Nick change letter limit

[theone48]

This is in relation to a previous thread I spotted yesterday, where I suggested the letter limits for nick change be lowered. Apologies for bumping the thread, but as the issue featured prominently in my mind when I signed up in the forum, I had to relate. As the thread was closed, I've re-posted my suggestion, so it won't be lost.

The system that allows a change is great, but many people have names that consist of 4 letters, mine included. You have John, Anna, Trip, Nick, Jake, Brad, Rick, Will, Ella, Fred, Glen and many others. I was wondering if it were possible for better customer name representation, to reduce the letter requirement for nick change to four letters; if it's not too much trouble.

Since I know I'll be changing my forum nick in future months, I'd love to be able to use my name, if possible.

[Dead-i]

I think 4 letters is a little bit low for a nickname. My real name consists of 5 letters, and my username has 5 letters, so personally I think 4 letters isn't enough to give a cool forum username.

Also, when someone signs up to x10Hosting, a forum account is automatically created on their behalf consisting of the first part of their username and then two random numbers. The person section of the email address (before the @) is usually longer than 4 letters, like mine is 11 letters.

[theone48]

Yes, I noticed the name varies depending with function, but the forum nick is standalone, not related to the others. There could however be other reasons why they chose to have a five letter limit as opposed to four. Personally, I see the forum nick as recognition, where the person can put their name in and participate in the comfortably in the community. They can if they want to, change their name to have more letters, but in my opinion, considering the range of names out there with four letters, I think it would be more user relevant if the limit were reduced for nick changing to four letters. Just a thought.

[calistoy]

I do think that will be problematic because those names you listed are not unique, meaning more than one person would have the same name. If this is to just help the users who want to use their names just 4 letters long, then it would exclude thousands of people here just for having the same name and for having longer names. There are also people who would rather not use their name as a nick in the first place, so that would exclude them also. Sorry, but I can only think that lowering the limit would unfairly exclude their customer representation, too.

Edit: I just realized that I may have misunderstood. Are you talking about a limit or a requirement? Such as, the forum username is limited to 4 characters, or the forum username requires at least 4 letters to be made? This thread is confusing so far because it looks like the words "limit" and "requirement" are being used interchangeably. Perhaps linking to the mentioned closed thread for context would also help.

[theone48]

Yes calistoy, I think there is a misunderstanding. I don't mean limited to 4, that would be highly insecure and poorly representative. I mean that the letter limit be lowered to a minimum of 4 letters as opposed to the current 5, so 4 letter names could be used. As it stands, 4 letter names are impossible to use. I don't believe there is any risk for duplicate names because once one name is used, the system automatically prevents another use of the same name. The current limit allows names greater than 5 letters. All I'm saying is that it could perhaps be lowered to anything greater than 4 letters, in favor of those who may want to use names with 4 letters; as they are abundant.

[SJ.Wolfe]

I do not personally see any reason to lower the nick change limit. There are plenty of available names that are 5/6 characters and above still, and lowering the character limit might be more effort than just changing a field (I'm not sure, it depends on how the whole system is set up.)

[theone48]

Yes, I understand your point of view SJ. Keep in mind though that you could still use 5/6+ letter nicks, even if the limit were lowered to allow 4-letter ones. It's only a matter of if the convenience outweighs the work it takes to do the change.

[garrettroyce]

I can't find any distinct reason why short names are not desirable other than non-unique usernames are hacked more often than unique usernames (bots often attack accounts with "dictionary" names) and there may be some correlation between short user names and database query time, but this is only with a very simplified test case with a lot of assumptions.

The one thing that I think needs emphasis here is that forum usernames are used for more than the forum. Even if vBulletin has an option to change the minimum (I feel I can safely say the admins will not hack vB to lower the limit) there are other systems using that info behind the scenes that may have a reason for enforcing this rule.

The way I see it is, users signed up previously with 4 letter names, now this feature is disabled. So it was disabled for a purpose by X10, vB, or whoever. That's probably an indication that going back to the old ways is not desirable or maybe not even possible.

Alternatively, you may want to consider being a little creative and doing something like Garr., Garr-, Garr_ GJRoyce, GarrJR, GarrR, Garr2008, Garr10, Garr.0, DELETE FROM `vBusers` WHERE `name` = 'garrettroyce' /* probably won't work, but you'll have a funny name nonetheless */, etc. As for me, I'm not too worried about what I put on the internet (mostly) so I just go with who I am.

It's your actions (ok, mostly words, since we're on the internet) that represent you; your name is just how people refer to you.

[theone48]

hi Garret,

I did not know the limit was 4 be4. Obviously there is no need to change the limit back if it has already been changed forward to 5.

Yes I agree, it is the words and actions that define the character, but names sometimes play a difference. Vulgar or offensive sounding names for example are definitey a mark against the person behind them. Thankfully those things are kept under control here.