Forum Thread

I'd say yes if you can opt out or display your username history to friends only. For my reasoning:

Quote from Ephenia

Our Usernames are all accessible public information made available and be seen by anyone, and they are a required thing for every account to have upon sign up as being minimal for our identification. You're never required at any point to change your Username either, and unless your Username is something that breaks rules, then I see no point why such information would be hidden away, or censored to the public.

Our past usernames cease to be accessible public information once we change them. In general, the reason why people change usernames is because they'd rather be identified by their new username and don't want to be associated with their old username anymore. If this gets implemented and there's no possibility to restrict who sees your old usernames, people are forced to deal with their old unwanted usernames becoming public information again.

To use myself as an example: I had a different username in the early days of PH. I do not want to be identified by that name anymore for reasons of my own so it'd really irk me if it became available for any and all to see. I changed my username for a reason and I don't want the old one dug up.

A possible compromise could be related to what KrazyKarp brought up:
-> Your profile remains accessible through your previous username for a period of time after you change it.
-> So that old username could then be displayed publicly for that period of time in the username history page. After that time is up, any privacy settings you might've set for your username history take hold. I think that'd be enough time for people to get a grasp of who you are.

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Support but i would love if this also show the past avatars

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Bump

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Support! I've only changed my name once (to Rhoslyn na Foraoise), cause it was the main character of the book I was working on. But my current name holds too much meaning to risk someone else taking it. But yes!!! I have a horrible memory, and have occasionally removed close friends because I didn't recognize or remember their new name!

Although, to reply to Finhawk...Perhaps we could select which ones we want to be remembered as? Because yeah. I used to be such a jerk to people. And I know some people see me and go "Oh. It's her. She was such an arrogant, selfish, heartless person. Why would anyone be friends with her?" I don't want to be remembered as that person.

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I will definitely support. Seeing that most of my friends here usually like to change their names on me, I would find this very useful. :)

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I agree with people who say that this should be implemented only if it's something we can turn off.
I only changed my username once because the original one was a nickname I got because of my deadname. I worked really hard to remove the username from my posts in forums so knowing that anyone could go and see it would cause me great distress.

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I totally support this.
I understand the worry about being defined by an old name.
But this suggestion isn´t for 'Let´s watch, who was it before and if I don´t like wich name I see, I´ll ignore you.' Even there will be Users they will do that, but that are Users they are just unforgiving and that´s a personal problem, not one of a complete community. Don´t judge people for what they do or think maybe years ago. Be respectful to others, so other are respectful to you.

Sometimes you write so much with a user, then he/she do a break and after 6 month or a year you get a message, but from an unknown Username. So it would be great, if I can look, who is it.
Or did you all check every month your Friendlist to know, if every name can be compared to the right person?
Anyway.. I support it.

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oh my gosh,yes please,this needs to be a thing,I have a really hard remembering who my friend or other people were after they change their usernames,I still can't find people that I've been trying to remember for the past few years...this would be so helpful

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Support

I have a friend who changed their name four times
And on the third time, I got lost
I just figured out yesterday who they originally were

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This is amazing and can't wait to be able to use it :D

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I’m not sure whether to support this or not, with the new formerly feature, it might not be useful

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I support this because there are some people who join the community in full, then have real life take away a lot of their time on here but they might change their usernames a few times, then someone who used to talk to them before they got busy a long time ago might not know them by any of their usernames but when going through their friendlist might find them and go "Oh, this person. They still get on, didn't know that they changed their names a few times"

I know it makes a difference for me, so I'm in support. Also, if I wanna show off what usernames I've gone by in the past it could be a fun thing to add!

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Full support

We allowed to bump this?

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