We have a rather large Discourse instance and currently allow users to change their username up to 3 days after they create an account.
We’ve grown rapidly in the last few months, and the amount of requests we’re getting to change usernames is becoming untenable.
We’re considering upping the time period for users to change their usernames to essentially forever, but first I wanted to see if there might be pitfalls with doing this that I’m not thinking of. Our users must be verified members of our organization, so we don’t have any anonymous accounts or random users.
What’s been your experience? How long do you allow users to change their usernames? Is it working for you?
On a community I’m active on you can change your username but the policy as far as I know still stands as: “Username changes are allowed once every two years.”
That way you can still change your username, perhaps not as often as a user would like but it means less work but it still doesn’t stop users asking how / who do they contact to change their username.
My opinion is that if everyone could change their username all the time it would become confusing to remember who is who lets say today you are @jenmck and tomorrow you can @Ilovecats7128 and 5 days later its something else its just confusing.
I agree with the freedom about the personal data, and I also care about community health practices. A middle ground is exactly what this thread landed on, allowing users to change usernames within a desired period.
Two years sounds like a lot to me; I think 6 months is a reasonable position that would avoid abuse while simultaneously allowing each person to choose how they view their profile.
yes they use Discourse. Its just a rule they have its not a site setting. My guess is that they add a user note so they know how long its been since the last change.
And yes six months seems fine for me too as opposed to two years.