Re: How to change others' usernames?

Posted by GregChapman on Nov 15, 2012; 12:30am
URL: https://support.nabble.com/How-to-change-others-usernames-tp7581922p7581923.html

Graham F. wrote

I require that people use their names as their usernames when they sign up,
...
I can't find a way to manually change their usernames.

That's because there isn't one. A Username is in the exclusive control of the user.

The best you can do is tighten permissions further. Stop "Registered" users posting and allow only "Members" to post. Then you can refuse to grant your users Member status unless they have an acceptable username.

I do something similar on one of my forums. I accept what ever username someone registers but refuse to grant "Member" status until they have posted a message in an "Introduce Yourself" sub-forum with their Real Name as the subject line.  The "Introduce Yourself" sub-forum is the only one a registered user may create a new topic in - and even there they may not reply.

Of course it doesn't stop a dozen different people claiming to be "John Smith". And what about when you have two genuine John Smiths signing up for your forum? And how do you check that they are using genuine real names?

I sometimes wonder whether I am putting off very genuine people from participating as I find a large number of older Internet users are paranoid about posting their real name on the web.