Well why not really? Sure you take it yourself, but otherwise it's just like a realy name and people change those sometimes. Have a good friend who was given a name that she didn't really feel was "her" and thus when she turned 18 she changed it to a part of the name and added a letter to create a unique name that I haven't heard elsewhere and above all, is totally her!
That's kinda reinforcing my point, though. You can SEE this person, you know who she is. Here, we don't have anything but our user names and avatars. Change those, and i don't know you from a random newbie in the TrekXI forum. Except for those posters who are here 24/7 and catch on, you're lost to the rest of us.
However, a change up can also be for the best at times. I know that when Superman switched usernames, I liked him a lot more... it may have been because he was posting differently, or it may have just as easily been because my mind didn't immediately connect his posts to whatever beefs I had with his previous name. But overall, I like the something to stay consistant, whether it be the face or the name.
Exactly why I think you shouldn't change. You're losing your history with everyone else, positive and negative. You were treating him differently because you didn't know who he was, and lost any history you had. Good if you NEED a fresh start, but more likely that you caused trouble because of your style or choices, so it'll just spring up again, and then you're changing your name to stay ahead of your personality, which is sad.
I agree with Scout. Which isn't surprising because I seem to do that a lot. Which just reinforces the point.
what can I say? It's pretty great always being right!
Chances are, if you're a poster who has changed your name, you're just a new poster to me. I have absolutely no time, patience, or desire to keep track of people's usernames over time. I'm not going to even try.
Exactly. Seems like, a lot of the time, the people changing are eventually changing back anyway, so all they've accomplished is losing people for a while. J.Allen posted in this thread, what did HE call himself for a little while?
In my head, we've "lost" a lot of people that used to post here, while there are random newbies that for some reason have high rank. Some of them I liked, some I didn't, but it sucks that they lost all that history and association in my head just because of an arbitrary name change...