I know part of the attraction of MN is the ability to name change to keep things ultra anonymous but I would like to see a vague join date displayed next to posters names (month/year).
Particularly with contentious subjects like brexit, covid etc. It’s obvious that there are posters here to do nothing but agitate and then move on. It happens so often that a poster will start a subject then disappear in to the ether leaving everyone squabbling. It’s a documented problem everywhere on the net that interested parties pay people or develop bots to do precisely that.
I feel quite strongly that displaying a join date and leaving the name change facility alone would at least help posters judge whether they wanted to engage or not. I know some posters have concerns about new members been treated differently vs older members but I really feel that the positives outweigh the negatives in this situation and the majority of MN users aren’t twatty enough to make an issue of it.
It would also have the benefit of stopping people feeling like they have to ‘prove’ themselves by listing well known threads after a name change.
I’m just tired of the obviousness manipulation and propaganda going on with no way to judge before engaging. MN is such a well known, high traffic site that it’s always going to be a target. It’s not really fair that users have to rely on arbitrary ‘troll spotting’ skills.