I have a suggestion and a question

[Mrbluntzy]

My question is, why does the forum not have a feature that can allow members to reset their username easily, when ever they want.

My suggestion:

There should be a feature that can allow members to reset their username when they want, and after they have reset their username, let there be a backend data storage that will show that user "A" Was previously known as "XY" But has reset his username to "A" on the 8/02/2025.

My question or suggestion was not because I have any interest in changing my name, just curiosity.

[Stablexcoin]

Individually you cant change your username but you can make a request to Theymos for change of username. Once he approved it, in a few days it will be changed. There is a reason why it is meant to be that way.

Although 7 to 8 years ago you will need to become a VIP member first by donating 50 BTC but that is different now. You dont have to donate anything, you just need to have good contribution to the forum.

[Hazink]

On the side of showing when the user changes their username, theymos made a statement that is against that; if someone for any reason changes their name, there is no need to make it too obvious that they did change it; it could be a security risk to their privacy.

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.

Although 7 to 8 years ago you will need to become a VIP member first by donating 50 BTC but that is different now. You dont have to donate anything, you just need to have good contribution to the forum.

Now donation is no longer needed and accepted to the forum, but the change of username request I believe is open to anyone; you just have to make your result with good reason, and it's left for the admins to decide if your request is worthy enough.

[Charles-Tim]

That is not advisable. Some people will abuse it. Bitcointalk should not allow people to individually change their username. Just as Stablexcoin posted already, you can request theymos to change the username for you if you become well established on this forum. Theymos change some people's username recently.

[Z_MBFM]

This is not impossible but different for some users.moderators, Donators, and VIP can change there name by self. but if you want to change your name you have to request to Theymos. already many uses changed there Display name. you can't change your login username.

Done. Now only moderators, Donators, and VIP members can change their names automatically. Other members should contact me. I'll probably ignore your request if you have less than 50 posts (unless your posts are very good).

[Jawhead999]

I don't see you answer what @OP asked, he's asking what the reason why we can't change our username for specific period of time. In this case, only the administrators can answer it because no one know the reason (except the administrators posted it before).

That is not advisable. Some people will abuse it.

@OP said the old username will stay, even someone changed their username, we can still know who were them in their custom title.

On the side of showing when the user changes their username, theymos made a statement that is against that; if someone for any reason changes their name, there is no need to make it too obvious that they did change it; it could be a security risk to their privacy.

Not all changed username for privacy reason.

Each user has a display name, which is the only name ordinary users see, and a username, which is what you use to log-in with. Almost always, they are the same.

If I change a name for reasons of appearance, then I only change the display name. The username remains reserved, the user can still login using the username, PMs can still be sent to that username, "search member" allows searching for the old username, etc.

If I change a name for reasons of privacy, then I change both the username and the display name. In this case, it is possibly hazardous to reserve the old username, since it allows someone to test for the existence of that username, possibly defeating the privacy benefit. If you're worried about being impersonated, then simply don't seek to have your username changed.

[Solodoski]

except the user wants to do something that is really fishy, there is no point changing your user name on the forum since it doesn't reflect your personality outside of the forum and doesn't have negative effect on you irrespective of what your username is. even if the old username stays and can easily be traced from the persons profile, people can easily do what is against the forum rule and go away with it because it is not everyone that will have that strength of digging deep into the profile of person just to know his former user name.

because of countries regulation on the acceptance of crypto, it is best to make use of a username that doesn't relate to the owner in particular just for the sake of safety. if for any reason such thing has already been done and there is a form of threat, the admin can be messaged and they can be in a better position of helping out in effecting the change of the username.

[Alone055]

That's not a good idea because it can have negative consequences, and even though I'm not sure, @theymos must have disabled this feature probably for that reason.

This will only allow scammers to misuse the feature and scam people around the forum. I'll tell you how that is going to be done. If you have used Telegram, you will know that scammers are pretty clever, and they are usually pretty good at impersonating other people by creating accounts with similar but slight differences and acting like they are the original ones. Ironically, some people fall for it because they overlook the small details all the time.

If username changes are allowed for everyone, people will change the usernames of accounts with higher ranks and impersonate other reputable forum members to scam people. We know that accounts on this forum usually change hands; people sell their accounts, some accounts that get inactive are hacked, etc.

I'll give you an example: icopress is one of the most reputable members of this forum based on his trust and status. Now, if a scammer manages to get their hands on a Legendary account and has the ability to change the username, they can go ahead and change its username to icopresss and start impersonating him.

I know you suggested that the old usernames should be preserved and shown in a backend data storage, but that wouldn't make it known for a person's first impression, and many people won't even notice much when they see such a reputable member contacts them; so they might fall for it.

The odds for such things happening might be low, but I'm talking about a possibility of this happening with the change you are suggesting.

[Charles-Tim]

except the user wants to do something that is really fishy, there is no point changing your user name on the forum since it doesn't reflect your personality outside of the forum and doesn't have negative effect on you irrespective of what your username is. even if the old username stays and can easily be traced from the persons profile, people can easily do what is against the forum rule and go away with it because it is not everyone that will have that strength of digging deep into the profile of person just to know his former user name.

There are some reasons people change their username on this forum. Example is Poker Player (now known asFree Market Capitalist) that changed his name because he said he is no more interested in playing Poker, that it is not as it was before. Another good example is ETF Bitcoin (now known as ABCbits) that changed his name when United States SEC approved spot bitcoin ETF. Also I remember Cryptovator has a reason he changed his name. Even theymos still changed the username for many other forum members. But just that for people to be able to change it on their own is kind of risky.

[Synchronice]

My question is, why does the forum not have a feature that can allow members to reset their username easily, when ever they want.

Show me a place that lets you to easily reset your username. Almost all social media, gambling platforms, video game platforms, games and forums don't let you to change your username because there is no need of that, especially on forums.
Just imagine how terrible it would be if everyone had the ability to change their usernames the way they wish? This will lose the track of users, I might forget who I replied to or who is this guy with new username. It will be a total mess to my mind, I'm even against the current username change that happens on this forum.

[notocactus]

My question is, why does the forum not have a feature that can allow members to reset their username easily, when ever they want.

Please read

• Unofficial list of (official) Bitcointalk.org rules, guidelines, FAQ

Q: I want to change my forum username. What should I do?
A: You can either donate 50 BTC to become a VIP or PM theymos asking to change your username (although he rarely accepts such requests nowadays).

Chronologically, it was allowed since 2009 till 2011, in August 2011, change was made and since that timepoint, only moderators, donators, VIP members can change usernames by themselves. Other members have to contact theymos for username changes and it very barely was approved.

This policy lasted from 2011 till December 2019 or January 2020, when theymos began to change his policy again, and he more easily accepted username change requests. Around time when I made this thread.

From 2020 to 2025, it's more easily to get approvals from theymos than previous years.

Honestly, I forgot about this historic change and it's time for me to update Bitcointalk's historical important changes.

[Ambatman]

Regarding the issue of username resetting, I believe it would be beneficial to have an option for members to modify their handles at will. It's not often we see "A" become "B", is it? But hey, if one day a thread goes awry and you find yourself needing a fresh start... well, that's just the nature of the internet isn't it?

if you had read the link tagged 2011 by tranthidung
You would have seen the reason why Theymos had to change the prior settings.

Besides its not worth adding more data's to the backends over name changes.
I think the current system is better to prevent abuse
If you want to change your username
Give a valid reason and it would be changed.
The frequency has increased because I'm well aware of two names that have been changed
Poker player and Learn Bitcoin.

[KingsDen]

My question or suggestion was not because I have any interest in changing my name, just curiosity.

This is a forum and when people have problems, they make post in meta seeking for solutions. You don't just make a post out of curiosity when you have no need to change your username.
In order for something new to be implemented here, it is either solving a problem for a particular user who requested it or it is solving a problem for the whole community. But in this your case, there is no problem let alone solving it.

[Cityhunter34]

That is not advisable. Some people will abuse it. Bitcointalk should not allow people to individually change their username. Just as Stablexcoin posted already, you can request theymos to change the username for you if you become well established on this forum. Theymos change some people's username recently.

You are absolutely right because allowing such thing in this Bitcointalk forum would going to result to something else. because most people would going to use it as an opportunity to abuse the forum, more especially the newbies, that is when they would realized that the username they use is not good. To be honest I really like the idea of theymos given the approval first before he or she will think of changing any username, after all I didn't see any reason of changing to multiple username here.

[dkbit98]

My question is, why does the forum not have a feature that can allow members to reset their username easily, when ever they want.

It would create a mess if that was easily available, and it would be perfect situation for scammers and cheaters in forum.
Note that members can change usernames with approval of admins, mostly for privacy reasons, but unique profile ID number will remain the same.

[SmartGold01]

Sincerely I don't see this as something worth implementing because if you says so it's assumed that we are turning the forum to be as telegram where anyone can come change their username after they scammed or something else, I was even thinking you would talk about additional means of authentication to show the ownership of account owner after hack or something else. I sincerely love the way the forum is strictly about laws and there are no way to byecut them because whatever you do could be easily phished out using the necessary tools to do that.

[AVE5]

My question is, why does the forum not have a feature that can allow members to reset their username easily, when ever they want.

First you need to understand that this platform isn't a social platform where users would just play around for fun at their conveniences and unrestricted to their profile settings and then know that your profile on here isn't prioritized to your self moderates at all course.
So the need of this as regard is to avoid stealing of others account and customizes beyond recognition of rightful owner in the case of hacking the account.
Nevertheless, your beared name in the forum shouldn't be of something to matter to you or anyone but what you can acquire and what yycsn offer to the forum should be most considered.

[Josefjix]

My question is, why does the forum not have a feature that can allow members to reset their username easily, when ever they want.

It would create a mess if that was easily available, and it would be perfect situation for scammers and cheaters in forum.
Note that members can change usernames with approval of admins, mostly for privacy reasons, but unique profile ID number will remain the same.

Not only the ID but the old username also remains, as only the display name is changed meaning you can only log in the forum with the old username and not with the new display name if I'm not wrong.

[dzungmobile]

Not only the ID but the old username also remains, as only the display name is changed meaning you can only log in the forum with the old username and not with the new display name if I'm not wrong.

In most cases, your post is accurate but in some few cases, usernames were changed too and only UID remains intact.

theymos wrote it clearly.

Each user has a display name, which is the only name ordinary users see, and a username, which is what you use to log-in with. Almost always, they are the same.

If I change a name for reasons of appearance, then I only change the display name. The username remains reserved, the user can still login using the username, PMs can still be sent to that username, "search member" allows searching for the old username, etc.

If I change a name for reasons of privacy, then I change both the username and the display name. In this case, it is possibly hazardous to reserve the old username, since it allows someone to test for the existence of that username, possibly defeating the privacy benefit. If you're worried about being impersonated, then simply don't seek to have your username changed.

With latest users with display names changed, I noticed that theymos put extra information like "aka X". For those cases, I am sure only display names were changed.

[Pablo-wood]

Imagine your account get hacked and you lay a complaint on the forum only to discover the account no longer goes by that name. Even if the posts in the account is the content you have been able to put through out your active period in the forum how well will you convince the forum the account belongs to you and that you are not just a random person trying to claim an account.

If username is easily changed I bet you many top profile accounts will get hacked and the rate of scam, brute force and spam will increase because one might change username to scam a fellow then change it back to something else if the succeed so it doesn't affect their trust.