Username rules updates
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Wow that was a lot of posts to read with very little actual discussion. Anyway here is my attempt to contribute to the parts of actual constructive discussion.
It’s even created issues for moderation, where reports for one person were meant for another player, or creating additional work because a user in a screenshot has changed their name four times since, or even it’s not the player they think but a username that looks identical.
FAF already uses a player ID, that's how you keep all the account info when you rename. When the mod team has issues, because there are ambiguous reports then we should talk about how we can base reports more on the account ID than the name. Whenever you make a report by rightclicking a username we could internally use the ID to prevent moderation problems with renames or similar names.
The rule regarding user-impersonation in particular has been criticized as vague and applied unequally, which has prompted us to review it with the moderation and administrative teams.
The attempt to remove ambiguity from the rules didn't really work, because we still have "Are difficult to distinguish from other usernames or otherwise too similar to other usernames" in the rules. That's still ambiguous. I seriously don't know where this rule draws the line. Is TheWheelie and Wheeler too similar or not? How can I as a user determine if I am breaching the rule?
Usernames that are difficult to distinguish from other usernames may no longer be used. This includes usernames that exploit visually similar characters, such as 'l', 'I', '1', 'O', and '0', or are otherwise intentionally designed to be difficult to read.
I think I understand the intention of this rule, but the way it is worded is not optimal. I am not sure what the "designed to be difficult to read" part is supposed to mean or which problem this is trying to solve. Maybe change the rule to something like
- Usernames that are visually identical to other usernames by exploiting visually similar characters are not allowed.
We will be limiting the ability to change your username to once per year. We will maintain the current policy of making previously used usernames unusable for six months, meaning that another player may not immediately pick up the name that has now been freed up. This grace period will give the community some time to get used to seeing players under a new name, and helps mitigate player-impersonation. Be aware that this means that changing your username might mean that you lose that name permanently: your old username will become available several months before you are able to rename again.
I understand the 6 month grace period and I agree with it. However the increase of the rename period to 12 months seems overly drastic and lacks good justification. Why do we need this change that you run the risk to permanently lose your original name? I don't see any reason why this would help anybody.
The rename period seems to be the main thing people have an issue with in this thread and increasing the period can only ever mitigate issues, but not eliminate them. There is some explanation, but it is quite vague. From the given explanation I don't really see why a change that affects the players so much is needed. Can't we limit rename confusion with the other rules for example the banning of identical names?In general the rules should specify better when action will be taken. From what I read on discord it seems to be an unwritten rule that derivative names (like all the wheelies in this thread) can be punished, but only if the original name owner makes a report. This seems like a good rule, but I don't see this in the new rules. This is also relevant for other areas, for example that in-game misbehaviour can only be reported by people in the game and not outsiders.
One last thing: Discussion along the lines "do you need this feature to have fun" doesn't lead anywhere. There is hardly anything that is required to have fun. I couldn't justify why we need a faf-memes channel, but it would be sad to see it go with the justification that there were people not behaving in the channel so it is easier for moderation to remove it. It's a similar thing here. If the current situation creates issues for the moderation team then we need to talk about it, but I didn't see much of that in the justification of the change, or not detailed enough to be able to discuss possible alternatives to the current rule change.
The ability to have fun interactions with others is important for a community and the rules that we have should have clear justification why they are needed, so we can have the minimum of rules required to have an enjoyable community. "We think it is very important that usernames are unique and easy to read" is too vague for me to justify a rule that limits everyone in choosing their name. -
@giebmasse said in Username rules updates:
Usernames can be renamed:
Once every year
Once a year seems too long. Was there a reason it's not once a month?
We'd like feedback on:
When renaming an account is required due to rule breaking, should the account be locked until the account owner contacts the moderation team, or should the account be reverted to the last used acceptable username?
Revert to last used seems easier for everyone involved. And lock it for a short length of time (a week perhaps?), to hopefully prevent them further abusing the ability to name themselves.
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@arran said in Username rules updates:
@giebmasse said in Username rules updates:
Usernames can be renamed:
Once every year
Once a year seems too long. Was there a reason it's not once a month?
We'd like feedback on:
When renaming an account is required due to rule breaking, should the account be locked until the account owner contacts the moderation team, or should the account be reverted to the last used acceptable username?
Revert to last used seems easier for everyone involved. And lock it for a short length of time (a week perhaps?), to hopefully prevent them further abusing the ability to name themselves.
That is exactly the logic before this change (username is reserved for 6 months though IIRC)
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I was considering writing a lengthy response but @BlackYps summed up everything I wanted to say basically.
If there are issues with distinguishing users, we should use the user ID anyway. That's what it's for.The rules regarding impersonations and making similar names to somebody else should be more clear.
- You shouldn't be allowed to create a name that is indistinguishable from Admins/Mods etc.
- If you create a nickname that is copying/attempting to impersonate another player and said player has an issue with it and reports it then mods should force the player to rename.
- Other than that you should be free to choose whatever (unique) nickname (that isn't breaking standard rules) you want.
The limit of 12 months is IMO pretty insane and doesn't solve the underlying issues anyway. It should be reverted to the original 1 month.
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I think the community has spoken on what they think of the name change rules.
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Tagada for president
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We managed to spark some activity around these changes and have been following the discussions here and elsewhere in the community. We want to thank those who have provided constructive feedback so far, and hopefully any other constructive feedback after this post.
Your comments are taken into consideration and we aim to share our thoughts and more details regarding these changes in a few days.
Best regards,
FAF Moderation Team -
Bask has made a valid point that the rename cooldown should be shorter than the "owned by another player" cooldown, otherwise it's a dicey proposition to ever get a name back that you had before.
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I was watching a replay yesterday when I spotted "TheWheelie" on one of the teams. Well, it sure looked like "TheWheelie" to me.
2000 rating."Has he had a string of really bad results, to bring him down to a 2000?" I thought to myself. He certainly didn't play like "TheWheelie" that I've seen on several Gyle casts and multiple Jagged Appliance streams.
Checked the name history. It was a totally different player altogether.If I was TheProperWheelie, I'd be feeling irked at someone using my name, or such a close resemblance to my name.
So I can understand the reasoning behind limiting how often players can change their name. And how close a match they can have.
But then again if someone copied my name it wouldn't bother me as I'm an incompetent & infrequent player.
And then again, we can't have 1 rule for the well known player names and one for the lesser known players.
So I can see both sides of this.
One of those where I'm happy to shrug my shoulders and go with whatever the admins decide on this. -
@lin960 said in Username rules updates:
If I was TheProperWheelie, I'd be feeling irked at someone using my name, or such a close resemblance to my name.
So I can understand the reasoning behind limitingIf he wasn't fine with it he could literally just report it and we'd have had to change names, which is completely fine and understandable. But he was okay with that and found it funny as you can see from his posts and reaction.
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Nobody even calls him "thewheelie" he's farm so your confusion would just keep compounding really, same as with every person that renames. Sometimes people aren't even called by a name they actually ever had ie pepsi
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If only I knew the real battle was happening on FA Forums I'd stop playing so many setons games.
Ty mod team for your efforts! This one seems unpopular and probably overkill, probs should down it to 3 months.
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I just got a starlink for when I'm near the Arctic circle working and I had planned on changing my username with the word starlink at the end of it every time I'm at work just so people knew if they wanted to risk me in their lobbies or not. It's usually pretty good but I still want to give the heads up to people beforehand.... With these new changes I wouldn't be able to do that. I do 7-8 week shifts at work then I'm home for 2-3 weeks so the old rules of 1 month would have worked perfectly for me to switch back and forth.
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Who is TheWheelie I only know a TheWeakie that isn't me Kappa
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I dont know how this is a problem. I mean its a silly joke for one month. The only reason it would be a problem is if you completely rely on knowing which person your fighting against so you can counter what you know they will do. Which means your a noob.
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@lin960 I think we should all change our names to WillowWisp
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This is such a stupid rule. I hope whoever made this in their dungeon feels better about making it
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I haven't changed my username is years on FAF. (PSN made me change it because it was offensive though
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Hey everyone,
We’ve spent the last two weeks discussing the feedback we received on our announcement. We thank those few of you who have provided concrete feedback and have done our best to address them with some changes.
The position of the moderation team is that the primary use of usernames is to tell users apart. If people are unable to do so or have to take additional steps (such as checking name history), then usernames are failing at this purpose. It has been made clear that this view is not unanimous among the community. Some consider the ability for frequent username changes an important way of self-expression and for creating a sense of community with FAF friends. We have weighed and discussed these arguments, but believe there are plenty of alternate ways to express yourself, such as the clan system. Therefore, the moderation team believes that user identification should not be compromised for the sake of having a humorous name.
The moderation team does not aim to create rules just to make the game less enjoyable. Our primary role is to address and prevent issues between players, many of which aren't visible to the player base due to the confidential nature of moderation. Examples include players changing usernames to avoid reports, imitating other players, or impersonating moderators to pressure other players to force name changes. Such issues make it very difficult for the moderation team to handle reports effectively and have led us to re-evaluate the current rules.
Additionally, recent reports and feedback, such as from Nuggets’ recent thread, highlighted inconsistencies in the application of rules regarding impersonation and similar usernames. Consequently, one of our ongoing projects is updating the rules page to make our guidelines clearer and less ambiguous. These changes are part of that broader effort.
Making changes in a community requires compromise between different parties, but some players have already indicated that any change to the current situation would be unacceptable. We encourage these players to consider our concerns and help us find a solution acceptable to all parties. Until we find a better way to handle usernames that make such rules unnecessary, we will continue with the proposed changes to the rules on name similarity and readability. One goal of these changes is to manage names that are purposely hard to tell apart. We have taken note of the comments explaining that updated wording of the rules remain unclear, and after internal discussion have reworded them:
- Usernames that impersonate others or are visually identical to other usernames, for example by exploiting visually similar characters, are not allowed.
We do not expect players to know each and every single username and will not issue (even temporary) bans for breaking these rules unless a rename is clearly malicious. Note that such rules have been part of the FAF guidelines for a while, and the relevant changes focus on clarifying them.
Regarding the changes on how often a name can be changed, we are considering a compromise of one change every six months, with a similar protection period for player names. We welcome further feedback on these limits and will keep an eye on this thread to see if anyone brings up any important ideas or suggestions that we haven’t yet discussed. We thank everyone who has constructively participated in the discussion.
Best regards,
The FAF Moderation Team -
"We thank those few of you who have provided concrete feedback"
I would like to take a moment to thank everyone who provided downvotes. Mass downvoting is a form of collective action.
The administration wants us fractured, atomized, debating different concrete proposals. It's going to ignore all that and push forward with its plans. That's why we need mass downvoting.
