Poll: Would you like the facility to change your own username?

Nobody would have to change their name would they? So the question really is do you want other people not to be able to change their name?

No from me - although I wish that I been much more inventive in my choice of username in the first place

I really can't see why anyone would vote not to be able to change their name - no-one is saying you have to change your name!

Yes, I would like the facility to change if ever I wanted to.

humptydumpty I voted 'no' because I rather like to know who has posted and who I am talking too........makes sense to me!

But you don’t ‘know’ who has posted in any meaningful sense. Some posters reveal a lot about themselves - apparently but who knows if it’s true? What’s been missed out?

I voted yes I would like to , I feel , after the recent DM intrusion, if I wanted to honestly comment on something I might like to be anonymous to do so. Currently, I wouldn’t do that as I don’t want to be featured in the DM !

I don't like the idea of people potentially being able to change names as they wish, it means you don't know who you are talking to.

Maybe in particular circumstances with an acknowledgement that the user name has recently been changed but not reveal what the previous name was.

Limit the possible number of changes to a couple of months or such.

If I changed my name too often I would never remember who the heck I was.

I agree with BlueBelle and would prefer that GN stopped putting threads on other social media- or if they felt the need they could edit by putting 'some gransnetters think...... And other gransnetters think.........'
And at the start 'one of our GNetters has asked this question' or 'started this discussion'.
They could also tell the person who started it where they were spreading it.

Lara
'yes, theoretically they would be able to. Though we imagine most wouldn't. And of course we'd be keeping an eye out for any sock-puppeting.'

Forgive me I need to get my head around this, sorry.

So as things stand any poster can change their Username for reasons known only to them and GN.

The new proposal means a poster can change their Username during the course of a thread. In other words they could change their name to agree with their own posts, they could change their name to make a personal comment to other posters that they would not like to be seen as connected to their usual known Username etc. etc. A cowardly act .

Am I alone in seeing the pitfalls ?

I have to also say Lara whilst GN say you would not imagine ' most wouldn't ' you are making the case that you accept 'Some might'.

Likewise to say you will look out for 'sock puppets ', an online identity used for purposes of deception, how will you do that ? Does GNHQ follow each and every thread minute by minute?

I am not trying to be argumentative I am genuinely thinking this could be a gift to posters who like to stir things up.

I agree POGS and the suggestion by BlueBelle that we have a secure page for advice and support type things is a very good one.

Good Lord - some of us have real lives - changing your name several times during the course of a thread? Yeah - it happens all the time on MN

Actually, ALL of us have real lives.

As if we’ll get a secure page - MN don’t - they can name change. This is a forum - it’s not RL

In that case why on earth does name changing matter so much?

For the reasons that POGS outlines.

It works fine on MN, and has done so for years. Why not give it a try here and find out if there are suddenly fierce arguments involving supposed new posters?

Likewise to say you will look out for 'sock puppets ', an online identity used for purposes of deception, how will you do that ?

If you see a thread that seems to have a rush of new names squabbling, or agreeing with each other, and you think it might be the same person, report it to GNHQ and they can check on where the posters are coming from.

I heartily agree with BlueBelle I am not a member of Twitter but I would hate to think that any thread to which I had contributed ended up there.

Not coming up ony phone but would like to change it for very sensitive posts. A private "room" is a good idea, somewhere people could feel really safe to express themselves.

I agree with *nottooold" I chose my name quickly and now wish I had chosen one less likely to identify me

I think there would be more fuss about Twitter if more people were on there.
The latest one, tweeted last night, was GinandTonic01 and her grandchild being made to do PE without kit. Does she know that her post was offered up to 18.9K followers on Twitter? ( More actually because you don't have to be a follower to read it- I am not a follower)
I don't know why they do it- the Granset local accounts on Twitter manage to be very interesting without doing it.
I used to come into gransnet without logging in just to see if there was anything interesting but used to get the irritating bit coming up asking me to log in (don't know if the still do that) so I got in the habit of just looking on Twitter instead, because anything interesting ends up there, and only logging into GN if I want to comment.
I feel that they should either allow name changes or put Gransnet + Twitter at the top so that people know they are contributing to both.
Maybe this happens elsewhere- I just happen to know about Twitter. I suppose I should look on FaceBook.

A quick trip over to Facebook shows me they treat it the same way as Twitter so the latest is the PE thread by GinandTonic01) .
I have been thinking about starting a thread about my very elderly mother but there is no way, even with a name change, if it is likely to be presented on at least 2 other social media sites.
If I wanted to raise it on either Twitter or Facebook I would do it direct - not via Gransnet.
I certainly shall not post any useful advice from personal experience.

PLEASE CAN WE HAVE A CONFIDENTIAL PAGE /room
then you can forget about all this name changing muddling around and you can put all the average topics where you want

Just one page/room where people can post confidentently knowing their posts are not going to be in the newspaper or other social media sites that I m sure would satisfy everyone Why is that so hard ?