Forgive my ignorance but is "username" the name I log in with (in my case my first initial and last name)? Our handle (e.g. Jose Can You Seabiscuit) will still show up when we post, is that right?

So if I'm OK with my e-mail, and my username is my handle, I don't have to do ####, right?

If I am understanding this right, under this system we can screw around with our screennames, but we'll be able to click on someones profile and know their original, constant username?

Well, I don't think I've been checking my e-mail for awhile anyway, so I'll have to check that. So, like, hmm, I'll have to check some stuff.

But I'll be fine and keep Gamingboy, right?

Will our email addresses remain private, if we so choose (from other Primates-- not Furtado)?

Not that I care, since I am in no way ashamed of my choice of pinkbunny use my real name already, but if we're logging in with our email address, and if our handles are still used for our posts, then what is the function of the username under the new system?

@zack, yes.

@bourbon, yes (except I'd call it consistent rather than original).

@gamingboy, yes.

@guapo, yes, although you can also choose to share it with your friends on the site.

@David, it all depends. Right now if you click on your name next to your comments, you (and anyone else who clicks on it) are brought to a member page linked to your member number. After the change, your page will be linked to your username. If all you do is visit the site and participate in conversations, your new member page will consist of even less info than you have now.

If, on the other hand, you submit news or blog posts to the site, your entries will also be available there. You can then share the URL with your friends or whomever you'd like. If you are a guy like Dan Szym, the page will essentially serve as your archive page, which you can also use, if you choose, to share links to your content/info available on other places (like ESPN for him, Facebook, Twitter).

Additionally you can *choose* to share additional stuff with other members of the site that you specify as *friends* on the site. This stuff consists of links that you like or conversations that you are involved in. There may be other things added but that's the gist of it. Again, you can choose to allow others to see this content or not.

EDIT: Removed since Jim answered

@guapo, yes, although you can also choose to also share it with your friends on the site.

What if we don't have any friends? *sob*

So since my email address is something that I haven't used or had access to in over ten years, I should change that, right? Fine...

@Guapo, go out and hug someone.

@flournoy, yes, that would be a good idea. :)

I assume Jim has now been flooded with over 17,000 requests for the username pinkbunny

Some fat Hispanic guy just hugged me and ran off.

This sounds like a trap.

Yes, but what does this have to do with Tinina?

Jim, I use Yahoo Mail which blocks all mail from the site. It's not that it goes in the spam folder; I don't get it at all.

If that is OK (i.e. if I just need to use it to log in, and won't actually have to receive any e-mail at it) then ignore this.

And I can't switch to my other email because it belongs to a dead account.

If I may have a problem, please advise.

Just curious, Jim. Why are you making this change? Are you trying to make it more like Google?

JLAC

i use a yahoomail addy and i don't have trouble getting mail from the site. you must have checked off something to block stuff from this site. you could always go be pinkbunny at gmail or something

Random comment: I'm not sure exactly what was done to end the site's nightly shutdown, but THANK YOU!!

Preferences seem to have been reset - I had avatars off in the forums, but they all came back and I had to reset my account preferences.

Perhaps Jim knows, but the "Your account" and "Member list" links go to 404-type pages. When I logged out and logged back in it tries to take me to a page name that consists of



Rats! I broke the site.

I too am no longer able to get to the account page.

@Rjames, I am primarily trying to accomplish five things with the redesign: 1) make it easier for people to find the baseball stuff they are interested in (both on and off site), 2) make the site easier to use by better organizing the content and design, 3) make it easier for members to share their baseball-related content/opinions with other thinking baseball fans, 4) enhance the community aspect of the site by creating tools to make it easier for people to interact, and 5) significantly improve the site's responsiveness and reliability. By changing the login set up, I'll be able to take advantage of some of the underlying Content Management System's built-in methods to present member-specific archives and information.

@Dag, I moved the backup time to 4 AM. The faster servers also complete the backups faster.

@baseball chick, Yahoo blocks some of our mail, particularly the member activation emails. This has been an ongoing issue with them for some time. I have tried to resolve whatever the issues with them, on multiple occasions. Their refusal to respond with anything constructive has made it difficult. I suspect the issue revolves around spammers trying to create accounts on this site using fictitious Yahoo accounts, which produces bounces on Yahoo's email servers for bogus accounts and spam on the accounts for users unlucky enough to have accounts with the same name as the spammer accounts. I have been closely monitoring the site's email server for months and am 100% sure we don't have an issue. I am taking one last stab at trying to get us removed from Yahoo's bad list. If I get nowhere with them again, I will ask members with Yahoo account to contact Yahoo directly to help push them into working with me to get this taken care of. If that doesn't work, I will be forced to not allow users to use the site with Yahoo accounts. It's not something I want to do, though.

@Paul, the preferences shouldn't have been reset. Have you noticed anyone else reporting this problem?

You should be able to get to your account page again.

Jim - yes, others in the lounge are reporting the problem.

In fact, I changed my preferences back, went away for an hour, and the avatars had returned.

{deleted, just testing the new user names)

Avatars and signatures just reappeared.

Jim, the avatar thing is still happening.

@Paul, I haven't touched anything related to the avatars and signatures. Any additional info related to the problem that you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Additionally, if you could post a new thread about the problem in the bug report forum, all users will have a central place to provide info on the problem and we can all take advantage of the subscription mechanism to keep up with progress.

Thanks in advance.

Just in case I'm missing it somewhere, where does one go to change his username? Is going through the feedback applet the only way? Going through Your Account still has it so that usernames can't be changed from there.

Echo BMV's issue. There is no username field to update under the "username and password" tab in the account settings.

I'm happy to follow the instructions here but this remains a bit confusing. Jim refers to (i) usernames, (ii) screen names and (iii) handles, and as mentioned, despite being within the window period, it seems that the username tab does not permit changes. If it helps source the problem, I generally use auto-login.

@Guapo, go out and hug someone.

So, it's going to be that kind of site, is it?


Anyway, thanks, Jim, for the site.

Sorry about the problem updating usernames yesterday. After a two week vacation from my day job, upon my return I was swamped with stuff and forgot to open the permissions to change your username.

@Handle, I will update my post to clear up some of the confusion. Username is what you currently use to log into the site. Screen Name is your public name which all members see next to your posts. After the transition, you will no longer be able to log in using your username. When the update is done, your posted entries will be archived/viewable at http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/somepath/username.

TY, Jim. Just successfully updated my username.

Lemme see if this worked ...

Yep. Cool!

It worked. Thanks, JF.

Is there a way to delete my bookmarked threads?

No idea where to put this - I am getting 'Edit' links on all of SOSH's posts. (well, I noticed it in a HoM thread and don't have time right now to seek out posts of his in other threads to see if the same holds true elsewhere on the site)

And the Edit link for my own previous post just there does NOT work. Well, I can click on it, but I can't 'save.'

Anyway I don't get Edit links for SOSH's posts on Newsblog threads. Just HoM.

@Petuntoviles, is this still happening?

@Don't want the truth, click to the entry and click "Delete Bookmark", which is just to the right of "Comments".

No, I don't get 'edit' links for his posts, but I still can't edit my own, either.

EDIT: Looks like I can edit now, just can't edit my previous posts above. Looks good from here. Thanks!

@Petuntoviles, FYI, you can only edit your posts for 15 minutes.

I can't get the block quotes in the submit link to work. It says <bq> and </bq>, but is it actually </blockquote> and </blockquote>?

Also, because the PREVIEW link is gone, I can't check to see that it worked or not. And, of course, therefore, it didn't.

If someone wants to go in and fix my "Bochy/scouts controversy" posting so it doesn't look so stupid, that would be great.

@Petuntoviles, FYI, you can only edit your posts for 15 minutes.

This has always been the case, but since the last few rounds of updates I'm getting 'edit' links for all my posts. Not sure if this is a bug or a feature anymore.

The site currently uses native Expression Engine (our underlying Content Management System) stuff for editing comments. What you see is a bug. I have a bug report in with them and I hope they fix it. If they don't fix it soon, I will fix it myself but I prefer to have them fix their own issues so I don't have to keep re-fixing things every time they do an update.

I looked at EE's code and found and fixed the bug that was causing the Edit link to display after the 15-minute editing time frame expires. I have passed along my fix to EE so, hopefully, the change will make its way into their native code.