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

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

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 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.

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.

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?

For the reasons that POGS outlines.

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

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

Actually, ALL of us have real lives.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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 !

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?

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

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

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!

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

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?

yes

Plus I could never understand why we couldn't change our user name ourselves , so I think it's a good move by GNHQ