(And if you create a new account the mods will break all your stuff.... :P... i tried it...)

Yeah, I myself regret not making my name "bigstupidfighter" Unfortunately there seems to be no way. Maybe get permission to create the new account, and have the old one banned or something?

Still no.

Been there, tried that, in the first week of getting started. .

It is a complex problem I think that the rationale is that it lets people escape a bad reputation.

I haven't given it a lot of thought but I halfway think that it could be done in a way that meets the objections to it, but it would require coding that should be done by the people wanting to do this. I sure don't have the skills.

I'd envision something like a marker to show that it is a changed name (kind of like the gold and silver coins or the checkered mod flag) and a notation in your profile listing your prior name.

Also, I might suggest a limit, like one change every 6 or 12 months to reduce the workload and maybe some cut off like you have to be in the top 20% of rankings, so that you don't get mods bogged down in frivolous changes with folks who don't play much (or maybe you have to have been registered for a year and have played at least 40 games or something to be eligible)

I think to do this we would need:
1) a comprehensive list of the reasons why this is bad
2) a good workable solution for all those reasons above
3) someoen willing to do the work this would inevitably entail. Maybe a "master namer" mod who is willing to handle this workload.

That said, I'm pretty happy with Ogion now, but there is obviously some interest.

Those who are interesting in thinking up a solution here, please discuss. Who knows? Maybe we hit on a brilliant solution!

Well, I'm drunk enough to bite. As a former moderator of vdip, which is a site that uses the same code as webdip, I happen to know that it is possible for a username to change (oli has changed the username of, too my memory at least 3 accounts). However, on that site, only Kestas has that power and he probably has better things tondo rhen change yours.

Ah. I love drunken mods!

Presumably he could delegate this authority, no?

It can be done technically. Questions is whether and how to allow it

The answer is still no.

I believe it requires directly editing the database record and that would mean coding up something for the mods/admins as Kestas is rightfully going to keep the direct access locked down.

I suppose if Kestas is ever really drunk I may try and convince him to replace everyone's username with a pokemon. Other then that, sorry, still no.

@ jmo: Would you also ban all but the 718 coolest players? I think that's how many pokemon there are.

Oh I assumed they where up to 60,000 of them by now.

Yeah, different names appeal to you at different times in your life, I think...

On the one hand, I'd never have picked "obiwanobiwan" today...

On the other hand, there are worse names to be stuck with than a Sir Alec Guinness character.

"On the other hand, there are worse names to be stuck with than a Sir Alec Guinness character."
Such as the fascist implications of my name.

"@ jmo: Would you also ban all but the 718 coolest players? I think that's how many pokemon there are."
There are 151 pokemon, I stand by that.

All of you can wait in line until I get to drop the "President" from my name

Up until I played X and Y, I also held the belief that I only respected the original 151. Idk, there was something fun about learning 5 more generations of pokemon though. A bit overwhelming, but it was interesting.

@fesces -- I never thought of "fascist" when seeing your username. Not to worry.

Well seems like the mods are kind of set against finding a solution that could work. That's a little disappointing. Then again no one seems to be proposing any solutions or even to come up with any principled reasons for the existing policy. (Yes, I know there are some, but if we don't know what they are it is kind of hard to figure out what solutions might exist)

I need to save this explanation somewhere for how often I have to give it. The first problem is a logistical one. There are dozens and dozens of tables in the database(s) that the site uses. The username is used in many of these. Making the change requires alterations to multiple tables, which is something you generally try to avoid.

The next is in regards to people asking for permission to start over with a new account, which we get a lot. Doing so would allow people to start fresh with new records. That completely defeats the purpose of points and rankings.

Then you get into accountability. A username is associated with a forum presence. If you allow people to change usernames then you allow them to be freed from their past comments on the forum and their past in game actions (you have to assume that even if we list their past names on their profile that the majority of members would not bother or know how to check this).

If there is a solution presented that can solve these issues we'd probably be open to it, so long as there was minimal coding required. Kestas has a long list of issues to work on from us already, and name changes are pretty low on it, since they don't solve issues like meta-gaming school groups, or the rampant occurrence of NMR's.

Cool. Thanks for that!

1) changing usernames is actually kind of a pain in the ass
2) Any new system would need to not involve entirely new accounts, but rather involve changing usernames of existing accounts.
3) Any new system would need to make it easy and obvious to keep track of past names.