First topic message reminder :

I think our forums should have a username change history, so that if someone's changes their username, its easier to track down who has been doing what. And an example, if someone has been not following the forum rules, and they change their username to not get caught, the Administrator can see their username history, track them and can just ban the member. ....But what do you think?

Nice idea SLG! Voted yes..

Welcome the history of username.

Voted Yes.

Thanks to everyone you has voted so far.

I like the idea, you could also do this with PhpBB. It would mark it in their comments that only the staff could see. It would just show what the admin / staff changed their name to.

But in any case, I love the idea and I see this as being a great addition.

Voted Yes!

Sounds good to me  but you can sort of do this in your comments on the members profile or you could hide a bit in the profile that only staff could see but to have this in the ACP would be better i guess
So Votes yes

You are correct, but it would be easier for it to be automatic when you have the option where members can change their usernames themselves.

Great idea, I voted yes

Sounds like an interesting suggestion and useful for staff. I'm not sure if everyone would want their previous usernames known to others or not...that is my only concern.

Maybe there will be an option where members can hide it from other members, but not the administrators.

Bump

This is a good idea!

Hi, Susan1814 !!

I think our forums should have a username change history, so that if someone's changes their username, its easier to track down who has been doing what.

And an example, if someone has been not following the forum rules, and they change their username to not get caught, the Administrator can see their username history, track them and can just ban the member.

But what do you think?

A definite yes for me !

I'd add the following too, to control if possible, once changes occur, to automatically changing Edits, or citations and other instances of that user...

Although I'd like personally to change automatically username, or mentions as on old citations etc... once we do the change (for identity purposes) members doing this in the example you cite should be monitored!

This needs to be added imo voted yes!!

Yes so we can keep up with who is who. Sometimes members constantly change their names...difficult to remember who is who.

I believe any changes of that sort done, would be logged in the administrative actions log available to all administrators. 

One could also disable the possibility for members to do it themselves, but could put in a request and an administrator can change it for them.

-Brandon

But does the administrative actions log have only admin activity logged or all member activity too?

It has anything that can be considered close to an administrative action or something only an admin could do. I believe username changes might fall under this category but it will not say exactly 'So and so has changed their username' but instead 'So and so has modified the profile of so and so'. For example if a user deletes their account, it will show the account was deleted by 'Guest', deleting an account is an administrative action, it CAN be performed by the user himself/herself for ONLY his/her's account. 

Something like that would appear in the administrative logs. I don't know specificly if usernames qualify, but I believe they might.

-Brandon

I don't know if I read correctly but the problem is, I allow members to rename their accounts but I'd want to know who is who and an administrative actions log wouldn't show the actions of a member? The member himself has changed his name (I'm ok with that) but I want to know who is who. I don't believe the administrative actions log would show it.
But I might be wrong.

Well take for an example if a member decides to delete their account, it will say 'Guest' deleted their account, I would imagine something similar might happen for a member who changes their username. It just wont say directly that a member changed their username, only that they have modified their profile.

I think the best solution for a problem like this is simply to make it so only admins can change the username, you can create an only topic and call it 'Want a username change' or something like that, then an administrator will change it for them. This also makes the user have to provide their previous username as well as their new username, so it serves as record of the change.  

That is what I do on my forum, I have no problem with people changing their username, they just have to put in a request in the designated topic and I will change for them.

If someone changes they're name (I'm not 100% sure if I mean screen name or username...whichever is actually possible I guess?)
the posts are not altered in any way. Only the poster's name changes. But same posts.

I mean a username is a username, it changes on everything, posts and all.

I mean you want to keep track, the above method (that I use and have never had any sort of problem or confusion with) should work fine for you.

I believe this should be used.

Voted for yes

@Leah7 Thats what i thought.

Derri wrote:Sounds like an interesting suggestion and useful for staff. I'm not sure if everyone would want their previous usernames known to others or not...that is my only concern.

Its what the forum owners want, either show or not. The members cannot decide to hide their prev. usernames, as it is the decision of the forum's staffmembers, okay?

Members are disallowed to change their username on our forum. They have to submit the request for name change and admin will perform the requested username change. Easy to keep track of.

Bumping to move this suggestion to the first page.

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