change username question

[+sejtam]

I saw the new 'change username automatically' feature.

I would like to find out exactly what this entails.

 

a) the account name will change from that point on

 

will anything be changed into the past

 

c) will the account in the forum change automatically also?

I guess past posts will not show up when searching for the new name

(and vice versa)?

 

d) will there be a link so that if someone looks for the old name (find a player/send email)

it will automatically go to the new one,

 

e) most importantly: Will the old name stay reserved/disabled or would someone else be able to

get that name later?

 

anything else I forgot?

[+sTeamTraen]

I believe that everything changes more or less immediately. Your old logs will have your new name, for example.

 

In the forum, you might have to enter once via the "Forums" link from the Geocaching.com site to force te update of your name on the forum server, but after that I'm guessing that your old posts should also appear with your new name. However, if someony replied to an old post with a quote, the quoted name will be the old one, because that was converted into text at the time.

 

As for your point about someone else taking the name later: if they do and they use it to impersonate you, you can complain to Groundspeak (I have seen exactly this happen and it was taken care of very quickly). If they take it innocently, you could maybe ask them nicely if they would put a note on their profile for a while to say "If you're looking for the cacher who was known as sejtam from (date) to (date), their username is now (link)".

 

I suppose that you could also - technically, at least - re-register your old user account as a sock puppet, but then you would have to manage mails and notes to/from both accounts, which could get extremely confusing.

[+Cache O'Plenty]

Aren't all the logs keyed to a member's ID number? Thus, the name that's shows up is current name associated with that number. Might be different with the name that shows up as the owner of a cache since that's probably text that's filled in when the cache is created (thus you can edit it to whatever name you like). But the cache still is owned by ID number <123456>.

[+sejtam]

It would be nice to hear from TPTB or someone who has used this what changes and whether the old name is in fact re-usable by someone else (or can be reserved/retired)

[+Lil Devil]

I'm sure this feature is no different than the previous method of emailing to Groundspeak asking them to change your username, with the exception that this new method can only be used once. After that I guess you have to revert to the old method and email Groundspeak (and probably explain why you're so undecided).

 

Your old username is not reserved and can immediately be grabbed by someone else.

[+Livedthere]

It would be nice to hear from TPTB or someone who has used this what changes and whether the old name is in fact re-usable by someone else (or can be reserved/retired)

 

Before they implemented the new feature, I just contacted tech support via voice. They changed my ID and everything followed (but I wasn't using forums at the time). Give them a ring/email, they are very nice.

[+CachinKimes]

could anyone offer a link to where I can do this? Change username automatically that is...

[+Klatch]

could anyone offer a link to where I can do this? Change username automatically that is...

Edit Username

[+OmahaCachers]

My pet peeve is when someone takes a good name, finds 30 caches and then bails. Three years ago and you can't have the name because it's taken. What's even worse if they never even find a single cache with the name! Maybe they should have an inactivity rule or something.

[+BBosman]

My pet peeve is when someone takes a good name, finds 30 caches and then bails. Three years ago and you can't have the name because it's taken.

As soon as somebody logs anything you can't delete the account any more. Becacuse what would hapen to those logs? If you delete them a lot of cache and trackable history is lost as well.

 

What's even worse if they never even find a single cache with the name! Maybe they should have an inactivity rule or something.

If an account hasn't been validated, you can contact Groundspeak and ask them if you can have that account.

 

I also read somewhere that account which have an email set that bounces, are also marked as unvalidated.

 

But as long as it's a validated account (with a working email address behind it) or it has logs you're out of luck.