Do you want this feature?
I voted "No" because imo it's an irrelevant database to add
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It would be nice if it won't slow down the site much :)
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What? He's Jonathan Kalo? See, this is what I'm talking about. I had no idea.
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Next time I will switch my username and avatar to chameleon I^v^I
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Btw, it's surprising you still remember me after almost half a year since I wasn't too active user.
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I remember some of the events you used to make here, I think I was even invited to one of your groups. And if I remember correctly you had an idea for a puzzle where someone would tell you three things about themselves and you would have to discover which one was a lie or something? Or am I dreaming?
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I had no idea! O_o My lurking is not good enough anymore... I need some bots or minions to keep track of everything. You were the purple mouse (it was a mouse, right?) with cool events! I thought you left or something...
Well, I'm no one known myself, but still, in case I'll stop recognizing you again - I just want to mention that both of your personalities are awesome! Have a nice day, TheOwlThatAteTheMouse ^_^
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Thank you for such a kind words! I*v*I Yes, it was a mouse (although some people claim it was Simpson-like gorilla IOvOI). You have a good memory :) I didn't think somebody would remember me as Jonathan Kalo, tbh I^v^I
I do recognize you - I rarely see you commenting in the forums but I've remembered your lovely nickname and avatar :)
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Woah, damn o_O And here I thought it was a user that suddenly became active o:
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Wow I'm late to the "WTF?!" party but.... wtf you're Jonathan Kalo?! lol... Second time your name has made me have a "wtf" moment.
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I voted "No", because I feel that there should be a way for users to hide the traces of their old username or stuff. This would be useful for people, who had to suffer from harassment, and who want to start anew or for people who - for what reason so ever - had their real life name as username or something else that makes them identifiable.
Users should have the ability to hide that on this site.
Or better, I value this more than having a tool to recognize people easier. Maybe it could be an optional feature, instead.
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You can simply report the person who harassed you and support will take care of it. There's no logic in hiding that information here, when it's available on Steam.
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Maybe support was unable to help in that case? or that person still feels stalked by that person neverthess? It was just an example for when this could be useful.
Giving people a chance to start anew with a different username is worthy enough in my opinion.
There's no logic in hiding that information here, when it's available on Steam.
A user could have used an entirely different name on steam than they had used here.
Keeping ones privacy or anonymity seems to be an unobtainable goal nowadays. But I don't think we should add tools to undermine this further - or again - at least make those tools optional.
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The point is, if someone harassed you or stalked you here, they're definitely not going to stop here. They are going to check your Steam profile, so no matter what you change your username to here, they will still know who you are on Steam. And you can always use your blacklist.
There's no way to make this optional. Maybe cg could increase the number of times you are allowed to change the username per year to 3, and only show the last 3 usernames on the list. That way, if someone truly wants to get rid of their past, they can just change it all 3 times and the previous one wouldn't show up anymore.
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thats true for the direct harasser, but not quite as much so for the observers of the harassment that sided with one side or the other. if the harasser tracked them down to the new name and called them out, then they'd be breaking the rules (again). same for blacklist, only good against the direct harasser.
sure there could be a optional. it took me a while to think how it could be done as well as the better description i got, but like they said to me, just make it an option inside the settings.. either "show my username history" checkbox or "disable username history".
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The point is, if someone harassed you or stalked you here, they're definitely not going to stop here. They are going to check your Steam profile, so no matter what you change your username to here, they will still know who you are on Steam. And you can always use your blacklist.
This was just an example. It could be a lot less grave incident, that makes people want to change their username or to want to change their identity here so that they don't get recogniced that easily.
I value that wish more than this feature.
There's no way to make this optional.
Uhm I guess I misunderstood stomething here, as d3m4n did seem to have a similar reservation? But I don't see why a history couldn't be unaccessible. I don't have the technical knowledge, but to me it sounds as it could just be a link to a site that is either acessible for anyone or for no one. Like a giveaway, where everyone or no one is blacklisted for :) No offense to people who do know how it works,and know that this IS actually pretty difficult.
I wrote this to d3m4n, how I imagine such a feature:
Uhm....on steam you have this arrow menu beside the username, that you can click and then shows all past usernames. This arrow could be just grayed out - if this feature would work like that here.
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Maybe the optional setting would work, but then again, just more resources for people: if someone has it disabled they're obviously hiding something -> does detective work -> back to where it was. We'll just have to agree to disagree. :)
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I agree, that someone who wants to find out something about someone and who is good at their detective work will find something - obviously.
But just giving people the chance, that not everyone recognises them instantly is a good thing in my opinion.
Not everybody is interested in doing detective work, but everyone is good at being upset :D
I'm not saying that not adding this feature* will save ones identity or give them back their savety, but at least it will help people to maintain a little of it and this site should not make it easier for "detectives".
besides: Inb4 someone digs, I was always sappyMA :) Still.... i really should come up with a real username some day.....
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But the username history doesn't necessarily mean they will be recognized and exposed. From d3m4n's comment, I'm sure the direct harassers would, but if they did anything they would be calling out, which is breaking a rule, and I doubt the observers would bother to check the history of every single new face they see and also call out in that case, if they even remember what the person did in their old username. And even if they do, I think the "showing only the last 3 usernames" idea is better than making it an optional setting.
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Just see it from another example: There is a person who found this site and came here just straight out of puberty, was stupid and made a couple of shitposts until everybody started to dislike him. Nothing majorly hostile, so he wouldn't get banned, but annoying and dumb.
Then he stayed away from this site for some months, grew older, more mature and would actually like to get into this community again.
He can't change his past and people will surely still have him on their blacklist and remember him easily. But that guy might really regret his behaviour and just wants to start anew. Be someone else and not the toxic adolescent, anymore. He may not have the courage to make a big "I'm sorry"-Thread, ... but just.... jeah... wants to leave all that stuff in the past if its possible.
He might get called out on his past behaviour, he might get hated again, but giving him the ability to "be someone else" is a good thing in my opinion and doesn't lock someone in their past - which may lead to them repeating their behaviour.
Obviously that person is still easily recognizable, even without a name history, but just knowing, that not everyone can just look up his old username, gives him the assurance - to himself - that he is another person and not the same anymore.
This is not about changing ones entire identity. I know, that if someone digs deep enough, they will find out about someone, but I value it if this site supports people in their wish to find... healing or something.
(that's still not me ;>)
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Like I said, we'll just have to agree to disagree. But I'm not against the optional setting, I just don't think it's the best choice.
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I just wanted to give a different example, as we got caught up in my initial one.
I am against this feature unless the user has the ability to set the name-history to private at anytime.
But, yes, let's agree that we disagree. We can leave it at that. :)
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Maybe it could be an optional feature, instead.
not arguing for or against, just don't quite understand. how can it be optional?
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A user could have a checkbox in their settings, that determines if they want to display their username-history publicly.
So people who want to use that feature and want to be recognized after a namechange, can use it, but nobody is obliged to show the history.
edit: Uhm....on steam you have this arrow beside the username, that you can click and then shows all past usernames. This arrow could be just grayed out - if this feature would work like that here.
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hmm okay.. that kinda makes sense to me.. wasn't sure where i stood on this tbh, but i think i could get behind that. =)
it works well for both types of ppl who are changing names.. those that still want to be associated with their prior names but just wanted/needed the change. as well as those trying to hide their old identities from others.
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Well, there is no such thing as privacy on the Internet. Even if you were to change your username and uncheck that box, someone could just as easily do some detective work and expose you. For example, member A does something wrong; member B blacklists member A; member A wants to start over and changes their username; member B still has member A on their blacklist, so they'll be able to recognize member A must have done something wrong to get there. I'm all for people wanting to start over, but you don't need a new face to do that, just a new personality.
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I feel like it would be a useless feature. I can't even understand why would anyone want that. Also, maybe some users wouldn't want their older usernames to be seen. Sorry. :/
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Because of what just happened on this thread. I had no idea IovoI was JonathanKalo.
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I remember him saying that in the past though. :P But so what? If he wants people to know his older name, he can just say it to them by creating a post or something. :P And I'm pretty sure I remember IovoI saying his older name in the past.
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Imagine me going around asking every new face "What was your previous username? Do I know you?". :P Just because he has said his older username in the past, doesn't mean I saw it. This feature would offer that information easily.
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yes & no.. like revilheart said with lovol's namechange, some ppl are not namechanging to hide, they just did it for the change. the optional suggestion that sappy provided though i think provides everyone the perfect solution though. that way those can still be associated with their old names if they choose, but those who wish to try and remain a bit more anonymous do have that option to opt-out and hide their history.
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And one year worth of avatars! Honestly how am I to remeber someone who changes its face all the time?!! :p
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That would be nice too, but avatars might be a bit harder to keep track of. Or not, I don't know. :S
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The same level of "hardness" as nicknames history.
More seriously now. People change the names for privacy reasons outside of SG. IE employers often stalk facebooks and further query the net - vide Zelghadis changing his avatar. So for whatever the reason is, if someone wants to keep SG separate from other areas, he should be able to do so
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I have no idea what you mean with zelghadis, but if you want privacy, why even choose an username that could be associated with you in the first place? And when your Steam profile is linked to your SG profile? If someone is good at stalking, they will find you no matter how well you think you've covered your tracks. I just don't get it. Maybe the thing I mentioned about only showing the last 3 usernames and increasing the number of times you are allowed to change your username per year could be a solution for those people.
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Avtar looked like weed on miniatures (afair it was from some anime, no references to drugs)
Someone changed his mind. Because some reasons. Good enoug for me.
True, most likely you won't be able to completly cover your tracks just by name change - traces will be left you have no ability to remove by yourself. But with lack of bad will, even those can be removed and you can finally dive below google's radars. Or at least have plausible deniability.
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Yes, I support this. While in theory it would be nice to be able to start anew, because they've realized what caused them to step on so many toes, in practice, it seems like a lot of people just change their name to get their SG++ tags wiped and to get off people's blacklists.
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Yes. And this feature exists in any forum on the Internet, I don't know why it should be any different on SG.
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So tags are connected to username, and not steam ID or something? And are removed when someone change their nick?
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+1
are we really sure it wipes blacklists away? thats totally messed up if so, and a major design flaw imo.
created giveaways change names on who made the giveaway, why would it not change in the blacklists of others too?
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It does not wipe blacklists, but it removes any tags you've put on people (through SG++ or similar), thus making it hard to know why you've blacklisted someone.
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i see. thank you for clarifying. xD
i missed that sg++ part, didnt quite know what you meant.
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SG++ tags are at least connected to username on SG, and nothing that is more permanent.
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That's weird, as there is clearly visible info on profile page which gives non-changeable steamID. But maybe it's easier that way, instead of checking some kind of steamID database. But I'm not IT expert :D
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That information isn't present anywhere else other than the profile pages of each member, so the script would have to parse those profile pages to check for tags that are connected to that member. Checking for their SG username is much simpler and faster.
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Surely the "starting anew thing" for offenders is of lesser importance for most people here. For me, too.
But still, it is useful for people who had to deal with harassment, especially if support or the community wasn#t able to help. It is useful if a harassed person just wants to make a new start here and doesn't want to be associated with the same incidents over and over again. This doesn't even mean that they just don't want to be recogniced by their offenders.
Giving people the opportunity to be not recogniced by everyone, just because they want to keep their anonymity - and that is a wish people do have even if they didn't do anything wrong - is of more importance to me than keeping track of people on my blacklist.
Of course, people change their names to get off of blacklists and to get more chances for winning giveaways, but in the end they will end up on those again when they didn't change their behaviour - and this time it may lead to a permanent-suspension for them. Support still knows them.
A change of a username would still mess up the SG tags even there was a name-history*, and one would still have to remember why they put someone else on their blacklist, even when they can look up the past username. Although I understand the wish to keep better track of offenders, this still requires work on the users part, which could probably be done better with keeping tracks of the offenders steamaccounts.
All in all I just give more importance to the wish for anonymity than to the wish to keep track of offenders. (I just wanted to clarify this example, as your comment seemed to directly target towards to my last post and thus my other example :>)
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I see your point. No idea how common what you're saying is, but it's weighting the value of keeping consequences for doing bad things to people being able to escape potential harassment.
And no, it was not targeted towards your comment. I only quickly skimmed through the thread, and even then, this was what I intended to write all along.
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entirelyimmediately
would give the whole thing a more serious note! make some noise or they'll never learn!
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Am I the only one failing to see a connection here?
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To get rid of groups you have to get rid of private giveaways.
Guess to connection: if you want travel "nothing to hide" road, go to the end of it. Full transparency.
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Except the feature I'm suggesting doesn't have anything to do with having nothing to hide. It's about cases where someone you know (not in a bad way) changes their username and you think they've vanished.
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No intention != no connection.
It's long shot guess on my part if that's what ambidot means.
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I guess ambidots post is just very loosely linked to this thread. It's a common demand he has expressed for some time, now.
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So he's just making a suggestion within a suggestion? Suggestionception. xD I hope cg doesn't take it, because the only way I make giveaways lately is whitelist-based. :P
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But the group functionality can be implemented with private giveaways with very little overhead. So either both go or both stay. Anything else is change for a sake of change.
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Depends on the group. For small, closed groups it would have minimal impact imo. What's funny tough, there exist groups without their own steam group and use private GAs as group ones. Quite shady groups I'd add (to say the least).
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I don't think it would be that useful since you can only change your username once a year. Steam however, I would love if they removed that feature because I was the actual worst in 2012 and I don't want to see my cringey username history ever again.
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Exactly why it would be useful. I love that feature, so I wouldn't want to see it removed. Instead, they could limit how far back it goes, or maybe allow you to hide those you don't want being shown.
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Updated the OP adding the two suggestions for the privacy issue.
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name history
Gintoki101
IHateXarabas
GintheMayo
:3
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Oh this is IHateXarabas? See, more evidence keeps coming in that this feature would be useful. I would never have known.
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Official name historian.
Keep a Google spreadsheet and add the link to your linkies script ;)
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i will make mullycharts with all names <3
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
| Peasant 1 | Peasant 2 |
|---|---|
| Gintoki101 | Mullinx |
| IHateXarabas | Muiiins |
| GintheMayo | Mully |
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
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I had the idea of making a spreadsheet before I posted the thread, but I wanted to see if cg was up to making it a real deal instead of doing that.
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Can we mod a little won names? If so, I'm in!
Prus evilheart.
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While, I don't wholesale object to the idea and I sometimes feel confused when I see someone on my whitelist that I have no clue of, I'm not sure it's needed. Some entrepreneur could always create a script that remembers them for you. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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I'm that entrepreneur! I actually started working on a script before posting the thread, but I wouldn't have access to people's usernames prior to today, so I wanted to see if cg was up to it, 'cause why not. ¯\(ツ)/¯
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I love how close the options are. "Yes" seems to always be winning by around 10 votes.
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Usernames have no pertinence on this site so their history really is meaningless unless perhaps they cannot be reused or something. Can they be? Only the SteamID really counts.
AJIam is just to make it easier on you, so you don't have to call me 76561198035970436. I would have made it just aj to really simplify it but I'd have to convince 76561197967307819 to change.
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It's not meaningless based on the points I raised in this thread.
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I agree that it would be handy for you and I, the users, to not have to work hard to keep track of our friends changing public personas, but unless the data is already stored for some reason, I don't see enough justification for a system change.
If the Steam Gifts Usernames are not unique and can be reused, there is no real reason to keep a list of them, no more so than a record of past avatars, Steam Profile Names, or Steam vanity URLs. They all can change often and no critical or important information for site operation is indexed to them that I can see though truthfully, I have not searched discussions for information on whether this has been discussed before or what account information is retained in the by The Admin.
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Oh I see what you mean. Yeah, this feature would only work if this information is already in SG's database. Otherwise, there's really no point (well, it would still be handy in the future, but if it's not currently stored, I can just make a script for it myself).
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Luller (of favorite food polls fame) is now called sunlikely. I liked the old name more, and for some reason I can't find these polls anymore (was really curious to see if the typical steamgifter prefers coffee or tea, I guess I'll never know now...).
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Let's face it, it's probably not going to be implemented, so I'm currently working on a script that will do this. The script itself is already working, but I'm having a hard time trying to keep the database updated, given the limitations SteamGifts is handing me. We'll see, maybe I'll release it soon. :)
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Alert, alert. revilheart has been murdered and an alien shapeshifted into his body. That alien was me, myself and I. RIP revilheart.
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No worries aliens won't last long in that body, that guy never sleeps :P
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As far as I can tell, tajasne was previously MarcinEU.
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I don't have an opinion on this. Consider this a bump
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Well, now that I've made a script it doesn't really matter. Sure, it would be nice if cg implemented it because the database of my script is limited and only keeps track of users that are added by the people using the script, but I already have all the people that I'm familiar with tracked.
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I made an userscript for this: https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/TDyzv/
I don't know if this has been suggested before, but nothing came up on my search, so I guess not. It would be nice to have an username history on SG, like Steam does. This would be useful for times when someone you know change their username and you have no idea who they are anymore. I know you could just go to their Steam profile and check there, but I don't know about you - I don't know many members here by their Steam profiles, so it would be nice to have this feature here on SG.
Update: To keep the privacy of people who don't want their previous username being shown, I suggested that there should be a limit as to how far back the history goes, and that the number of times you can change your username per year should increase. sappyMA suggested that there should be a setting to turn the history off, making it optional.
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