Changing usernames

[senatorhung]

And cool, nice to know that BGA has no intention of supporting trans users.

this has NOTHING to do with how BGA supports trans users. this has to do with avoiding abuses from players changing their usernames willy nilly to avoid the consequences of their gameplay behaviour.

you CHOSE your BGA username. your BGA username is NOT your legal identity. for most people, having an online nick that is different from their real.life name is a FEATURE, not a bug. as souris stated, if it bothers you that much, you are free to create a new BGA account with a new username.

[CB Droege]

If you want to change username, please create another account.

BGA is a social website, you interact with many people. If player's usernames are changing constantly, this could be very confusing. Imagine you discover one morning a player XXXX that plays +100 games with you but you have no memories of him/her?

As Jest Phulin say, this is not a trivial matter. So if you want to change your username, the price to pay is removing your account and create a new one. Not a big deal.

I agree with this in principal, and I do not think that you should change this policy overall.

HOWEVER. Alex is in a situation that should be treated as an exception to the rule. You should manually change their name for them in the database.

You might not think that sticking to your guns on this one is discrimination, but it is. I urge you to research the issue. Please remember that equality and equity are not the same thing. Though it seems counterintuitive, sometimes "The same rule applies to everyone" is not the fair or right thing to do.

[demiurgsage]

BGA is a social website, you interact with many people. If player's usernames are changing constantly, this could be very confusing. Imagine you discover one morning a player XXXX that plays +100 games with you but you have no memories of him/her?

I don't think that changing username is a big deal. I think you can allow users to change their usernames from time to time (like once a year or 5 years). BGA is not a social network and even in social networks usually there is a possibility to change your displayed name.

[ringersoll]

I play at another site which allows a player to change to a new user name. But on the player's home page is a list of previous user names and (if my memory serves me correctly) the date of the name change.

[Jest Phulin]

First, let me say that I don't have access to the user database, nor have I ever had access, so what I am about to say may be incorrect.

From a technical standpoint, this may be very difficult to implement depending on how the user database was designed. It is (I believe) fairly common to set these up with the user name being the primary key, which enforces that no two users share the same user name -- the database will send an error when an attempt is made to add a new record with a duplicate primary key. Then, each game will then reference this as a foreign key, to keep track of which players were at a table -- It would be bad to say that a game was played by someone who didn't actually exist. Depending on if the games table includes the full replay, or if one table list the games played and another table lists the full replay, this could mean yet another database table with the user name as a foreign key. Chat logs (which elsewhere I think sourisdudesert said were kept for a while so moderators could review them) would also have this key. Ensuring data integrity as keys change is a difficult process.

The fact that other sites allow this behavior does not mean that it is easily done here. They could have designed their database differently, and used a player ID number (for example) rather than the user name as the primary key.

[sourisdudesert]

And cool, nice to know that BGA has no intention of supporting trans users.

This is not fair.

We give a solution here : creating a new account. I also propose you to transfer Club membership to this new account if there is any.

From a technical standpoint, this may be very difficult to implement

It is. Having username in one place is the best solution in theory, and one database entry controls 90% of the username appearance on BGA. But in many occasions this is not the case for optimization or technical reasons : on the newsfeed, the newsfeed comments, game replays, and external tools like the forum and the wiki. These are not just "accessories" : forum for example manage your BGA inbox, which is quite important. There could be a lot of side effects if you change a username at one place and not on the other. By the way we KNOW changing username causes problem because we did it in the past for "VIPs", they got a lot of issues, and finally created a new account. We may change this in the future but this is really a lot of work for a very unfrequent request while we have an alternative solution (create a new account). I won't show you my TODO list of frequent requets that also requires a lot of work with no alternative solutions (you would be afraid ).

[Liallan]

uh, no one is saying that usernames need be changing constantly. I want one change, once. If my username didn't have my birth name in it it wouldn't be an issue, so that means even fewer trans players would need username changes.

And cool, nice to know that BGA has no intention of supporting trans users.

I agree with you that in special circumstances it would be nice if they would change a name. It definitely could be abused and I understand their reluctance, but I do see the point that on rare occasions this could be a thing to do. You did email and try to take care of this privately.

However, they seem to have a "no exceptions" rule.

Therefore, I take great exception to your assumption that them not supporting name changes somehow translates into not supporting trans users. If they have a strict rule that NO ONE may change their user name, then how does this turn into a trans user issue, other than YOU are turning it into one? They didn't make the rule on purpose just to single certain people out. Feel free to disagree with the rule, but don't put meaning on it that doesn't exist just so you can feel offended.

If everyone else has to deal with this rule, so do you. It means you are being treated equally with the rest of us.

[CB Droege]

uh, no one is saying that usernames need be changing constantly. I want one change, once. If my username didn't have my birth name in it it wouldn't be an issue, so that means even fewer trans players would need username changes.

And cool, nice to know that BGA has no intention of supporting trans users.

I agree with you that in special circumstances it would be nice if they would change a name. It definitely could be abused and I understand their reluctance, but I do see the point that on rare occasions this could be a thing to do. You did email and try to take care of this privately.

However, they seem to have a "no exceptions" rule.

Therefore, I take great exception to your assumption that them not supporting name changes somehow translates into not supporting trans users. If they have a strict rule that NO ONE may change their user name, then how does this turn into a trans user issue, other than YOU are turning it into one? They didn't make the rule on purpose just to single certain people out. Feel free to disagree with the rule, but don't put meaning on it that doesn't exist just so you can feel offended.

If everyone else has to deal with this rule, so do you. It means you are being treated equally with the rest of us.

This is wrong thinking, sorry. If you make a rule with no exceptions, and it turns out that that rule disadvantages a population of people, then you have not created equality, you have created a discriminatory rule. Okay, they didn't mean for it to be when they made it, but it doesn't change that it's true.

Not allowing users to change their name in exceptional circumstances is discrimination against trans persons, and the rule should be changed. Having the ability to change their name is extremely important to the support of a trans person. No excuses. There is no middle ground. They either change their policy on this issue, or they are failing to support trans users. Period.

[Shaq Jenkins]

uh, no one is saying that usernames need be changing constantly. I want one change, once. If my username didn't have my birth name in it it wouldn't be an issue, so that means even fewer trans players would need username changes.

And cool, nice to know that BGA has no intention of supporting trans users.

I agree with you that in special circumstances it would be nice if they would change a name. It definitely could be abused and I understand their reluctance, but I do see the point that on rare occasions this could be a thing to do. You did email and try to take care of this privately.

However, they seem to have a "no exceptions" rule.

Therefore, I take great exception to your assumption that them not supporting name changes somehow translates into not supporting trans users. If they have a strict rule that NO ONE may change their user name, then how does this turn into a trans user issue, other than YOU are turning it into one? They didn't make the rule on purpose just to single certain people out. Feel free to disagree with the rule, but don't put meaning on it that doesn't exist just so you can feel offended.

If everyone else has to deal with this rule, so do you. It means you are being treated equally with the rest of us.

Why am I not to surprised to see that you, once again, are insensitive in gender equality discussions? Your inability to comprehend why others might have a problem with this is truly astonishing - you claim to "understand" why Alex is upset and then proceed to chastise Alex for trying to "feel offended."

How is this NOT a trans user equality issue? BGA refuses to make an exception for Alex when it's clear that Alex is not trying to abuse the system. I don't think Alex is searching for reasons to be offended (people with your line of thinking are part of the problem, tbh).

I agree with CB Droege. I really think BGA needs to change Alex's username. BGA needs to consider the context when assessing whether or not to bend a rule.

[Liallan]

Under what circumstances does someone decide to bend a rule, and when does it become "non supportive," and who gets to decide that?

If I used my real full name on here, got a divorce, because my husband was beating me, and I wanted to change my name so that I could get rid of his last name and use my birth name, if they won't make an exception to that, do we decide they are being "insensitive" to wife beating? I would say no. I would say they are just sticking to their no exceptions rule. Taking that a step further, due to my opinion about that, do we also assume I am insensitive to wife beating?

The REAL problem is that you simply want everyone to agree with you, and if they DARE have a different opinion, it's because they are "insensitive." My problem isn't with the change of name, or not changing a name. My problem is with the ASSUMPTION of the REASON behind something. In your mind the ONLY possible reason for it has to be an insensitivity to it. Because your mind can't fathom that there could be anything else to it.