

Ask HN: Have I earned the right to edit my HN username? - babyshake

When I first signed up for News YC as a junior in college, I gave myself one of the few throwaway account names I was using on other tech-oriented forums at the time.<p>Well, two and a half years later, and I'm increasingly unhappy with my username, although I know the only solution is to create another account. An alternative I'd like to propose is that after hitting a great enough amount of karma, I've earned exactly one chance to change my HN username.<p>There are some technical considerations. Would the old profile URL simply redirect to the new one? Perhaps it would require some refactoring of user models or queries. There may be other issues I haven't even considered.<p>But aside from implementation details, are there any opinions about whether or not I should be able to edit my HN name?
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bbuffone
I would attempt a "Fanboys" style trip to the datacenter that hosts
ycombinator.com and change it yourself. I will go with you so I can add a
search box. Along the way we can interrupt the diggnation and TWIT podcasts,
and mock all the reddit readers.

It will be pretty sweet.

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dryicerx
You have gone past the point of no return, embrace _babyshake_ , be proud of
it. It has brought you to where you are today.

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byoung2
Remember this experience the next time you have to choose a username. When I
worked for Kaplan, I scheduled teachers and tutors, and I once had to tell a
student that the person most directly responsible for her success on the LSAT
could be reached at drmonkeystud@[schoolname].edu (changed to protect the
innocent)

I'm really boring when it comes to usernames, opting for the first initial,
last name, and a number at the end just in case it's taken. You won't likely
grow tired of it, and there's less explaining to do.

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dkokelley
Instead of numbers, I use my middle initial too. d=Daniel, k=Kenneth,
okelley=O'Kelley.

I've found that I'm much less likely to run into any other identical
usernames. In fact, when I do find that the username has been taken, it's
always been because I registered for the site earlier, and it was time for a
password reset.

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anigbrowl
Yes, but you have to work out how. It is the final test of HN.

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marcusbooster
And now I'm stuck with this name because _babyshake_ was already taken!

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pclark
make a new account, leave a note in your profile saying who your other account
was, sorted.

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rokhayakebe
How will he port his Karma and reputation.

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babyshake
Specifying the link in my about section would work in most cases, but it would
be somewhat kludgey.

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throw_away
you could choose formerlyknownasbabyshake as your username

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dpcan
Keep the username, implement a "display name" option so nobody sees your
actual username, just the name you'd like to display - but everything else
stays nice and connected.

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wmf
Sweet, I can't wait to change my display name to pg.

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sireat
Is there something specific that you'd miss being able to do, when going from
high karma account to newbie account?

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rms
I'm pretty sure pg has changed people's usernames by request. Email him.

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pg
Actually I doubt I have. Usernames are built into all sorts of things.

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cousin_it
...You use auto-generated integer IDs for _pagination links_ , but not for
users? I don't mean to be disrespectful, but... it's wrong.

