A newbie here. Pros and cons of changing your username on here multiple times

[MamaAlwaysknowsbest]

And why? What are the main reasons people would change their user names.

To stop people searching their posting history.

To stop themselves being doxxed or spotted by someone they know IRL.

Cons: you can't build long term connections or friendships with people through the board. Take your pick.

I change mine regularly, I find different names depending on how I’m feeling. Also
because XH knows I’m on here and I don’t want him to twig its me posting. Also I’ve had it where someone has used my username with a 1 eg NeurodivergentBurnout1 (which is very bad form on MN!). They had some quite controversial opinions and I didn’t want people to think it was me posting so I changed names then as well.
Only con really is if you post something as an OP with a name change and people search your history, that’ll be the only post. People can be a bit skeptical so many people write ‘name changed for this’.

I’ll temporarily namechange if I post or comment on something that might identify me IRL because I don’t want it linked to my general posting history as there would be things I wouldn’t like someone I knew to read if they worked out who I was from a particular post. Also, some posters like to go back through all your old posts via advanced search to find ammo to use against you for whatever reason.

I do a full namechange every couple of years or so.

how do you search people's posting history? by pasting their username in search facility? I tried this the other day and gave me no results

This - see current username !

I've been on MN over 20 years and have disclosed so much personal information you wouldn't need to be Sherlock Homes to work it out if you even knew me a little bit.

I've been outed twice, once nicely by a friend (which we laughed about) but once not so nicely by an ex who tried to use it as leverage over me.

So no sinister reasons here, quite the opposite.

Paste a username in the advanced search

You need to use advanced search, but that will only find the specific user name - it won't tell you what other names the poster has used.