No Thanks Reduce Waiting Time Limit for Premium Name Changes to One Week

I'm posting this on behalf of @Omiko Hakodate as he's the one that made the suggestion in our staff chat on Skype.

To quote Hector on a few things:

Now that we have four administrators (sorry, Tienewman, I don't count you since you're not active), it shouldn't be too much of a burden.

What are your guys' thoughts?

 

If that's the case of sharing a theme, it should have been discussed before the name change. >> why make admins work harder

 

I support it I guess why make two weeks when people would rather have the same theme sooner. I mean I'm not exactly one to talk since I just hit premium but like what if a new member takes that certain available name change during the duration of 2 weeks it rarely happens of course but there's always the possibility. All in all I support the reason for name change along with bi-weekly being a bit to wait for a simple name change.

 

While that actually DID give me the push to come out with the suggestion, it's really not that.

I mean, admins don't even usually get to name changes right away, there have been times where I've waited like an extra week just to get a name change, so that already made it longer than the wait time, if that makes any sense.

Two weeks just seems like a really long time to me for something as simple and easy as a name change, and then there's the fact that the admins have lives and don't always get to them right away makes it even longer than it needs to be.

If a week is too short, I'm willing to compromise and go halfway with other suggestions, but as it stands, two weeks is too much of a wait time to me for something that can take up to a week at times.

 

As much as I don't like waiting two weeks to go from a theme that's dying out back to my default, I can't particularly say this is necessary. imo, the rule is in place to keep people from changing so often that no one recognizes them. I get that most people keep their sigs and, in some cases, post templates, but making the wait time one week leaves room for it to be abused. So many of us already change our names/themes often enough as it is...

 

Basically this, it's not as much about the task of changing names as it is to discourage people changing their names every week (which people already regularly do).

 

You can theme with friends without changing your name [ actually I haven't changed my name to be apart of a theme with friends in forever, we just change our avatars and sigs and keep our forum name ], that shouldn't be stopping you.

I already don't know who half of you are anymore without having to dig around and that's with the full two weeks to adjust to someone's new name.

 

For me personally, I'm neutral on the subject. Most of the time I just do my own thing, such as now, so I don't get those "oh, damn it, now I want to be so and so a week later" feels.

On rare occasions, I will do themes with people, but those don't happen too often. So far, it's only been:

• The Legend of Korra - 2012 and 2013
  
• Digimon with @Snow Queen

But that's it, really. And regarding the Korra fad, even when others jumped to something else other than their default, it didn't affect me since I'm not particularly into the shows people do fads of, such as Doctor Who.

Edit: I had Jayn edit in a "Doesn't matter either way" option.

 

Once again, it's not specifically about themes.

Please keep up and pay attention, because I stated that in my first reply it encouraged me to make the issue I had public, but it's not the reason I feel this is an issue.

I just genuinely feel it's a long time, especially with the excess wait time there is often, but I do understand what is being said and that perhaps it is too often now, in which case I happily concede and admit it's fine as is, despite me always knowing who is who. I understand that not everyone is like that.

This can remain open if anyone else wants to input and has better ideas or w/e, but I do now realize it's probably not a good idea.

 

Agreed. Everyone can freely change avatars and signatures whenever, so doing a theme shouldn't hinge solely on a name change. While it can be fun and give the full effect to have a certain character's name, it isn't necessary to showing that you like 'x' thing when you're already decked in their gear. A few people here have said that they have a hard time recognizing them with two weeks already, and the only reason I tend to know off the bat is only because I help with changing them, heh.

Although, I do recognize that we can be late with name changes, much more so as of late. In the name change thread in the Prem Section, there is a rule that says if you haven't gotten it changed in three days time that it's fine to contact one of us about it to get it done.

 

Is there any way to make other staff have the power to change names just so the wait time should decrease hopefully because I doubt it's Admins first port of call when they log on xD

 

If you were given this permission, something in the XenForo core, you could, but it wouldn't be the best method: "Manage users and moderators."

 

Unfortunately that would mean. allowing you guys to edit everything about users, meaning you could theoretically perform promotions and the like. Four admins is plenty to take care of name changes, especially because, as Plums states, you can contact us if it's been a few days. to add to that, when I would do the name changes, I would usually count your two weeks as starting when you requested, not when I changed your name.

 

Maybe we could deal with the additional delays by having advance requests? (e.g. "When my name can be changed tomorrow I want it to be qwaesrdtfy"). Though I don't think that would even help since those delays are usually human error. It would be really easy to forget about it in the time between request and allowed change, and then not come back for even longer since it would be cleared from alerts and such.

Personally though I already felt like 2 weeks was way fast. If it was up to me alone, I would probably make the rule something like 6 months and leave you to use user-titles for nicknames and fads. Many of you are very grateful I'm not the one to make the call, and I respect that, I'm just also never going to be one to vote for allowing name changes to happen even faster.

 

I always felt that two weeks was short. I'd support increasing it to a month, maybe.
With a theme (I know it's not your primary reason, but still addressing that): like everyone said, you can change everything but a username for a bit and then have the username changed when it's time. Honestly, if the fad doesn't last more than 14 days (assuming you came up with the idea the moment after you changed your name to something else), then what's the point?

I think it happens too often as it is. Some people change their names every. two. weeks. I personally don't interact with enough people to care who everyone is every time I come back from a hiatus, but it can be annoying. Thankfully, most -but not all- frequent namechangers have something where I can figure out who they are (usually their sig) or change update their username history or someone calls them by a common name in a thread or VM on their profile...but sometimes it's just a hassle to figure out who's who. Personally, I've had a few (not many, maybe three or four) instances when I really wanted to tell someone something like ask for their specific help on a graphic issue or collab on an RP or something, and couldn't find them so I either got someone else or gave up...only to realize I saw the original person regularly and had no idea they were who I was looking for.

To add to what was added about the clutter in the name change thread: I agree. Usually if I do want to figure out who is who and their sig doesn't reveal it, that thread's the first place I look (I used to also look at it first each time I logged in to see who changed recently), but half the time it feels like half of the posts are requests and the rest is clutter.

Also, some people like to post in advance (A couple of days before their two weeks is up) and I can understand how the request can be forgotten or accidentally changed early, which I find unfair.


All in all, two weeks isn't much and if you can't wait that two weeks, I just think it's a bit impatient and you take your username a little two whimsically.

 

I'm going with no because as of late my name changes are almost instantaneous -thanks to @Lana Del Jayn for the five second wait time on my most recent request ;) - so as far as that aspect I no longer find it a problem. To be honest, if you want a name change you should just wait till an admin is online to make the post that way it's less likely they'll overlook it (or you could wait a few days and ask them about it). As far as themes go, we were doing themes well before we had access to things like biweekly name changes and even custom user titles. I believe Jayn also mentioned something about that (close to it anyway) above.

Basically I can understand what it's like to be impatient but see no reason to reduce the waiting time. It's hard enough for the nubs to keep up with me as it is considering I change almost every bit of information I can after a name change. They don't need that kind of brain hurt every single week! Seriously, I think it's fine the way it is. You know the old saying, "If it's not broke, don't fix it."

 

Long ago, I think, it used to be 1 week.
Now it's not, and that's for the better. I like it this way.