HN Self-defeating Policies: The Username

1 points by NoBSWebDesign 16 years ago | 2 comments

So, I know this has been proposed several times, though I can't seem to find it at the moment with a simple search on searchyc.com.

Why is it that it's still impossible to change your username on Hacker News?

I understand the need for consistency and the fear of abuse, but I think that the first is a self-defeating reason and the second can be easily avoided.

First, consistency can be better achieved in my opinion by allowing a user to change their username. By not allowing it, you're forcing someone to create a new account which then dissociates all of their past posts, comments, and karma. Essentially, for all anyone knows they are a completely different user. I think this is much more confusing and inconsistent than if you were to allow the person to change their username. If you were to click it, you would still be able to see the karma that person has earned and the comments and posts they have made. You could even include a field on the user's info page that shows "past usernames".

Secondly, to avoid abuse, look at what Facebook has done with their vanity url's. They allowed users to change their name once and only once. This allows you to reconsider once you've had time to think on it, but knowing full well that you can only do it once, you better be sure. Not to mention, most users would never end up even using the one allowance, for fear that they'd want to change it to something else down the road.

Now that my reasoning is out of the way, I'll give you my reasons for wanting to change. I made my username, NoBSWebDesign back in the day (hey, I'm young, 2 years ago is "back in the day" for me), when I was first exploring the world of entrepreneurship by dabbling on the side. It was a shameless attempt to promote my business.

Well, that's not what I'm after here. I don't wnat shameless marketing within the confines of this community. Hell, that business doesn't even exist anymore.

But mainly, I dis-like the first impression it gives of me to anyone in this community. No, I'm not just some guy who can make websites. In fact, I have two BS degrees in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering and graduated top of my class for each. And I now own a successful consultancy and startup. I think I deserve a little more credibility than my naively-chosen username allows.

Alright, that's enough of my rant. I needed a break from work and this is one of those things that's been nagging me for a while. So, I just thought I'd put it out there. And since this may be my last post as NoBSWebDesign, I figured why not :-)

knieveltech 16 years ago |

"But mainly, I dis-like the first impression it gives of me to anyone in this community. No, I'm not just some guy who can make websites. In fact, I have two BS degrees in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering and graduated top of my class for each. And I now own a successful consultancy and startup. I think I deserve a little more credibility than my naively-chosen username allows."

If you where deserving of some random amount of credibility you just lopped that figure off at the knees with this paragraph.

Equally unimpressive is your unwillingness to display a modicum of adaptability in the face of an utterly trivial matter. Instead you've opted to post a rant.

RiderOfGiraffes 16 years ago |

Create a new ID and don't worry about it. If you want, you can put each ID in the other's profile, so if anyone wants to track down more about you the information is there.

noodle 16 years ago |

why not?

because its a non-trivial feature to build, and it would be likely that you would be the only person to ever use it in a manner that is not attempting to abuse the system in some form.

80/20 principle.