Can I edit my user name

Post Reply New Topic

I konw it is very unusual request, but I have used my real name for my user name. I didn't fully realized before that this board is easily reacheable through google; now I do. So can I edit my user name?

I don't know if you can.

Roman can refer to the roman empire, so it's very unlikely you'll get found from simply "roman".

I don't want anyone in my family to find this forum and read. They WOULD know it is me.

I am sure that WP rules do not allow a person to change their name.

It was explained by a mod that here on WP with the large concentrations of auties, aspies and persons with other ASDs (and other forms of alphabet soup) that as many people find social interactions confusing that it would make things even harder if people were able to change user names. So once you choose your name you are stuck with it.

I would not worry too much about the word "Roman" I have no idea if it is your first name or surname, but as the word Roman is commonly used in english it is likely that you will be lost in a crowd.

It is a first name. Roman P, is a film maker in jail
Roman is a reference to Rome and the empire
Roman could be a surname

Take out your location in your profile. I haven't clicked on your profile but take out anything optional there to if you can have it, or just put information contradictory to what is actuality.

I did a google experiment and the results are that you have nothing to worry about. A google of "roman" brings up endless pages about the Roman empire and the Roman Catholic Church. So I narrowed it down as a family member might and tried "Roman autism" in case they try to actually find a place where Roman talks about autism. It turns out there is a boy named Roman who is autistic and his mother wrote a books about "recovering" him. This book about Roman is very controversial and is causing people to post about it because it brings up all the "cure" issues that get discussed here. So if somebody in your family specifically goes looking for you, that's the Roman they will find because the book is selling on Amazon and is causing quite a stir and lots of people post about it.

How about another scenario. Suppose they don't look for me, but instead they look for forum on autism that THEY can join. So they will find wrongplanet. Post for a while, and then be surprised to see me posting here, too.

I think the most you can do is pm a mod or alex and ask them, but I am fairly sure this has been asked before and could not be done.

On most online communities, you can just PM an administrator and they'll change your name for you pretty much instantly.

Oh yes. That is a more likely scenario. I did another google experiment. Googling for autism forum, community or message board brings up countless other autism baords (almost exclusively geared to family members). But googling "autism online community" brings up wrong planet. So there is the gamble of how they will search for a board. If they serach for "autism message board", they don't find this place. If they search for "autism online community" they do. So what to do if your name can't be changed? Be proactive and steer them to family member boards if this seems like a strong possibility. Do some research and find 3 or 4 boards that are geared towards family members of an autistic person (there are tons of them). Suggest these boards to the most web-savvy family members.

For the record, I did not find this board by googling for a board to discuss a family member's autism. I found it because I freaked out about my daughter's IQ test results and I wanted some perspective. Googling "IQ test results for autistic people" brings up many articles (all of which I read) and this board among others because of all the threads where people talk about their IQ test results. There are so many threads like that that it does pop up on google. But that's not what a family member would be looking for in your case. And they only get lead here if they specifically type "autism online community" instead of some other wording of a board search. But if you can't get your name changed, I recommend being proactive and steering your family towards "for the family" boards which will keep them out of here.

First of all, for all I know my family is not looking for autism forum. So it would not be in my best interest to suggest that they do, since that might just give them an idea. Secondly, I am in India and they are in USA and Russia (depending whom you talk about) so I won't have a chance to sit with them together by the computer and direct their search.

Last edited by Roman on 15 Nov 2009, 4:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Can you PM them for me? They took away my PM priviledges (a completely different story). Just ask them to change my user name to MGH57

If they aren't looking for an online forum, it definately wouldn't be in your best interests to suggest it. But you do need a plan of action in case they do. I don't know anything about your family's communication and internet habits, but a strong indicator that they might look for one is if they start asking you questions about autism. If they never ask you then they probably aren't curious enough to actually go looking for a forum. They may not even be curious enough to read articles about autism. It just seems likely to me that any family member curious enough to join a forum will also be curious enough to ask you questions, expecially since the whole point of joining a forum would be to understand you better and figure out how to communicate with you better.

I hadn't even considered sitting down with them and directing a web search. What I was thinking of was sending them links. Anybody who needs somebody to literally sit next to them and help them choose a forum rather than just clicking on links you email is unlikely to even want to join a forum. It takes certain level of web savvy to be in a forum and somebody who needs to be led through the web in person isn't going to go that far. I was just thinking of you finding likely family forums and sending links. But that would only be if they communicated curiosity to you. After all, would anybody in your family go to the trouble of joining a forum just to talk about you but not go to the trouble of asking you some questions up front?

Also, remove your age and location from your profile. That you can do without a moderator.

Also, don't post anything else about your personal life. All future posts should be vague and give no actual names or locations. That way the posts your family will recognize will sink into the archives. Make many posts about non-personal topics such as in the philosophy/politics forum or here in general. NOTHING personal. But plenty that is not specific to you. Why? The more non-personal posts you make, the farther back into the archives your personal posts sink. That way, even if they click on "see all posts by Roman", they will get page after page of politics and philosophy and will give up before getting to the personal ones.

Last edited by Janissy on 15 Nov 2009, 5:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yeah, I just emailed them the other day about changing mine; no response.

I understand that the site doesn't want to confuse people, but then how come we can alter our age, gender and location as we choose?

Today I could be a 34 year old lady from Wisconsin, tomorrow a 13yr old boy from China...

If anything, it's people changing their avatars that confuses me.

Perhaps if everyone was given a membership number, that would allow identification of users without the disclosure of personal details? I do understand that it was my fault at the start for giving a name that could be linked back to me, but I didn't realise how permanent it would be.

Other sites that do not allow user names to be changed allow you to create more than one profile; this doesn't appear the case on WP.

Individuals are allowed one account on WP; multiple accounts are not permitted. Without specific and extreme cause, once a member has become active with their username they are not permitted to change it. The internet is not a private place; information shared online remains there in many forms and many places - even if a post is redacted, Google's cache may retain a copy of the original content.


M.