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Can't transfer a member's works to a new ID ... why not?Sep 20 '05 (Updated Jun 12 '09) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line By letting members change their IDs, I'm sure there are many who would be here to stay once again!
Once upon a time, there was a girl who was in love. When the time came to join Epinions, the object of her affection was on her mind, and ended up in her member ID. This fresh new talent was quite active for a while, and even achieved unprecedented success in one Epinions tradition. She then went a bit quiet, but continued posting about an epinion a month for a while. And then she went quiet again. Just under a year later came some news. The relationship that this girl was in is over. The name under which she had become known to the Epinions community was no longer appropriate. Indeed, the reminder of her past that was her Epinions ID had put her off participating. In the absence of a way to change your member ID, and with the policy of only one account per person, the poor girl was faced with only one way to leave the old name behind, and that was leaving Epinions behind. And then we all lived sadly ever after. A member ID is for life, not just for Valentine's Day The obvious way to avoid being in this situation is to think long-term when signing up and choosing your ID. Since there's no way to change it once you've started writing epinions and commenting on other people's epinions, you should get it right from the beginning. Something that you won't regret later. Even if you think your relationship status can never change, you could easily be wrong. Unfortunately, in this instance, and probably for many of you who are reading this, it was too late. The damage was already done. But it doesn't have to be this way This case is probably by no means unique. I imagine that there are plenty of Epinions members who have disappeared over a badly-chosen member ID, and would be back here and even participating regularly if only a facility existed for changing your ID. This appears in the FAQ: Can I change my Epinions member ID? No. Your member ID is the only attribute of your Epinions account to which all of your other information is connected. Changing IDs would cause you to lose all of the reviews, ratings, trust, and Eroyalties credits you have accumulated, and for this reason, cannot be done. I fail to see logic in this. OK, so the internal database structure might be such that the member ID is the primary key, and hence how every entity within the system refers to users. However, when members commit the dreaded act of deleting themselves, the system clearly manages to go through the database deleting all the member's epinions, ratings, comments, trusts and email alerts. (The times when it merely filtered them from view seem to be long gone.) So if somebody wants to change to a different member ID, what's the problem with going through the database in the same way, to update all references to that user to point to the new ID? Hopefully this won't be so frequent an activity that it's a significant burden on the Epinions server - I imagine most regular epinionators would want to stick to one name so that they can continue to be easily recognised by other members of the community. The facility would be available for the odd occasions when one feels the need. An alternative way of implementing the facility would require a small change in the database structure, but bring about a faster process of changing a user's name. This is to keep the existing member ID field as it is, and have a new field that holds the member's username of the time. For convenience, I'll use the terms "internal name" and "display name" to distinguish them. The display name would, needless to say, appear in the user interface, ideally including profile URLs. No database change will be needed anywhere except in the members table, since the epinions, comments, ratings, trusts and alerts will continue to use the internal name internally. Members will not need to know their internal names nor even that such things exist, so it won't matter if your internal name is embarrassing. And while existing members' internal names might be the same as the display names they have at the moment, for new members they can be meaningless strings of characters. Of course, whichever implementation is chosen, it would be sensible if members who have someone on their email alerts are informed by email if this someone changes his/her ID. And to keep the member profile URL under the old ID working and redirecting to the new one at least for a while. And for member ex-IDs to continue to work in Member Search. But this raises the question: How long should you keep an old member ID working before recycling it? Indeed, should they be recycled at all? Conclusion It really isn't that difficult. Improving Epinions so that members can change their IDs if they feel the need would be a step forward. For users who have named themselves after now ex-boyfriends or ex-girlfriends, for users who have come to find them embarrassing for other reasons, and for the rest of us who miss the good work of members who have quit over the names that appear on their screens when they come here. By implementing the facility, we could avoid losing more members to this problem, and maybe even bring back some old ones!  |
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