The user formerly known as Zalister
 

Just so you all know, I had my user name changed to my name in real life. So, when you see Jay Carr now, it's just me, Zalister, with a new name.

JayZee ;)

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Hi Jay!
Congratulations for coming out of the closet. :D
I look forward to reading many great new posts from your hand.

-- ArcticStones

LOL.. I'm not ready to come out yet...

O_____O my head...i cant handle it.....*grabs revolver*


and since when could we change user names :O

I had to beg, barter, steal and eventually bribe people into letting me change it, so... :).

Just kidding, I just asked one of the moderators to take care of it, and it happened.

Unfortunately the username change does not change in-post references, so now there are >700 references to the phantom Zalister.

Maybe you can put something small in your signature so people won't get confused when they see "Jay Carr"?

Jay Carr is your real name? maybe you should have gone the other way and had it legally changed to Zalister.:D

Really? I never realized I was so popular! Or so worth yelling at I guess...

That's not a bad idea, I might do that for a little while... Hopefully it will keep things straight, right?

WITCHCRAFT!!!!

hmm, wonder if i can take the 101 from my name....

The burning, but yet unexplained, Jay, is why?

Why did I have my name changed to my real name? I think it's kind of explained by my quote, if you take look. I actually went into a bit of detail on this subject in my thread in the help section. But I can hit the highlights again.

The main reason is because I feel that people, on the whole, lack social responsibility when on the web because they feel like no one really knows who they are, so they can act as they choose without repercussion. I feel that if people were to use their real names, they would be more likely to be responsible. When it's your real name, your real reputation is on the line.

That being said, I don't think this is a big problem at this particular forum. But it's a matter of principle for me.

Plus, I'd like to think that if I met someone from the forums in real life that it could be a natural meeting (rather than a, "oh, you're that guy from the forum..."). I feel like having my actual name up there will make that easier.

In essence all of these concepts point to the same fundamental principle: I think putting my real name up there makes me more human. I don't like the idea of being an 'internet experience' or 'internet entity', I'm a real person. I think using my actual name helps cement that concept into anyone I interact with here. Maybe I'm being silly, I just tend to think that it's easier for all of us to associate "human" with a real name rather than something like, SuperWalker233, or the like.

Just my two cents.

Now that is an interesting problem.
That’s obviously an Admin challenge, however.
Glad I’m a mere Mod. :D

An entirely respectable position, but I am not sure I concur with John Gabriel's Greater Internet ####wad theory (Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total ####wad). One can choose to operate with a nom de guerre and nevertheless endeavour to behave like a decent netizen. You don't know who I am, you can't come and punch me out, so I can act as I choose; and what I choose to do is to be as civilised as I can manage (even if a trifle dopey at times). The other side of the Net medal is that our reputation rests entirely upon our verbal culture; we cannot compensate for being a ####wad with our perfect teeth, toned abs or little black numbers. None of which I have, at any rate. :)

Contrariwise, the worst Usenet troll I ever observed, perhaps the worst human being I have ever encountered, whom I shall not name in case it attracts him, operated with his full and correct name. Someone from the group even visited him at home.

Nor cool avatars, at least not at this site. For which I’m glad.

And the only black numbers are below your name: A baseball classification, join date, number of posts, and a location if given. Other than that, everybody is on the same footing.

That leaves us with our verbal culture, as you mentioned -- and the social culture of MacOSXHints itself, where IMHO the defining trait is generosity. :)

In which case you – as a moderator – should be classified as "Umpire," "Ump" or "Blue."

Amen to that.

their is a good reason many people here have pseudonyms to hide behind... Arctic Stones real name is 'Drew Peacock' :D

Dont even get me started on my real name.... :o

As a note, I respect all of your positions. One of the great things about existence is that we can all disagree. And I'd like to think I'm mature enough to accept that my particular world view is a result of my limited experience rather than some eternal truth we all should cling to.

I personally agree with John Gabriel because I've seen it happen before. At the same time, I used to frequent a lot of gamer, anime, comic and manga sites, were that kind of behavior is the norm. I think I pointed out before, in this forum it's not a problem, so changing my name was more a matter of principle than an effort to revolutionize the board :D.

I do like what Woodsman said, and I think it's true. Forums do give you the opportunity to express ideas independent of mitigating factors. An advantage and disadvantage to be sure, but a very good point.

Like I alluded to before, I'm not going to say that everyone here needs to switch over to using their own name. I feel it is the correct decision from my limited perspective, and I can't begin to say I would make the same decision in any of your situations because I'm not in them. So...yeah, just keep on doing what your doing, and don't worry about me thinking any less of you because you do :).

That reminds me of what Amazon is doing with it's "Real Name Review" system, where people use their real names to comment and write reviews of things.

I have no objection to using my real name and on another site (macscripter.net) I'm an admin and so use my real name there (Adam Bell). Having said that, however, I "contribute" to quite a few other forums under the moniker NovaScotian and don't want to deal with the hassle that Jay has encountered; he exists in the history of this forum as Zalister and it's unlikely that one of the admins will go to the trouble of making them one (which was the case on MacScripter.net where the webmaster did change all my prior entries to the new author name). I note however that the change for Jay didn't start his post count at 1 again and part of the reason for the history adjustment at macscripter was that the name change did change the count as well.

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I have actually broached this subject in the Moderators’ Section, asking if there is an easy way to globally change references to Zalister in various and sundry posts. I’m not sure what the outcome of that query will be. If there is a handy solution, and it is implemented, it is of course unlikely to tackle things like "Zal" and "Z".

-- ArcticStones

To be honest, it's not the biggest problem for me. I'll probably keep the "I was Zalister" in my signature in some form (maybe not as bold). And on top of that, the only place former references might matter is in the Coat Room (at least that's what I think) and most of you here know that I switched. Between the two I'm feeling okay about this...

Though yeah, it could cause some complications... I like being complicated I guess :).

Not difficult - one entry in the Users table. Forum software should do this in the Admin section.

Also easy, but likely not in the admin pages. You'll need to massage the database directly. We have a large database and this query processes every entry. Deep breath... press enter.

--Dominus custodit te ab omni malo custodiat agnitio tuam Dominus.

--Dominus custodiat quaero tuum et restituo tuum ex hoc nunc et usque in saeculum.

UPDATE posts SET post_content = replace(post_content, 'Zalister', 'Jay Carr');

That is true. I like your quote at the beginning. But to not be PC in some environments is not possible except for the most entrenched individuals. Expressing opinions as those in the latest locked forum could cost some people their careers, so anonymity will probably continue to not be uncommon. Hopefully they can still maintain their dignity and civilized decorum.:)

Rob G. very helpfully changed mine for me some time ago. I started off as GBPMI. Maybe need another change now, as I no longer live in Bangkok, but moved south permanently. How about GavinSKL? :)

mods can i have mine just as kel.....believe it or not 101 isnt part of my name O_O

Looks like someone else already took Kel so you probably missed that boat.

Not a bad idea. Maybe then people will stop thinking we are actually the same person. You do realize that the airport code for your city is SGZ, correct? I'd change it to GavinSGZ to stay consistent. After doing some searching, I found out that SKL is actually the code for Broadford Airport, in the UK.

Interesting......

You won't get a ticket here because it's a mil airstrip. We have to go out via Hat Yai (HDY), always assuming some coloured shirt isn't blockading the place.

Back on topic. Who thinks we are the same person then?

I can't find the post now. Someone raised a question about our similar names several months ago.

Very interesting topic
 

interesting thread ... personally I remember when I first started foruming that I really enjoyed some of the clever (at least to me) user names that I saw ... at that time I was stuck to come up with one of my own but after a while it became easier and now I prefer to put my brain cells to work creating a user name other than using my own name, which to me is plain.

However, I always have my real first name in my signature just to show I'm half human ... :D

EDIT ... speaking of which ... I have signatures enabled in my CP but can't see it in this post?

Bump!! :)

What's your sig supposed to be? You go to User CP » Edit Sig (sidebar).

my sig is plain, just my first name ... Marty.

When I made this post I noticed that it is now showing ... ;)