It would be beneficial to both the project & fellow crunchers if it was possible to lock the account name, or at least only allow it to be changed once a year.

Constant changing of account names is becoming confusing as one is not sure of whom one is addressing.

Is this possible to implement?

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I agree. There's no real need or reason for one to keep changing their account name unless it is to purposely confuse people. If they feel they're not being treated fairly because of who they are, then perhaps they should think about that before they post since their history never changes. Stand by what you post, not by some name you can change.

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Seems like a nice idea.

I was just thinking that when you sign up for a project it asks for your Email and password, but here is no box for a user name. I believe at the moment BOINCmgr just uses the computer login name as your user name. So you end up with a lot of common default names.

I think the first thing that would be needed is for BOINCmgr project attach page to allow the input of a user selected name. Looking at boinccmd, its create account option does allow the specification of a name. So it should be possible to add that field to boincmgr's project attach.

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SL

There's no real need or reason for one to keep changing their account name unless it is to purposely confuse people.

Not that you can think of offhand, perhaps … but that doesn’t mean none exist. Anyway, since when has everything around here been based on a “need or reason”? Why are avatars necessary, for example? Why have message boards, other than the Q&As, at all? For that matter, why bother with credit statistics? None of these things directly advances the science …

Stand by what you post, not by some name you can change.

Conversely, though, I would say: Respond to the message, not the poster. To whatever extent it does matter who said something, you can always make note of the account ID. IMO putting restrictions on the ability of all participants (most of whom aren’t abusing the system) to control their personal information & how it’s presented should only be a last resort for dealing with serious problems, not the first response to a trivial annoyance.

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Thanks Odysseus, I never considered that aspect for which I apologise.

It does bring to mind why one can be so deliberate in their actions.

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Not that you can think of offhand, perhaps … but that doesn’t mean none exist. Anyway, since when has everything around here been based on a “need or reason”? Why are avatars necessary, for example? Why have message boards, other than the Q&As, at all? For that matter, why bother with credit statistics? None of these things directly advances the science …

I think you're stretching it a bit far. Sure, the things you mentioned aren't particularly necessary, but a few of them can't be easily abused. Changing your identity shouldn't be the one thing that can be easily abused.

Conversely, though, I would say: Respond to the message, not the poster. To whatever extent it does matter who said something, you can always make note of the account ID. IMO putting restrictions on the ability of all participants (most of whom aren’t abusing the system) to control their personal information & how it’s presented should only be a last resort for dealing with serious problems, not the first response to a trivial annoyance.

I always respond to the message, but it would be nice to know who I am talking to in an easy to remember identity. Account IDs aren't very human-friendly but names are - which is why people can remember URLs more than they can remember IP addresses, such as the need for DNS servers. It's not exactly like if I were to talk to someone in real life that they could change their name and their face in a ridiculously easy way all because they think they're being treated unfairly.

IMO, this restriction shouldn't bother too many people since most won't be attempting to change their identities very often. And I disagree that it's merely a trivial annoyance, I believe it can be downright irritating and confusing, especially if people address each other by their nicknames and you're reading old threads. It can be difficult to follow along when people reference old nicknames the person may have used in the past but now their name has changed.

I still don't see a good reason to change one's nickname so much. Just because you point out that a good reason may exist that I'm unaware of, until I'm made aware of a good reason I will keep this opinion.

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