I don't want to post in the troll's self-moderated topics, but I wonder if he's seen this post:
Why are you guys posting the old names of people who clearly needed their names changed for privacy reasons? Obviously any data posted online is going to be quickly archived somewhere, but that doesn't mean that your highlighting/reposting of it has no effect. In some cases you may literally be putting lives in danger. If you were investigating a scam or something, that'd be different, but you seem to just be indiscriminately & recklessly dredging up data that would best be forgotten.
I think this is a major problem in the forum because it is practically difficult for a popular person to change name unnoticed. If you change name in this forum, it will take just few posts from you before you are noticed and simply checking the post history and interactions will reveal the individual. For instance, when Ratimov changed name, the post history never changed neither did his posting pattern or the things he has been know for changed. The same can be said about Royse who is a campaign manager; change of name does not really change anything about him other than the name that appear more fanciful now.
I have always had the impression that the change of name feature of this forum was merely for fun and nothing serious without knowing that the intention was related to privacy. My thinking was based on the points I have given above. If there are ways of hiding the history and previous activities of individuals when they change their names, then we can attach the world
privacy to such exercise.
