Members signing up with their real names

tajhay

Well-known member
Do you guys have members signing up with their real names? I find the people that do, do so accidently in the forum signup process and they then either :
a) dont participate much as the account is linked to their real name
or b) ask for their username to be changed.

What steps do you take to stop this from happening(if any)?
 
Do you guys have members signing up with their real names? I find the people that do, do so accidently in the forum signup process and they then either :
a) dont participate much as the account is linked to their real name
or b) ask for their username to be changed.

What steps do you take to stop this from happening(if any)?

One way you could try to encourage them not to put in their full name is by editing the following and saying '(Not your full name)' or 'You don't need to enter your Full Name':

KpC1Hah.png


(Trying to find the phrase for it)

OR,

you could even change the Phrase for Name and make it Username
 
On the contrary, we request our users to put their real names. We've seen their involvement go up after we did that!
 
About 99% of my members use a nickname, but there are those who use their full name regardless. Think services such as youtube, facebook, Google etc where you are encouraged or forced to use your full name, have change how people think about their online persona. I do not notice any major difference between full name or nickname, but I would think this is more or less dependent on what your site is about.

I also allow my members to change their name 5 times, after that they are stuck with the name. For most, they haven't even changed it once, and for those who change all five times will never have enough changes. None of the full name users have used this feature, AFAIK.
 
I run Family-friendly forums, so to protect kids' privacy we don't allow the use of real name as username.
 
First names are common but I've had few people use their full name. If they used their full name it's because the signed-up via facebook lol
 
I would request someone change my name or never sign on again if I accidentally signed on with my real name. That mainly happens if you either had auto-complete on and it auto filled your sign up name or you tried signing up under Facebook. Good thing I have that off and I don't put my real name on Facebook. I want to tho but don't feel like it.
 
I want to use my first name, but the majority of forums/forum software is set up that if someone else picks that name you can't. Seems pointless and defiant; what's the point in spoiling/hogging something so personal?

About 99% of my members use a nickname, but there are those who use their full name regardless. Think services such as youtube, facebook, Google etc where you are encouraged or forced to use your full name, have change how people think about their online persona. ...

+plus
 
I get my members to sign up with proper email addresses. I'm not fussed if they sign up with their own real name. Good on them if they do.
 
That would annoy me so much, I would change it...

I've done this on KH-Flare, but I would always ask the user before doing so.

Some examples:

  • pipedownandlisten > Pipe Down and Listen
  • fallenhero > Fallen Hero
 
One way you could try to encourage them not to put in their full name is by editing the following and saying '(Not your full name)' or 'You don't need to enter your Full Name':

KpC1Hah.png


(Trying to find the phrase for it)

OR,

you could even change the Phrase for Name and make it Username

I would like to change that to "Username" How would I go about editing that?
 
As we are offering online racing competitions and produce stats and such we require real names.

Almost everybody signs up with a nickname at first in their lurking day and after an application process we manually update it to their real names.

We made this decision in 2007 and forum behavior has massively improved since. No more hiding behind fake names does help :)
 
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