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Torsten

Display name can only be changed once every 12 months

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The anonymity of the internet has its advantages, but also causes problems. A community is only as strong as the cohesive forces between its members. So if you have a community where everyone can change their mask at any time, then no one else can recognise them and hence the cohesion and trust suffers. When this forums first started it was not possible to change display names. In fact, there were no display names, there were only usernames, so if you wanted to change name you had to lose your old identity.

The person changing their name might not realise just how much he is discarding at that point. he doesn't realsie just how many members will have a weak, but nonetheless important recognition of that name. Even the weakest recognition fosters trust. I think the frequent name changes are very detrimental to the community.

Even from a personal perspective, I often feel I have lost many senior members, when in fact many simply changed their name.

Apart from the positive aspects of a permanent name there are also the negatives of transient names. Some trolls change their name every month to avoid detection or to generally avoid being noticed for what they are. People just lose track.

Some of the most trusted members here still have the same name they had when they first joined. Next time when you consider embarking on a new identity, also consider just how much positive you are throwing away.

While I am not going to stop members from changing their names if they really want to after a substantial period of time, I am going to put a stop to the frequent name changes as they serve no positive purpose. So, from today I have set the display name change limit at once every 12 months.

Should any member have any VERY pressing reason for name change, such as legal matters, you can still approach me anytime and I can make the change for you.

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Excellent!

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yeah: sometimes a change of identity can be good too though. I got sick of being known as meanies. thought kindness might resonate better with what I wanna do in this world.

peace

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Glad you put mention in your sig.. wish everyone would do that

Now keep it there for at least a year :P

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i thought meanies was cool better than kindness, even tho kindness is nice if you disagree with anybody now i wont thing you are kind.

when i first joined i really enjoyed reading some dude called hunab ku's posts, then he changed to chiral and i enjoyed his posts too....he changed again didnt he to possibly the worst name i have ever seen, without knowing to much about the back story it seems like if the 1 year thingy was in place he might have had a month or so to contemplate for example.

xodarap i can deal with, it took me months to work that one out but obviously if someone was to copy that now that would simply be dorky and copycat.

there are probably many more and those i have mentioned simply were the first to come to my head and no reason for them at all except for short term memory.

i cant say i particulary like my own avatar, when i joined i looked at my map on the wall santiago was the first thing i looked at and typed in a random word into google images and got a blue sun, but fuckit thats who i am.

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I figured I'd better make a point of it somewhere.. I can imagine all these people out there in the world going wtf? who is 'kindness' never noticed that dude before... weird lol

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