decide. If they really want to change screennames then why not? Most often though screennames are modified during the first few days/weeks of use. Once reputation builds people dont change it much.

Having a reservation/holding period for previous screennames is something we're looking at (so noone can steal your old name for a month or so). That's just an idea at the moment. Next release we'll look at adding a warning at least,

The problem is that the world is FULL of a-holes who will just change their screen-name once people have learned they are a-holes.

We need a way to track the a-holes.

Maybe a karma/credibility rating?

So my messages would be marked rgautier (+52 cred)

And if I change my name, it would be rgautier1 (+52 cred)

And someone else might be a-hole (-30 cred)

and changing id's they'd be a-hole2 (-30 cred)

And then we could block people with certain cred ratings (auto-ignore or auto-fold their messages)

You just described our karma plans!

and group membership control based on karma as well

stopping gaming of that is an interesting problem

we've been thinking about things like karma weighting based on tangler time, messages and user karma

Karma of rater could apply to karma they give out

If I am +50 karma and I rate you +1 - you get 50/10 = 5 karma points

Although that weighs older users less than new ones

so, yeah - a formula

Number of messages shouldn't be used, since a-holes are prolific

Smart people talk less, I think

yeah, i think it's not easy, but definitely possible

part of the advantage of a centralised discussion system is that reputation. Taking that with you onto blogs/websites embedded tangler discussion really benefits from that

actually, jibot manages reputation rather well

you give cred simply by using someone's username and then adding ++

i.e. factoryjoe++

if i say something dumb or that you disagree with, you'd say factoryjoe--

jibot tracks this and you can ask what someone's overall cred is

ay i second factoryjoe's recommendation - on one of teh irc channels that i lurk on the irc bot tracks peoples karma based uppon ++/--'s

I like that. More good reasons to freeze user names.

Maybe we have 'freeze your ID' day in Tangler.

I think you're all neglecting the fact that if you change user ID the impact is fully retroactive - All you old posts change... not just the posts moving forward.  You don't excape your past postings.  When one Cat did it was still immediately obvious who he was. This is a different matter than tracking Karma....

That said, I suspect i will live with my ids and egos for as long as i ams

Even if your old posts change too, there is that small period of time where the miscreant can have the element of surprise to cause some minor mischief.  Anyway, I'm not sure either way of locked or editable usernames would sufficiently deter these sorts of cretins...

That's true.... lots of ways to create mischief

Lockable usernames is more about the positive for me.

What if I go @pistos - welcome home!  and they've changed their name to Sotsip? Then we are all confused.

Also true...

Yes.

I'm with Marty:  people should be able to change their userids.  Sometimes people make poor choices and realize that later - but they've already participated in conversations.  Reserving the old name for a month so that it can't be used by anyone other than its original owner (people should be able to switch back) would be great.  In my own case I have still not decided whether I want to be known on the Internet as "felicopter" (my nick that is fairly unique globally) or "rohan.jayasekera" (my real name that is not as unique, e.g. there are two people in Wikipedia with that name, and neither one is me).

Nothing stopping folks from just signing up a new account with a different nick.  Right?   "Hi, this is <old nick>!"

Pistos, then what they've written on the old account gets orphaned.

I think that's the price you have to pay.   I just think that online names are serious matter.  Your reputation and identity flow out from them.  It's not something to be taken too lightly, IMO.

If someone is changing their name so often then shouldn't they be a nut tangler, schizophrenic basically. If you want to change your ID just register another freaking ID! How stupid are some people? Perhaps soon enough when social networking is forced to go Open Source with API's and we can 'scrape' our data off the site to then be imported/uploaded onto the new ID this will solve the hassles and arguments people have about wanting a changeable ID.

Adamo, when conversations are involved, as on Tangler, you can't scrape your posts and re-upload them, because they won't appear with the right date and time.

Please help me to understand this......

To my understanding, on one hand User ID is the one that we type in above the Password field at the Sign In dialog box. On the other hand, the name that appears next to the avatar & just above our messages is the Screen Name.

If this is so, then User ID should be editable cos it is tied to our email address to which we receive Tangler Digest/Updates. What happens if we change jobs or change Internet Service Provider or subscribe to a different email service provider (e.g, gmail), then the User ID won't be valid?

gracelim: Their definition of User Id refers to what you have defined as Screen Name That's where the confusion is

Yep, it is called a screenname, but it's the only way we know who each other is.

We should have a static username (that is not your email address)

And a changeable status.

Mick - Enjoying the weather

Maybe status only appears if you mouse over? or if I'm online. Dunno.

I know status may conflict with online/busy, etc. so another name could work.