Scratch

Ehhh maybe...
Or at least being able to have the Scratch Team change it for you by request.

No. Your username is notchangable, it is used to represent you on this site forever when you register. It's all in the Terms of Use. You know, the long essay thing that you skipped and clicked I agree?

I'm suggesting to change that, I didn't post it in "suggestions" because I felt like it. It could have a list of names which you have used on your profile, so it's easier to tell who people are, but they will appear as something else.

cheddargirl wrote:

fg123 wrote:

No. Your username is notchangable, it is used to represent you on this site forever when you register. It's all in the Terms of Use. You know, the long essay thing that you skipped and clicked I agree?

Well, the issue of changing usernames is not listed in the Terms of Use, but the part about usernames being unchangeable is right.

Long story short, the system underlying the Scratch website is set up in a way such that it is not possible to code something that will allow someone to change their username.

(Perhaps I should bug Chrishchb usernames to add username changes to the list of resolved suggestions. The same suggestion has come up before a couple of times).

I did look in there first. And I'm sure there's some way to overcome that problem, like (I'll say it in Scratch terms, that way more people will understand) having a new variable, called "visiblename", on the thread which displays your name it will display "visiblename" instead, when you first sign up "visiblename" is set to your username. This way the server can keep info about you, but you can appear as whatever, "visiblename" will just be a cover over your real name, which is only seen by the server. The list of names you have used could be kept on a list on your profile though, so people know who you were before.

EDIT: even some tricks with the censor could work.

Last edited by my-chemical-romance (2011-12-18 03:23:09)

cheddargirl wrote:

my-chemical-romance wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

Well, the issue of changing usernames is not listed in the Terms of Use, but the part about usernames being unchangeable is right.

Long story short, the system underlying the Scratch website is set up in a way such that it is not possible to code something that will allow someone to change their username.

(Perhaps I should bug Chrishchb usernames to add username changes to the list of resolved suggestions. The same suggestion has come up before a couple of times).

I did look in there first. And I'm sure there's some way to overcome that problem, like (I'll say it in Scratch terms, that way more people will understand) having a new variable, called "visiblename", on the thread which displays your name it will display "visiblename" instead, when you first sign up "visiblename" is set to your username. This way the server can keep info about you, but you can appear as whatever.

I'd imagine that would overtax the underlying system though. For example, you'd have to code the website to show up the visiblename everywhere instead of the actual username. That requires fetching for a minimum of 2,400,000+ pages (usernames and project pages) on a daily basis.

What about using the censor? If it censored my-chemical-romance (there's only one account with a name like that, so no way for any unwanted changes) and changed it to something else which was sent to the server as a namechange then that would work too.

cheddargirl wrote:

my-chemical-romance wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

I'd imagine that would overtax the underlying system though. For example, you'd have to code the website to show up the visiblename everywhere instead of the actual username. That requires fetching for a minimum of 2,400,000+ pages (usernames and project pages) on a daily basis.

What about using the censor? If it censored my-chemical-romance (there's only one account with a name like that, so no way for any unwanted changes) and changed it to something else which was sent to the server as a namechange then that would work too.

I saw your edit above, check my edit above.

Isn't there a way to bind a name to another in such a way that once it's been done once it will be able to do it a billion times with no lag?

And what do you mean by not possible to code something which does it? If you can code it then it's possible I always thought.

EDIT: Just contradicted myself, but you get the point.

Last edited by my-chemical-romance (2011-12-18 03:49:31)

cheddargirl wrote:

my-chemical-romance wrote:

And what do you mean by not possible to code something which does it? If you can code it then it's possible I always thought.

It's not possible to code something to change the username if the current database is left untouched. That's what I meant.

Should it be taken into account if/when Scratch gets a new/better forum? I mean, there's a chance to, and given the time this one will go wrong or people will get annoyed with it.

(Also, 1000th post. Woo?)

my-chemical-romance wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

my-chemical-romance wrote:

And what do you mean by not possible to code something which does it? If you can code it then it's possible I always thought.

It's not possible to code something to change the username if the current database is left untouched. That's what I meant.

Should it be taken into account if/when Scratch gets a new/better forum? I mean, there's a chance to, and given the time this one will go wrong or people will get annoyed with it.

(Also, 1000th post. Woo?)

Website changes are more of a "look" change than anything; it doesn't address something like fetching issues (which will remain no matter how much a website changes). What should be considered is how fast it takes to extract info from the database and have the website reflect any changes made to the database.

my-chemical-romance wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

my-chemical-romance wrote:

Should it be taken into account if/when Scratch gets a new/better forum? I mean, there's a chance to, and given the time this one will go wrong or people will get annoyed with it.

(Also, 1000th post. Woo?)

Website changes are more of a "look" change than anything; it doesn't address something like fetching issues (which will remain no matter how much a website changes). What should be considered is how fast it takes to extract info from the database and have the website reflect any changes made to the database.

I mean if Scratch recodes or gets a new forum, which will have to happen some time or another.

A new forum is pretty much a change to the way the website will look. The recoding part is also pretty much more of a visible change (since it just affects how the website looks and works to users and doesn't address fetching issues). So no.

Last edited by cheddargirl (2011-12-18 04:23:13)

WindowsExplorer wrote:

I own a social website, and it is very hard to change the name of a user. So imagine what Scratch Team would have to go through if the user had... let's say, 250 projects and 1800 forum posts. So, the answer is a no.

You don't have to change the owner of the posts and projects, just who the owner appears as which will be done after the whole owner thread, so it's not going to get in the way of anything.

my-chemical-romance wrote:

WindowsExplorer wrote:

I own a social website, and it is very hard to change the name of a user. So imagine what Scratch Team would have to go through if the user had... let's say, 250 projects and 1800 forum posts. So, the answer is a no.

You don't have to change the owner of the posts and projects, just who the owner appears as which will be done after the whole owner thread, so it's not going to get in the way of anything.

You do, as cheddargirl said in the post above this, on a forum thread, for example, the user's name was harry859, and had changed it to logomaster55, on the forum post it would still say "by harry859" instead of "by logomaster55", and the scratch team would have to manually update it to make it say "by logomaster55". Imagine doing that 1800 times?