I am bumping this thread in light of some recent thoughts on griefers etc ..... it would be useful to be able to see on a persons profile for a specified period (maybe 3 months) all the names a person has used during that time - name changing is cheap in Glitch and griefers frequently use this method to disguise their tracks in game. Obviously if I block Fred and he changes to Freda, he will still be blocked for me - but if I hadn't blocked Fred, had just heard of bad reports on him, then I might not realise that Freda (who just pissed me off) was also recently Fred (who just pissed my friends off). Would be helpful I think to be able to look at their profile and see what's what.
No offence to any Freds or Fredas in game - never heard a single bad word said about any of you :)
Sasca, when I changed my name during the last test a message popped up to tell me you can only change your name once every two months. Griefers beware ;)
OK - so I've been thinking some more (yeah - slow thinker sometimes!) .... if it's not a programming nightmare to do, I don't see any great negative to putting Freda "p.k.a. Fred" (previously known as) in smallish print in the profile page (under name or bio). It wouldn't stop a determined griefer with multiple accounts completely, but it would prevent them from being able to resuscitate old dormant accounts with new names every 2 months. And I am having a hard time working out why anyone who wanted to change their name for innocent purposes would object to this system. Happy to be corrected - always ready to learn:)
Again, no Freds or Fredas were intended to be harmed in the making of this post :)
I don't know Sasca, maybe there is a griefed protection program (GPP) wherein those who have been the victims of serial griefers choose to change their name and don't want to be followed to the new name by the old griefer...
Thanks Audaria - I knew there would be a good, sensible reason not to do the pka thing - couldn't think of it myself, but concede you have a good point there :) Although if the pka was non-searchable, the odds of being found would be pretty slim I think.
Oh well, I guess that there is no perfect fool-proof (grief-proof) system is there - otherwise everyone would already be using it. Thanks for your point though - nice to see things I had missed.