Oh, I have mortarboards aplenty [she muttered darkly.] And tams. So many tams.
Has a crowdfunded column been posed to Cecil? Even a monthly column seems feasible.
Would we have to call it something else, since the column and/or name “Straight Dope” is owned?
Possibly, if it’s IP owned by someone else. But putting Cecil Zotti’s name in the column’s name wouldn’t be bad move.
It appears that the names “The Straight Dope” and “Cecil Adams” are both trademarked by The Chicago Reader,
Zotti’s Bodies! “We’re known for our brains.”
Thank you Cecil and Ed for more than 40 years of The Straight Dope. I first read it when I was in college in the early 70s and have continued whenever I could find a copy of The Reader and more recently on the SDMB.
[hijack]
Interesting. I think the mods go apeshit about changing usernames–although I remember something about Siam. I wonder how much persuasion they needed.
[/hijack]
Plenty of posters have had name changes. They just discourage multiple name changes as I recall.
The name change policy is now noted in ATMB, please see here:
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=858301
When my email address changed, I simply sent the mods an email asking them to change my username when they got a chance. They actually did it within a day or two, and also changed all my previous posts to my new username. No particular problem at all.
If the system had allowed me to use my name instead of email as my username, I never would have had to change it at all. I don’t understand why an honest person would use an alias when online anyway.
No, it’s never been an issue. It was just a process to step through. We discouraged multiple changes, but it was generally never a big deal.
Holy Crap! I make a parenthetical aside–worse, in fact, a hijack–and within the hour not only the Administrator responds, not even with a Ding from On High, but with a sticky exploring the issue!
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Now that’s some new Administration.
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I feel kind of warm and glow-y that an issue I raised in ATMB made it to the big time.
[As long as we’re along this merry hijack, I do not like it username changes in principle at all, for the same reasons I raised lightheartedly about the ability to change Custom Titles: I think it important that the biographical (source) and bibliographical continuity in these Chronicles of Internet Thought be maintained, even if anonymously.
I do understand that if LovesSamMadly just missed being assassinated by Sam, that username-RL poster charitably could be accommodated. (Bibliographical research deals with name changes anyway.)
But Leaffan it is.]
Let’s leave me out of this.
FWIW, the post Tuba made is essentially the process we’ve always had. We just encouraged posters to reach out to a Mod first, we verified the email, and then we passed the name request on to Ed.
Someone want to run this through the Leo Bloom to English translator form me?
I think he’s saying if you have a truly unfortunate name and for some reason need it changed it’s ok with him if you change it.
But ‘Leaffan’ has to keep his handle no matter how bad the Maple Leafs are playing.
Plus he’s happy Tuba made a sticky on it.
What system?
Look up the term “doxing”
That’s aside from people dealing with stalkers and the like.
That sort of thing might give you some idea.