Before you become a member: handles

before you sign up i think its best to do your homework...make sure your handle is [not] similar to others. This causes to much confusion if 2 people have handles that are very close

You must already be a member in order to be able to see the whole "Member's List". So even if a prospective new member wants to check the "degree of uniqueness" of their new User Name beforehand, it's not an easy first homework assignment to do.

Adding a message for New Members (requesting that they do this check themselves, using an accessible Member's List), seems like it would be a very good step to add to the official sign-up process, if it's a practical thing to do.

my 2 cts.

Thank you Emma for this wonderful topic. I have already run in to some problems because of this other person using the name Spud, so my adivce is the same to everyone new on here. Make sure you don't use a handle that is close to someone elses, otherwise it causes a great deal of confusion!

Everyone has a handle here a name we know people by...before you sign up i think its best to do your homework...make sure your handle is similar to others. This causes to much confusion if 2 people have handles that are very close. This happened today with our Spud...

 

so i would suggest using something that is familiar to you...maybe an old nickname ex: toothpick or heyyou...lol

 

maybe even something you always wanted to be ex:bestfuck

 

so many ways to come up with an original handle if you nee help you can email me....lol...i would love to help.

kisses,

Emma

People can see handles in the curent member list even if they sign in as a guest and the most active members are oftewn seen in that list. So there is away to avoid using a popular member's handle. Just need to do a little homewoprk which unfortunatyel by some of the questios that come up in chat many don't do.

Unfortunately skater bad habbits from school of not doing homework tend to carry over to the rest of people's lives! Very obvious some people either don't bother to look or do it on purpose to ride the reputations of others on here!

People can see handles in the curent member list even if they sign in as a guest and the most active members are oftewn seen in that list. So there is away to avoid using a popular member's handle. Just need to do a little homewoprk which unfortunatyel by some of the questios that come up in chat many don't do.

This is one of my pet peeves and several of the long time members here have "dopplegangers" or people who haven't got enough imagination to come with their own name so they take on our names with only a slight twist (usually hoping no one will know the difference I'm sure).

You guys know who you are. For the most part you are lurkers who add nothing to this board and skulk around in chat waiting for an opportunity to whisper to an sp when she comes into the room.

Pistol Pete had a person who was even trying to pass himself off to the ladies as pete when he called for an appointment.

Well that felt good to get that off my chest....is that similar to an antler rant??:mrgreen:

I heard about that happening to Pistol Pete, and I very much agree with you boner, these guys are a waste of space. All they is lurk about, waste the time of SP's and cause major headaches for those longtime Hobbyiests whose handles they are riding. I am already running into issues because of this guy, and am very ticked off about it!!!

P.S. I think Antlerman would be very proud of your rant!

This is one of my pet peeves and several of the long time members here have "dopplegangers" or people who haven't got enough imagination to come with their own name so they take on our names with only a slight twist (usually hoping no one will know the difference I'm sure).

You guys know who you are. For the most part you are lurkers who add nothing to this board and skulk around in chat waiting for an opportunity to whisper to an sp when she comes into the room.

Pistol Pete had a person who was even trying to pass himself off to the ladies as pete when he called for an appointment.

Well that felt good to get that off my chest....is that similar to an antler rant??:mrgreen:

Any forum that is popular, and has even a hint of being anonymous will get people like this anyway. Some people just like to hide behind nicknames and cause trouble. If some one wants to be a valued member of the board, and they did unwittingly choose a nickname close to another valued member it is very simple to change, by realizing your mistake and fixing it. The people who don't do this always seem to be the ones to cause trouble (maybe its because they are the only ones that draw attention to themselves). Unfortunately, there is no way to keep these people out until there is a problem. Thankfully good Mods, like here, don't let it become a massive problem, but as CERB keeps expanding, the number of bad apples will also increase. Thats just my little rant on the subject

This very true Emma, however they are still a large portion of Canadian society who struggle with literacy. Apparently they are all lurkers on this site! LOL

you can read the posts without signing in....so if the new members read a bit b4 signing up they would see a lot of the frequent user names.....

kisses,

Emma A

I saw when he signed up a few days ago, I looked down at the newest member and it was spud and thought oh no way this is going to cause some confusion for some. I am surprised it took you guys this long to catch on.

Poor guy new to the board and gets this as a welcome. Let?s hope it was an honest mistake and give him the benefit of the doubt. There is also a few hunters and lurk?s.

People who deliberately choose "dopplegangers" for their own dishonourable purposes are one thing.

On the other hand, I do not think it reasonable to expect that all newbies should have read through perhaps hundreds or thousands of forum postings as a guest, before taking the plunge of registering as a member. Randomly sampling the forums is an extremely inefficient method (and never complete, anyway!) to check on the uniqueness of the potential new User Name that they have in mind (Although they will most likely run across the handles of the high-volume posters that way, there is just no guarantee of even that. And it's not just the "famous" names that are subject to honest coincidence). This random sampling is just not a practical method of checking for uniqueness. Nor is it a burden that a new member can be practically expected to bear (or even be aware of, without being told!), in my view.

I say either give new registrants access to a complete "Members List" where they can make a proper and complete check within a reasonable amount of their invested time, or give them the benefit of the doubt. Folks with good intentions should not be indiscriminately lumped in with the obvious bad apples.

What could be done is what some web emails do, when you select a handle, it searches for whether or not it's available. CERB could maybe do a similar thing, where it will search for whether or not the choice is similar to other peoples' handles.

I think that lots of new guys come in, and look at the handles and use one that they think is great and copy it. These are people who cannot think for themselves and are good at copying others. In this latest case the particular user (spud) had already other previous handles that were copies of others.

I saw when he signed up a few days ago, I looked down at the newest member and it was spud and thought oh no way this is going to cause some confusion for some. I am surprised it took you guys this long to catch on.

 

Poor guy new to the board and gets this as a welcome. Let?s hope it was an honest mistake and give him the benefit of the doubt. There is also a few hunters and lurk?s.

People don't come up with such a similar handle by coincidence and he was actually spotted a few days ago and told in chat to change is handle. So much for the poor guy We already know who he is and he has been suspended from this board many times already using other handles. Mod has been informed about this imposter.

Yes I was informed of this after my post. Glad you guys caught the guy- good work. I now see why everyone was so pissed. Emma?s original post didn?t show that was the situation.

Kind of like when some newer SPs decide to use the work name of a very popular and established SP. How many Jessica's did we have at one point around here, for example? Certainly enough to confuse people and to cause the most popular of the lot to change her work name.

Thank you Emma for this wonderful topic. I have already run in to some problems because of this other person using the name Spud, so my adivce is the same to everyone new on here. Make sure you don't use a handle that is close to someone elses, otherwise it causes a great deal of confusion!

She didn't know who the guy was, she actually thought it was me. I was informed by someone else on here who he is as they managed to put two and two together. MOD is aware this is the same person he has banned before. Hopefully this can be put to rest soon! Don't want to piss this Scotsman off, would not be very wise on his part ;)

Yes I was informed of this after my post. Glad you guys caught the guy- good work. I now see why everyone was so pissed. Emma?s original post didn?t show that was the situation.

What was there, like four or five Jessica's at one point. It can get very confusing at times!

Kind of like when some newer SPs decide to use the work name of a very popular and established SP. How many Jessica's did we have at one point around here, for example? Certainly enough to confuse people and to cause the most popular of the lot to change her work name.

People who deliberately choose "dopplegangers" for their own dishonourable purposes are one thing.

 

On the other hand, I do not think it reasonable to expect that all newbies should have read through perhaps hundreds or thousands of forum postings as a guest, before taking the plunge of registering as a member. Randomly sampling the forums is an extremely inefficient method (and never complete, anyway!) to check on the uniqueness of the potential new User Name that they have in mind (Although they will most likely run across the handles of the high-volume posters that way, there is just no guarantee of even that. And it's not just the "famous" names that are subject to honest coincidence). This random sampling is just not a practical method of checking for uniqueness. Nor is it a burden that a new member can be practically expected to bear (or even be aware of, without being told!), in my view.

 

I say either give new registrants access to a complete "Members List" where they can make a proper and complete check within a reasonable amount of their invested time, or give them the benefit of the doubt. Folks with good intentions should not be indiscriminately lumped in with the obvious bad apples.

Well it would be similar to someone coming on and choosing "wrinkledinthyme"...would you then be giving the benefit of the doubt?

A lot of the valued members have these dopplegangers.....I'll refrain from naming mine but it's very close and newer sps can confuse it easily...in fac it has happened to me. Oral69 has one too and so does Capitalman to name two other long time members...the intent is quite clear....impostership!:-(

Well it would be similar to someone coming on and choosing "wrinkledinthyme"...would you then be giving the benefit of the doubt?

Boner, you are course right ... I certainly would not like it!

There are two issues here, differentiated by intent. My original point, again, is that because there exists no efficient way for good-intentioned new members to check on this, nor any automatic way now in place of bringing this issue to their attention as they sign-up, there should be leeway granted for benefit of the doubt. As to how much leeway ... well, common sense counts in this on a case-by-case basis, as in most other things.

You will note that I agreed with Emma (whose post did not mention, btw, that this particular "spud" was infamously known to be a deliberate imposter) -- and that I am advocating for steps to be taken to avoid this, the first issue of good-intentioned coincidence:

Adding a message for New Members (requesting that they do this check themselves, using an accessible Member's List), seems like it would be a very good step to add to the official sign-up process, if it's a practical thing to do.

As for the second issue of deliberate, ill-intentioned dopplegangers who need to be identified and weeded out -- the other side of the same common sense coin comes into play. Example of the day: "spud". I was born in Prince Edward Island, whose residents are known as "Spud Islanders", so a hypothetical new member who chooses "spud" as his handle seems to me to be entirely plausible as a mere coincidence, and to merit the benefit of the doubt until his behaviour shows otherwise (which in this case it did -- although this fact did not come out until later in the thread). However, the plausibility of innocent coincidence is reduced when more unusual handles are involved; your example, "wrinkledinthyme" would be weird enough to leave a much thinner margin for doubt as to intention; a new "inaluuki" would be unusual enough to be pretty much an open-and-shut case of impostership. Common sense (at least, my version of it).

Of course, if a suggestion similar to mine (as quoted above) were to be actually put in place on the site, and new members were explicitly requested to check for similarities themselves, and given the tools to be able to do it properly -- well, then the margin for granting benefit of the doubt would immediately shrink in all cases.

So, yeah. There are two separate issues here, even though the "similar user-name" symptoms of both are the same. It is definitely not always easy to tell at first blush which are the folks with ill intentions, and which are the folks with good intentions. The one point that I would really like to make, I guess, is that we should do everything we practically can, so that the hurtful actions of members of the one group do not unduly prejudice our view of the members of the other.

Cheers, Wrinkled

...and a girl should always know which boner she is talking to ha :mrgreen:

I agree with everything you said wrinkled...we are on the same page....or should we be on the same "paige?":mrgreen:

...and a girl should always know which boner she is talking to ha :mrgreen:

:

I thought you were changing your name to Iamhunglikeahorse? haha

Thanks, I am the real Capitalman. There can be only one. (Highlander, remember him?)

My momma taught me how to read. I can spot the difference between Spud and Spud271, the difference between Igotaboner and Igotawoody but during a quick read it can be confusing.

At least most of these laffals just disappear after a while. The userdatabase should get purged once in a while of inactive accounts, imho.