Name Change Error

(Mu'ad Diib) #1

I’m really annoyed at CCP and whichever person came up with the transfer of identities and names into the ‘new’ forum.

In this ‘new’ forum, you have changed my name so that “People can mention you as @Mu_ad_Diib”. I am incredibly annoyed about this change, and even more so because there was no consultation prior to it happening.

You’ve changed how my name gets displayed and how other users can refer to me and you didn’t even have the decency to ask me first I’m really upset my this

To be clear my character name has always been Mu’ad Diib and the reasons for the name are very personal and very important to me (which is why I’m so annoyed) and there are specific reasons (again which I feel are very important) for it being written this way

The whole point of the apostrophe being there is to be indicative of the Arabic linguistic pronunciation of certain syllable groups and how there are slight pauses in pronunciation. The apostrophe is there because I lived in the middle east and I know something about Arabic. It’s also there because it’s a subtle nod to the Arabic influences within Fremen culture in the book ‘Dune’.

Having just checked my profile, there is no way for me to change this and I want to know what I can do about it.

Had you asked me what I wanted, which I’m sure is low down on your priorities, I would have said that if your system can’t recognise apostrophes then leave it out and give me Muad_Diib I don’t like this particularly but it’s way better than a ridiculous underscore being in place of a diacritically placed apostrophe.

(Scipio Artelius) #2

@Mu’ad_Diib

Could always be like that I guess.

(ISD Stall) #3

HI there,

So, I do not know the reason why the apostrophes have been scrubbed, although it may have something to do with the database. However, this issue may upset a few people so I will try to ask CCPs web developer when he is next at work if he can look at this thread. No promises but I will see what I can do.

(Mu'ad Diib) #4

Thanks. for the reply and for the plan to take it to CCPs web developer. I appreciate the help.

(ISD Stall) #5

No promises, but I will see if I can get at least get a reason for you. I am just replying to your other threads. Give me a few minutes and you should have an answer or two.

Fly Safe o7

(Morrigan Laima) #6

Your displayed name appears correctly. Usernames, on the other hand, which are primarily exposed via @mentions, are “normalized” into a limited set of characters because of technical limitations, ie, so that the software can actually recognize them as usernames, so that they can be accurately typed with the limited set of characters that are available on ALL keyboards, and so that they can’t use the same set of characters as forum markup.

This isn’t unique to these forums. We’ve been dealing with this in third party services for years, for example, ’ is not a valid character for a jabber username either, so the services used by my alliance strip those character from jabber usernames and turn spaces into underscores.

Side note: Discourse has roughly the same username limitations as Twitter.

(Mu'ad Diib) #7

@Morrigan_Laima for the record, I don’t think what you’re writing is correct. I just had a look at the old forums and my name consistently appears as Mu’ad Diib.

As far as “normalization” goes into a limited set of characters because of technical limitations, given that the previous forum had the technical ability to recognise an apostrophe, I cannot understand how the new one doesn’t. IMHO that’s not a technical limitation, that’s just poor design.

(Drizzd) #8

I dont want to be mean … but it IS a technical limitation … called URL-Encoding … your name would end up as
Mu%27ad+Diib … not very nice … so they decided to replace problematic characters with underscores … which upsets you but is clearly easier for people
The old forum didnt had the feature of making your username a directly usable address … like this one

(Tengu Grib) #9

You can think he’s wrong all you want. Doesn’t make him wrong.

(Mu'ad Diib) #10

I appreciate the reply @Drizzd, and I don’t think you’re being mean at all.

I think the point that you make about technical limitations is entirely fair, and given that my knowledge in this area might be (read: probably is) less than yours, I think you’re probably right about the apostrophe not being feasible.

Having said this, one of the important points made in my original post was that, if the system can’t recognise an apostrophe, I’d have preferred to have Muad_Diib (I don’t like this especially but IMHO it’s way better than the ridiculous underscore solution that has been handed down to me). From my perspective, a key thing here is the fact that I wasn’t actually asked before the change.

I do genuinely appreciate, that with the number of users that there are on the forum, actually physically asking each and every user is completely impractical. However, what CCP could have done is this:

  1. Emailed everyone and told them that the new forums are being set-up.
  2. Within the email, explained that certain characters, like apostrophes, for example, won’t function under the new forum structure.
  3. Set up an interface and given users the option to go in (within a given time period) and chose a username configuration, based on their existing name, which would meet the technical requirements of the new forum.

If people didn’t opt to do this, within the time period, then I think it would have been fair and reasonable for CCP to simply hand down to them whatever they thought was an acceptable translation of the existing user name, but to simply not even be asked or given any opportunity to do I think is pretty rubbish.

In terms of where we are now, CCP could (probably) decide to offer people the option to change the insertion of underscores within the existing preferences options so maybe all is not lost

If they don’t do this however, people like me will be stuck with a user name that bears no relationship to the essential essence of the thought process behind the original name.

Whilst some people might not attach a lot of weight or meaning to the name they choose, the reasons for my choice are very personal and very important to me and the current, underscored version is just really, really silly in how it’s written in terms of the Arabic linguistic pronunciation that drove me to include the apostrophe in the first place.

(Tengu Grib) #11

That’s a whole lot of leg work over an apostrophe that one person cares about. The underscore name is the server username. No one looks at that to see how to pronounce it.