Change of username?

Is it possible to change username on ATS without losing any of the account information?

reply to post by mohan168

No, AFAIK.

I have wanted to change mine to 'pretty boy' for a while now.

reply to post by mohan168


Unfortunately changing account names is not possible, beyond creating a new account.

~Tenth

If you have some compromising photo's of the admins then anything is technically possible but i doubt they'll do it as once they start everyone will want a change of name

Is it possible to edit ones profile? I would like to ad a picture etc.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Personally, I don't see why changing your name shouldn't be or couldn't be a profile function and not require moderator/owner intervention. Especially since all of the threads and posts would follow the account anyway. Of course the only rational restriction I can see is a limited number of name changes, 1 or 2, to prevent confusion between members. Like my name, I only used Bobs_Uruncle because I thought I was required to hide my identity and obfuscate past events due to a court order involving government and university corruption. It turns out that it really didn't matter, using my pen name/nom de plume would have sufficed, but now I can't change it and have all of my threads and posts under my pen name, which is a real shame.

Cheers - Dave

themate14
Is it possible to edit ones profile? I would like to ad a picture etc.

Yes, of course. Someone will come along to explain further, but you can. Since you are a new member I don't know what restrictions you have on the profile, but likely not many, as I've seen new members come equipped with avatars and all. And welcome!

edit: Do you see that white button with the downward pointing arrow next to the logout button? That opens up an entire new row of options, and you can explore in there for awhile. I think "account" is where you go to add data onto your avatar

butcherguy
reply to post by mohan168

 

No, AFAIK.

I have wanted to change mine to 'pretty boy' for a while now.

In the future I will think of you as pretty boy.

bobs_uruncle
reply to post by tothetenthpower

 

Personally, I don't see why changing your name shouldn't be or couldn't be a profile function and not require moderator/owner intervention. Especially since all of the threads and posts would follow the account anyway.

That's because you fundamentally do not understand how a Unix-like system works because "all the threads and posts" would NOT follow the account. Your username is a subdirectory in the /home subdirectory with a unique userid. All the information about your account is stored in that subdirectory, either as files or in further subdirectories. And here's where it gets complicated. All your posts, contributions, threads, etc. are in other places on the server in a (what is likely a) SQL database. They point back to your unique userid. Indeed, these "pointer files" can get quite complex. An individual post has a "postid" number (which you can see when you page through), as well as other "data elements" (sometimes called "fields") associated with that post. These include the presence and number of stars, the thread to which the post is assigned, and your userid.

Now let's say you want to change your username. You CANNOT just change the spelling and be done with it. It doesn't work that way. Instead, you must create a NEW username that has NEVER BEEN USED BEFORE, and when you do THAT, it changes your userid. Now all your posts, threads, stars, points, etc. are pointed to your OLD userid. In order to change these it must be done manually. In other words, you are asking someone to go through and find everything you've ever done and change the associated pointer files to point to your new userid.

Performing that task is effectively impossible. Even the site administrators do not know where all the pointer files are that would have to be changed, or even the exact structure of the database itself. That's an unreasonable expectation for a user to even ask.

Now, could someone wrote a program to accomplish all this? Sure, but it would have to be site-unique because every site is different, with different file names and a different database structure. It would have to cover the ENTIRE site, and it would have to be smart enough to detect the difference between a relevant pointer file and number and another number that just happens to be exactly the same. Doing this would put your entire database at risk. If the program screws up, you trash the entire site and start over.

As a result of this complexity and the inherent risk involved no site administrator anywhere would agree to even consider this. There is no time to do this, nor is there a compelling reason, nor does it justify the risk involved. Just because you've decided you want a new username is not sufficient reason for a site administrator to even deal with the issue. You should have thought of that before. This is a non-trivial request for a trivial issue.

Accordingly, the only way to "change" your username, all the "you could if you wanted to" comments nothwithstanding, is to create a new account with a new unique username that is not already in use, and abandon your previous account.

schuyler

bobs_uruncle
reply to post by tothetenthpower

 

Personally, I don't see why changing your name shouldn't be or couldn't be a profile function and not require moderator/owner intervention. Especially since all of the threads and posts would follow the account anyway.

That's because you fundamentally do not understand how a Unix-like system works because "all the threads and posts" would NOT follow the account.

Thanks for the response, but no one said it was UNIX and it's rather a moot point anyway because that's just renaming a directory if that is the only constraint caused by the writing of the code. I presumed everything was in a database, SQL or a dynamic relational database (which I have written in Prolog/Visual Prolog for AI and military applications), in which case pointers and names are very easily changed. I don't really think technology is the problem here, I think it has more to do with tracking from a members standpoint. If suddenly a name changes from Hairy Dirtball to Abe Lincoln, that might cause a bit of social confusion. If ATS has an offending member, a name change might facilitate more electronic abuse or there might be other reasons. I have never bothered to look at the page source, but would have thought ATS would have been re-created using Python running under Unix with an Apache server. BTW, as an aside, I have a Sun Solaris 2.8 UNIX Server on my home network as well as a mishmash of windows clients and servers, but I also have native Android'Linux/Samsung V210/V310 emulators, PIC 2000 16/18F series emulators, TI DSP/XDS emulators and a TI Stellaris M4 Cortex emulator, so I know a "little" bit about programming ;-)

Cheers - Dave

bobs_uruncle

Thanks for the response, but no one said it was UNIX and it's rather a moot point anyway because that's just renaming a directory

However, it is most likely a *nix OS, whether Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, or some other *nix system. There aren't that many alternatives available. It's either something very esoteric no one has heard of, or it's Windows, or it's a *nix OS. I can't conceive of a Windows system handling a database this large, frankly. I'm betting on *nix because it looks and behaves like a *nix system would. The characteristics we can see point to Unix. If it's something else, they sure fooled me!

And I'm glad you know a bit about programming. We can trade languages we've known and loved over the years all day long. I've used ZOPL, Hugo, Ugli, and Glug, too, along with those people have actually heard about. But I've never pretended knowing how to program in a language qualifies me for an OS. The two are separate and distinct entities. I've also run several Unix systems, including an ISP with 40,000 accounts on Solaris.

However, you CANNOT just change a subdirectory name and have this whole thing work in a Unix system. I made the case above and don't need to do it again. Unix is very powerful, but also very unforgiving. You can't simply declare the possibility and pronounce it possible, whether you have some knowledge of programming or not.

You've been told this by more than one person here. The only way to change your username is to create a new account and abandon your old one, including all your posts and associated information. I've told you the reasons why by delving a bit into the structure of Unix. If you still think you know more than myself or others, by all means keep going with your delusions, but the plain fact is that the way I have outlined is the ONLY way to change your username, period. End-of-story. It's not going to happen any other way. If you won't listen, I'm not going to spend any more time on you. If you think this "ability" is suddenly going to materialize, you are going to be waiting a long, long time. Surely there are other things to worry about.

reply to post by schuyler


Yeah, we could trade, I have a excellent APL I purchased back in 80's when I was doing embedded processor cracking and failure testing for the SDI or some original Lisp compilers and some old turbo pascal (I hate pascal) as well LOL. On your comments concerning the ware in question and its platform, I certainly understand the complexity of producing small changes to a large application. I've done it before and found it was easier to rewrite the entire application, which I am sure no one at ATS wants to do for something as minimal as a name change feature. The kind of database in use however, does not have to be restricted to a UNIX/Linux type OS (even though it is convenient), it could be run through Windows as well and depending on final size could be broken into sequentially organized databases with the front end performing database selection. It doesn't have to go as far as a fully dynamic relational database since older entries don't have to be modified and continually updated. I would be surprised however if the programmers didn't leave in subroutine "blanks" for future modifications, but of course those, if in place, would be applied to future functions that could be implemented as required.

Actually, I think I personally have only asked for name change functionality once before, about a year ago and that was in U2U I believe.

Cheers - Dave