Why is Boards so quiet?

iguot

TherapyBoy wrote: »

Changing your name doesn't hide anything. All your previous nicknames are listed on your public profile. Same for everyone, mod or not.

Only if admin can be bothered to do it at the time.

Erik Shin

Insect Overlord wrote: »

I think people should just stick to one account instead of turning up with a new one every few months, weeks, or even days. Continuity and identity go a long long way.

Absolutely not, if you can't close an account all people will do is abandon one and open another

TherapyBoy

sqwertypoo1934 wrote: »

"Changing your name doesn't hide anything. All your previous nicknames are listed on your public profile. Same for everyone, mod or not."

FAKE NEWS!

Easily verified as fake by looking at Insect Overlords public profile.
No mention of previous nicks.

Twy hardurrrr...

Jobs OXO wrote: »

This is incorrect.

sqwertypoo1934

Not the screen seen by the plebs.
IO anfhile can confirm this - some setting he has chosen himself perhaps in Display Options?

Are you guyz boardz-fwiends?

Wibbs

sqwertypoo1934 wrote: »

Not the screen seen by the plebs.
IO anfhile can confirm this - some setting he has chosen himself perhaps in Display Options?

Maybe only available on the old desktop layout? There's quite the bit missing from the mobile platform.

LuckyLloyd

The About Me section for Insect Overlord is unavailable for me. Using Legacy Desktop view.

TherapyBoy

It's the only layout I've ever used. No school like the old school!

hinault

Jobs OXO wrote: »

Hi have been on the site with previous (now closed) accounts for a good number of years. I have never seen it so quiet. Sunday morning and looking at latest posts traffic seems so slow. Is no one posting anymore? AH doesn't seem to be much craic anymore. Anyone notice the same? Any ideas how to improve the situation ?

Thankfully there are many alternative locations where users can interact as an alternative to this site.

sqwertypoo1934

touch, responsive, legacy... IOfhile's profile yields just about as much info as many of the mods... Zero details of previous nicks for us plebs.

LuckyLloyd

TherapyBoy wrote: »

It's the only layout I've ever used. No school like the old school!

my skin is the same as yours

sqwertypoo1934

Rules out racial profiling at least

Boom_Bap

When I logout, I can't see previous nicks, when I switch to the responsive site while logged in, I cannot see previous nicks.
When using the Legacy site I can see them.

This is all from desktop.

TherapyBoy

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

my skin is the same as yours

Apologies, I thought the information was available to all.

sqwertypoo1934

"when I switch to the responsive site while logged in, I cannot see previous nicks."
To be fair, nobody expects that stinking dung heap of a responsive site to do anything properly. 

I had always assumed this was a "perk" for mods - ye can change names willy nilly raftery an filly, and hide it from the plebs for at least a while.

TherapyBoy

It's a perk available to everyone, if they subscribe.

sqwertypoo1934

It's a perk available to everyone, if they subscribe.


My my , haven't you changed your tune!
"changing name hides nothing"
...
"anyone can hide their name change"

Insect Overlord

sqwertypoo1934 wrote: »

I had always assumed this was a "perk" for mods - ye can change names willy nilly raftery an filly, and hide it from the plebs for at least a while.

The list of forums modded stays visible though, so it doesn't really hide anything from anybody.

I can also confirm that my "previous nicks" are not hidden. Anyone on the legacy site should be able to see them.

sqwertypoo1934 wrote: »

"anyone can hide their name change"

Le sigh.

You're misrepresenting what TherapyBoy said. The perk to which he was referring was the one of changing your username. He was not suggesting you could subscribe to hide it.

TherapyBoy

I'm talking about the changing your name part, anyone can change their username if they subscribe.

osarusan

Insect Overlord wrote: »

I can also confirm that my "previous nicks" are not hidden. Anyone on the legacy site should be able to see them.

(EDIT: I don't think any of this is really that important at all, but...) No, I can't. I can't see most of the stuff that Therapyboy posted earlier - maybe it depends on user settings.

I can't access the 'About me' section. Here is what I can see if I go into your profile:

Insect Overlord

osarusan wrote: »

I can't access the 'About me' section. Here is what I can see if I go into your profile:

Ah! You're right!

I must have switched everything to "friends only" at some point.

I need to start making more friends around here. :P

sqwertypoo1934

Le Sigh (cringe!) indeed, both you and therapyboy are misrepresenting what I misinterpreted as a perk.
Not just the name change but being also able to hide it. I've only ever taken note of how many mods avail of this option.

blackwhite

osarusan wrote: »

(EDIT: I don't think any of this is really that important at all, but...) No, I can't. I can't see most of the stuff that Therapyboy posted earlier - maybe it depends on user settings.

I can't access the 'About me' section. Here is what I can see if I go into your profile:

Same for me as well.



But surely - your entire post history is still there if anyone bothered to look. It's not a case of all links to the old name being erased

To my mind it's very different situation to closing an account and opening a new one.

Thelomen Toblackai

blackwhite wrote: »

Same for me as well.



But surely - your entire post history is still there if anyone bothered to look. It's not a case of all links to the old name being erased

To my mind it's very different situation to closing an account and opening a new one.

Who's going to be looking though ?

I don't see much of a difference tbh. Apart from the fact a name change costs you money (for which you get pretty much nothing else worth talking about) while a new account doesn't.

Both are identity changes as far as how you're presenting yourself on the site. There's as many posters who've changed their names that I wouldn't know now as there are new accounts that I don't know.

It's grand if a poster wants to keep their history and post count etc. But it's a tad ridiculous to be complaining about people's lack of continuity for creating new accounts while changing your own name.

Zaph

sqwertypoo1934 wrote: »

Le Sigh (cringe!) indeed, both you and therapyboy are misrepresenting what I misinterpreted as a perk.
Not just the name change but being also able to hide it. I've only ever taken note of how many mods avail of this option.

Well just to give you an idea of volumes, since the start of March there have been 20 name change requests (just chose that period as it's the first page of the name change forum). Of those, 2 were from mods reverting to previous names, one of whom had changed their name for a period in return for a charity donation to the SSF I believe. So it's not like the numbers availing of the facility, mods or non-mods, is exactly overwhelming.

I've also fixed your post that I quoted above, you seemed to be having a bit of an issue with your space bar.

sqwertypoo1934

Aren't you brilliant Zaph? Tis like you have a homing instinct for anything with a whiff of delicious dickishness off it.

Insect Overlord

sqwertypoo1934 wrote: »

a whiff of delicious dickishness off it.

Sometimes the disgusting reek of it is impossible to miss.

Zaph

sqwertypoo1934 wrote: »

Aren't you brilliant Zaph? Tis like you have a homing instinct for anything with a whiff of delicious dickishness off it.

Well if it walks dickishly and quacks dickishly then sometimes, when all other possibilities have been discounted, the only logical conclusion is that it's dickish.

Murrisk

Wibbs wrote: »

Maybe only available on the old desktop layout? There's quite the bit missing from the mobile platform.

No, I'm using the legacy site on desktop, I can't see Insect Overlord's previous usernames. Here's what I see when logged IN:

jackofalltrades

Insect Overlord wrote: »

I think people should just stick to one account instead of turning up with a new one every few months, weeks, or even days. Continuity and identity go a long long way.

Yeah there used to be much more of a sense of community in here.
Then regular users started opening up new accounts every couple of months.
So you have this constant feeling of deja vu when you read someones posts.

That and you also have the luxury of having the same debate, with the same person, more than once.
And you can't go "Is this X", because then you get an warning about speculating about other users identity.
So they can refer to your past posts but you can't do the same to them.
You don't have to worry about your reputation anymore, because you can just re-reg.
Which leads IMO to a drop in debating standards.

LuckyLloyd

I'm sure there are a handful of cases every couple of years where users have a genuine need to close an account for matters of urgent privacy. It could have been a case that such users could have emailed the site to request same and make a case for closure.

As it is, the vast majority of closed accounts are being used in a negative anti community sense.