Username Changing [poll]

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Should web applications allow users to change their usernames?

Yes
2
13%
No
5
33%
Depends (tell us why!)
4
27%
I have some nachos and they are delicious.
4
27%
 
Total votes: 15

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Chalks
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Username Changing [poll]

Post by Chalks »

I had always just assumed that changing usernames was a no-no. It's fairly trivial to program a web application/site to allow it but most sites I've seen don't do so. I was curious about what the community's thoughts on this were.
This was prompted by this thread

edit: trivial IF you have that in mind from the very start.


My vote is "no". I think that changing a username leads to massive confusion for everyone involved, especially on things that are primarily social (like forums). Maybe if more people used their real name I would consider it. *shrug*
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pickle
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Re: Username Changing [poll]

Post by pickle »

I voted "Depends" because I don't think apps *should* allow it, but I don't see any harm if they do allow it (assuming of course, the username isn't used as the identifier for a user).

In a social environment, if a user wants to change what they are referred to as, then let them. If after they change no one has a clue who they are - that's their problem.
Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.
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onion2k
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Re: Username Changing [poll]

Post by onion2k »

Depends. If it's the sort of app where things are closely tied to a username (sales, marketing, etc) then it shouldn't. On the other hand, if it's something where a user's username is used to socially interact with other people then it definitely needs to be changeable because people themselves change. What's a fun and funny nickname today might not be so great in 5 years time.

That said though, I voted for nachos.
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jayshields
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Re: Username Changing [poll]

Post by jayshields »

I voted no but I'm actually considering changing mine on here :lol:
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mikemike
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Re: Username Changing [poll]

Post by mikemike »

Varies greatly on the application involved. As far as I can remember phpBB allows the admins to select whether they want to allow the users to change their usernames or not. There are plenty of reasons for and against in any case.
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JAB Creations
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Re: Username Changing [poll]

Post by JAB Creations »

If it was a yes please tell me the database is relational! :lol:

No idea, I voted that it needs justification.

I don't like nachos, more for everyone else. :P
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jayshields
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Re: Username Changing [poll]

Post by jayshields »

JAB Creations wrote:If it was a yes please tell me the database is relational! :lol:
What do you mean by that?
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Chalks
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Re: Username Changing [poll]

Post by Chalks »

he means that if it's not relational you're going to have to go change a TON of crap. See the original thread I linked for an argument discussion about just such a thing. ;)

edit: 404 posts. POST NOT FOUND. D:
Last edited by Chalks on Thu Jun 04, 2009 2:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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jayshields
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Re: Username Changing [poll]

Post by jayshields »

Well I sort of thought he meant that but it's not worded to that effect. It's pretty obvious that any database now-a-days is going to be relational! :)
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mikemike
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Re: Username Changing [poll]

Post by mikemike »

Chalks wrote:he means that if it's not relational you're going to have to go change a TON of crap. See the original thread I linked for an argument about just such a thing. ;)

edit: 404 posts. POST NOT FOUND. D:
I assume you mean discussion, this is a happy place! :drunk:
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Darhazer
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Re: Username Changing [poll]

Post by Darhazer »

No!
As your name was given to you when you was born and you cannot change it (unless the court accept your new name), the nickname should be unchangeable. Although I changed my nick from DarkLight to Darhazer (since many other people use the name DarkLight), this is the only change for about 10 years I'm using internet, and I didn't change the name in any place I'm registerd as Darhazer. Still, there are people that call me Dark Light or Darky. So I assume that the court changed my name to Darhazer, as I had reason to change it, and issued me a new ID card :mrgreen:
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Weirdan
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Re: Username Changing [poll]

Post by Weirdan »

jayshields wrote:It's pretty obvious that any database now-a-days is going to be relational! :)
Actually not, especially if talking about services under high load.

Back on topic: in my opinion anyone even considering username change should be banned for life.
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Darhazer
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Re: Username Changing [poll]

Post by Darhazer »

Weirdan wrote:
jayshields wrote:It's pretty obvious that any database now-a-days is going to be relational! :)
Actually not, especially if talking about services under high load.
Why not? Or you just refer to optimizations, that break the normalization rules?

Several weeks ago I described "cache table" as a "table, used only for selects, that breaks all normalization rules" :mrgreen:
Pulni4kiya
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Re: Username Changing [poll]

Post by Pulni4kiya »

Depends.
Are you creating the application for yourself or for other people (something like phpbb for example).
In first case: NO! It's not a problem to allow it but I really dislike it since lately everyone is changing their name every week.
In the second case: It's better to make it optional. Maybe an option for change request so the admin should confirm it or even better: an option for the admin to allow one change in some time he likes (a week, a month, a year...never...).
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Weirdan
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Re: Username Changing [poll]

Post by Weirdan »

Darhazer wrote:Several weeks ago I described "cache table" as a "table, used only for selects, that breaks all normalization rules" :mrgreen:
This usually starts as you described, with several "cache" tables. The more load you get, the more cache tables you create, and the less you use original normalized tables. Then you throw an in-memory cache into the mix. Later on you understand that you hardly do any joins, and everything you select is either from denormalized tables or memory. And normalized tables just sit there, taking space and not being used at all except for populating denormalized tables. So you remove this unnecessary step and start populating those tables directly (with some background task reading data from message queue probably). At this point, even though formally you still use RDBMS, your database is not relational anymore because entities are spread across multiple tables, same data stored in multiple places and there aren't any clear relations anymore. The database starts to look like Google's BigTable, or big hash-value storage like BerkleyDB, or object/document storage like CouchDB - so you start looking for specialized solutions, optimized for the kind of data structure you've got.

Of course not every project grows big and popular, and not every project completes its way out of RDBMS world, but even moderately loaded services tend to start it, at least.
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