Query about name changing

[EverySongbirdSays]

I'd like to change my name for one thread and then go back to using my current name for the rest of the site but it's come to my attention that if you namechange you can't go back. Is that right?

It's for IDing info so that my current posts can't be cross referenced with the new thread, which if they could would make me easily identifiable

Can't you just 'reply' to the email?

I'm posting off my phone which is playing up :(

Ah.

If you get stuck 'relying', you could always try emailing her again on an FAO basis referring to the contents of the mail she sent you. (Although, thinking about it, you'd have to go through the 'human' check on a fresh email - which involves a reply - so maybe just wait until you can access another device - and keep an eye on this thread in case MNHQ come back here.)

Good luck anyway.

'replying'

I have namechanged and posted on an older thread I was on, then didn't want to go back to the old name. I self-reported my post and it was ok.

Or, as a wise poster once pointed out to me, sockpuppetting is wrong, but occasionally forgetting who you are is fine on MN.

I'm glad Iona says it's possible to change back, but how do you do it? I namechanged for a sensitive post and now want to go back to my old name.

I can see the old name in nickname history but I can't seem to select it. If I type it in manually it rejects it as if it were already in use. Help!

Yeah tremble it does that to me - what you have to do is :

You still own all U/N's that you've NC'd to so when posting you just delete the greyed out default name and retype your old name.

The pisser is is that you have to do it every time and can't reset it as the default.

Wait, so nobody else can ever use a UN that's been used before, even if only briefly? No wonder it's so difficult to grab a good one!

Yep, well that's as I understand it !

Which is why so many usernames are variants on :

'the username I wanted was taken'

I have 4 of them now, as I outed my first NC pretty much straight away because of the defaulting issue , so NCd again for a specific thread, but I didn't want to accidentally default under that specific name and be outed by it, so I needed a new "default" even though I always post as 'EverySongbirdSays'

Hmm. I only NC when I'm abandoning a UN because I feel I've become too identifiable. I wonder if there will be a way in the future to choose to either reserve or relinquish a name upon NC.

Yes, my first NC was to intentionally detach that topic/thread from other threads and posts so that anyone who knows me in real life and was piqued by it wouldn't get far by searching the name. But I outed in 5 seconds and had to get the thread pulled in the end anyway. 3rd name was for a very, very, sensitive personal statement. 4th was to wipe out third so I didn't accidentally out with it. But I only use my first UN usually - i like my UN damn it.

Ah, thank you EverySongbirdSays

A pisser indeed, but better than being impossible, I suppose.

The whole usename thing is a rather odd process. I had to change my entire account because I needed to reset and my password and was advised my email address wasn't on record. Even though I had emailed MN a couple of times with that email addy. Only solution was a new account but of course I couldn't use the same nickname again as that is attached to the old account which seems to be floating around in the ether.

I can understand not being allowed to use a name that someone else used once, but if the post ever gets archived then it would be nice to make the name available again. So annoying if you search a username you wanted to see when it was last used and to find absolutely zero posts.