Multiple Name Changes

[Chippednailvarnishing]

I've been on a thread tonight where someone has posted a goady OP and has then been unkind to another poster. It then becomes apparent that they are posting under multiple names on different threads, apparently because they are also posting on a local area thread.

Isn't it time to show how many name changes a poster has visible by their name? If you are posting nasty GF ops and you have 155 different names, it's clear to everyone what sort of thread they are on?

I don't!

But MNHQ can see exactly what you are doing, so if you were being goady, they would be able to deal with it.

Only if someone else reports it though...

Not too easy as such. It needs to be easy because most posters are genuine with genuine reasons for wanting a NC. But I do think it would be a good idea to a) relinquish names that a user hasn't posted front in 1-3 months, b) display the number of active usernames within the last month alongside the UN and c) make all but a select few categories have a deletion time frame so that posters like me don't feel like their UN has built up too much identifiable history.

I usually name change every few months because I don't want to be identifiable to certain people I know. If I think I've given too much away I name change. When I'd been a member for a few moths a real life acquaintance asked if it was me after something I'd posted.

But this time I changed because I wanted to talk about something very personal and didn't want it to be easy to cross check with other posts. It would be simple enough to just re-register with a different email address, so banning it would be pointless.

And if you do pull them up on it, then you get a telling off from MNHQ

Sock puppeting without being goady is just a bit sad, it doesn't really cause any grief.

Using different names around the site on different threads is perfectly acceptable isn't it?

Don't pull them up on it on the thread - most of the time you're going to be guessing. Report it to MNHQ so they can check. Then you don't get told off!

I don't see how any of these ideas would make any difference at all.

I think that completely preventing sockpuppeting within a thread would be good, partly to save people from accidentally outing themselves but maybe it might put unreasonable strain on computing resources.

I NC all the time, because PenisBeaker scared the living daylights out of me - one attention grabbing post and suddenly the OPs family life was the focus of a thousand amateur Sherlocks worldwide. Even more so now the Daily Mail are grabbing so much content from MN. Honestly you never know what's going to attract unwanted attention.

I disagree that it would be a technical nightmare.
You could have a local and MN name. You have a history of Names so Rusty would have 66 names. At any one time she could use her local and MN name. When switching back to an old name there could be a record created of that switch. Any repeated nc within 24 hours could generate a warning to MNHQ.
So if I swap between Giddy and 'newname' on different threads multiple times it generates a mail. If I swap between Giddy and on one thread it generates a mail.
If someone switched back from a nc to their 'proper' name and only posted on that then it generates no mail.

I think that people already have a "Local" NN which is separate from their main board names and can't be changed. So posting simultaneously with a Local name and another one is absolutely not suspicious, it's inevitable.

On the same thread though?

I know I'm labouring the point...
But "a) relinquish names that a user hasn't posted front in 1-3 months" why? What would happen with the relinquished names?

I mean, why not make them lose the name if they haven't started a thread in 4.5 months? Or something else random?

And what happens to the name that is relinquished? Does it go back in the pot, as that would be even worse for gfs

As a proud possessor of Strictly, Bake Off, Game of Thrones and Doctor Who nicknames, each of which tends to get used for three months every year and then left fallow, I'd be very upset to have them taken away from me.

There are people who have different names for different boards.
They might want a different identity when discussing matters on the Sex topic, to general Chat, to the SEN boards, to one of the advice boards.
None of that is sock puppeting.

I would support not allowing name-changing within a thread as I think that is generally either an accident or trolling.

There are no numbers next to names that would tell me anything about a user in terms of whether they were trolling. I don't understand the benefit of it at all. Would the displayed numbers be fixed at the time of posting or dynamic so they updated every time someone added a new name? All it would do is leave people vulnerable to having their names linked and being identified.
Oh look, ABCD(28) just became ABCD(29) at the same time as WXYZ(29) appeared on this other thread - I bet they're the same person.

I absolutely don't want to give up my other names!

Have a read of this

Hope you're ok Need

Banning name changing wouldn't have stopped that happening, Chipped, if someone wanted to do that, they'd just use a new throwaway email address, so it wouldn't be namechanging it would be their only name for that email.

But having the number of name changes visible would have made it pretty obvious...

In my head, relinquished names would go back into the pot, yes. But it only works if HQ also make a change that deletes threads on the same time frame, barring a certain few topics. And within the archives of the topics that stay permanently or for longer periods, names that no longer belong to the same user they did (or aren't 'owned' at all) could be coloured differently or have some form of indicator next to the name.

so if AnyFucker doesnt use their name for a while, I can use it? or eatshitdereck?

I dont think that is workable
I dont see why you would want to put them back in the pot - there is an infinite number of variations of names, and I would like to keep all of mine thanks

Well, I guess I'd better bring this out to stop it falling victim to Gruffalo's axe! I paid for it nine years ago in the charity name auction specifically so that no-one else could have it and I wouldn't appreciate having it taken off me!

Alright Stapler, we're just talking ideas here so there really isn't a need to get shirty my ideas are based on how I use MN, yours will be based on how you do.

Sorry GruffaloMother - didnt mean to be snarky - i think its more annoying me as I cannot change my own name at the moment

So if EatShitDerek makes a seasonal variation for a few months or has a couple of months away from MN, she could come back to find either someone else using her name, or her username blocked because she hasn't used it for a few months.

People who don't post regularly could be forced into choosing a new name every time they log in.

And I've just realised that I have name-changed within a thread intentionally - but definitely not to sock puppet. It's because I had already posted earlier in the thread but then wanted to share some personal information, but I didn't want it linked with my usual name.

The thread you linked to has been deleted Chipped, which kind of suggests that the current system works ok.
I know it's not perfect, and there are definitely disadvantages to the name-change system, but I haven't heard anything that might improve it.