Is there any reliable method to find any old user names someone has used in the past? As an example, reading an old thread, it’s obvious from context (quote tags, people calling person by different name than post has, that sort of thing) that Liberal used to be Libertarian, and so I got to wondering if there was any indication of the change on his/her user page. I failed to find anything. Was I missing it, or does it not exist? I got to wondering this a while back, because there were occasional “Huh?” moments when I encountered similar situations in old threads where it wasn’t obvious from context that a person had changed user names sometime between that thread and the present, and it took a while to figure it out.
Essentially what I want to know is if there is an easy way to resolve the “Huh?” when that happens, or if I just have to live with it.
There is no easy way to do so. Unless you are want to do the legwork and check up on dozens of replies which may or may not refer to the original user name, you will have to live with it.
I don’t think there’s a way, other than researching the posts. It doesn’t seem to be a big problem right now–the couple of times where I couldn’t remember who someone used to be, I just asked in-thread, and somebody else reminded me.
If it ever does become a serious issue, it’d be easy to add a new profile field with the old name listed.
From time to time I will observe in somebody’s signature line that they’re changing their name, or already did. Something along the lines of “… the Doper formerly known as _____…” which may stay in their sig for a while, but eventually vanishes.
If you click on the poster’s name in a post and select “view user profile” (or whatever it says) you might find such data there, too.
Other than that, your memory, or somebody else mentioning it, I don’t know any sure-fire methods to deal with the issue.
Maybe there is a way we’ll both learn about as a result of your asking, because I’d like to know that also. The only case I can remember, and not in accurate detail even at that, was Argent Towers.
I seem to remember someone once proposed the establishing of a sticky thread in ATMB listing user name changes. It would be a voluntary thing, so it wouldn’t help if for some reason a poster chose not to post in it, but at least it would have provided a primary place to check for name changes.
We don’t list them, because sometimes people would prefer to keep it quiet. We do encourage people to announce (via sig line or some other method) when they’ve changed their user-name, to let everyone know, but this is up to the individual.
When a name is changed, all past posts are changed as well. It’s not a way to “hide” your past indiscretions. So, if you search for posts by Libertarian (using your example), you’ll find nothing; all those posts now appear as by Liberal.
It does cause some confusion in old threads, when someone mentions a post by XXX and there’s no such person in the thread. Another reason for general dislike of zombie threads.
Keywords: username
Username: <person’s new user name>
Sort results by: “Last posting date” “in Ascending order”
This will bring up the oldest thread this person started containing the word “username”. Hopefully they’ll have started a thread announcing the change, and used that word in there.
If that doesn’t bring back anything, try again (120 seconds later), this time making the keyword “change user” (note – you can’t search on “user name”, since “name” is part of the infuriatingly long list of reserve words that cannot be searched on).
Do a search only for threads the user started. It’s easier then to see that, though the board says Skald the Rhymer began a thread about evolution, he, she, it, or they were actually Fabulous Creature when that thread was opened.
Thanks, all. In summary, I’m getting that there are ways, using powerful search-fu, but it’s generally not worth the effort unless there is some serious anomaly to resolve.