NationStates

Special characters, like hyphens, dollar signs, etc. Could change the meaning of a nation's name, without changing the recognisability of it. I can understand that you can't the name of the country itself, as the country will no longer be recognisable, however, by allowing us to add/remove special characters, such as hyphens, you can allow us to change the name of our countries, without making them unrecognisable. For example, I now oppose the republican movement, and I think that Harry is an excellent prince, and the William will make an excellent king, but I'm stuck with this country name. However, I don't want tk ditch this nation, as I have too much attached to it.

If you allow me to change the name to Australian re-Public (or even re--Public), people will still know who I am, but change the meaning of the name. However, I am now forced to spell it as "rePublic" and nobody knows what that means. I think that most people who want to change nation names would want to do so in order to change the meaning of words in them, and that could be done with special characters. Please consider doing this

Isn’t it you can change capitol letters?

New Derusmia wrote:Isn’t it you can change capitol letters?

Yes, yes that's right, but as said earlier, it doesn't change the meaning of the word. Adding brackets, apostrophes, blank spaces, hyphens, etc. would. I don't see the point in allowing people to change capital/lower case letters, as it makes little difference to the meaning and is unrecognisable in all caps or all lower case aettings. Brackets, hyphens, spaces, etc. Would change the meaning of the word, whilst allowing you to be recognised

Technical FAQ wrote:Can Mods change my nation name?
No, they cannot.

[violet] wrote:The game code uses a nation's name as its ID, an unfortunate design decision that we are stuck with. Renaming a nation would break all references to it in regions, player Dossiers, the WA, etc.

Special characters is still a change of account name, and thus subject to the same "We can't do that because of an unfortunate design decision in 2002." issue as to why we can't change nation names.

Reploid Productions wrote:

Technical FAQ wrote:Can Mods change my nation name?
No, they cannot.

Special characters is still a change of account name, and thus subject to the same "We can't do that because of an unfortunate design decision in 2002." issue as to why we can't change nation names.

Shit. Okay, thanks

Personally I'm beginning to think we should add something about changing nation names in the FAQ, considering this is a question that gets asked very frequently around here.

Reploid Productions wrote:

Technical FAQ wrote:Can Mods change my nation name?
No, they cannot.

Special characters is still a change of account name, and thus subject to the same "We can't do that because of an unfortunate design decision in 2002." issue as to why we can't change nation names.

Well then you admins should try making a second ID like “nationstates.net/nation=lorem1/formername=lorem” or shut down the site for three days while you change the ID system

You're talking months not days nor weeks. Not sure you understand the scale of what you're proposing. The entire system would have to be taken down and redesigned. The entire game. Nationstates uses names as a unique identifier. if you take out one name, it cascades into various other files (plain text files in the case of Nationstates).

Months worth waiting if we have a nickname system for our nation names.

you could always alter the the nation classification to add the 'nuance' you want

you like billy boy

howsabout

the Willy waving Australian rePublic ?

maybe not

the Right on Charlie of Australian rePublic?

whatever

Having a display name/nickname would be a nice patch. You'd still have to come up with something unique to create a nation, and links to it would still have to use that, but you'd no longer be limited to something unique for the appearance of your name. For the sake of the mods, though, it might be best to only allow that field to be changed after reaching a certain population.

Crazybloxian Empire wrote:shut down the site for three days while you change the ID system

Three days?

With that out of my system, as Thao already said, the scale of the work needed for the techies to overhaul the whole "nation name as account identifier" thing, and to do so properly (for instance, proper database setup and master accounts people could put all their puppets under) is not something that can be done quickly or easily due to poor design decisions by amateur programmer Max in 2002. (And believe me, everyone from 2018 Max to [violet] to Salusa and Elu to the mods kinda want to smack 2002 Max upside the head for that one.) The current system works well enough, so that overhaul while on the docket is pretty far down the list due to more pressing priorities for limited techie time.

As for the "display name/nickname" idea, that one is unlikely due to just being an inadequate bandaid for the issue that only creates headaches both for moderation as it opens up a large new venue for malicious impersonation and confusion among the players. Unless display names/nicknames were limited the same way nation names are where you can't use the same one as anyone else, which kinda defeats the purpose of the entire thing since instead of people just trying to hoard desirable nation names, you'd have them using junk nations to do so with desirable nicknames too.

If you are going to add some identifier, I would use a unique code, as oppose to nicknames

Australian rePublic wrote:If you are going to add some identifier, I would use a unique code, as oppose to nicknames

Which falls under the "is not something that can be done quickly or easily due to poor design decisions by amateur programmer Max in 2002" mentioned in my last post. That would be setting up a proper database structure and master accounts- on the docket, but unlikely to happen any time soon due to the amount of work it will take and the current system working well enough for our purposes for the time being.

Reploid Productions wrote:

Australian rePublic wrote:If you are going to add some identifier, I would use a unique code, as oppose to nicknames

Which falls under the "is not something that can be done quickly or easily due to poor design decisions by amateur programmer Max in 2002" mentioned in my last post. That would be setting up a proper database structure and master accounts- on the docket, but unlikely to happen any time soon due to the amount of work it will take and the current system working well enough for our purposes for the time being.

Ok

Ghost Land wrote:Personally I'm beginning to think we should add something about changing nation names in the FAQ, considering this is a question that gets asked very frequently around here.

I agree

Ghost Land wrote:Personally I'm beginning to think we should add something about changing nation names in the FAQ, considering this is a question that gets asked very frequently around here.

You are under the mistaken impression that people actually read the FAQ. They people who need the information in the FAQ, both gameside and in the Technical forum, are among the least likely to "read the instructions". Adding even more Q&A further reduces the possibility that our target audience will read it all the way to the end.

Frisbeeteria wrote:

Ghost Land wrote:Personally I'm beginning to think we should add something about changing nation names in the FAQ, considering this is a question that gets asked very frequently around here.

You are under the mistaken impression that people actually read the FAQ. They people who need the information in the FAQ, both gameside and in the Technical forum, are among the least likely to "read the instructions". Adding even more Q&A further reduces the possibility that our target audience will read it all the way to the end.

I read the whole thing, beginning to end, immediately before I joined. It took 12 minutes. Even now I still look at it in case I'm slightly unclear as to how things work. Do you have any evidence that suggests that most people don't? The FAQ has been updated many times in the past; it mentions stuff like banners and telegram stamps, which did not exist when I joined, so I don't see why it can't be updated now with a very basic perennial question and its answer.

I think this will be especially worse for someone that posts frequently on the forums.

16 years or more of references and nation tags broken. As an outsider looking into the workings of the site, I can only imagine the sheer work needed.

We can’t implement my display name idea until everyone agreees to wait for like 2 years or unless we want to sacrifice our posting history, in which case we’ll need to see it on the Wayback Machine.

Crazybloxian Empire wrote:We can’t implement my display name idea until everyone agreees to wait for like 2 years or unless we want to sacrifice our posting history, in which case we’ll need to see it on the Wayback Machine.

I believe Reppy said alternate display names was unlikely to ever happen, due to the risk of impersonation creating unnecessary headaches for the mods. But I don't want to paraphrase. Here's the section of the post:

Reploid Productions wrote:
As for the "display name/nickname" idea, that one is unlikely due to just being an inadequate bandaid for the issue that only creates headaches both for moderation as it opens up a large new venue for malicious impersonation and confusion among the players. Unless display names/nicknames were limited the same way nation names are where you can't use the same one as anyone else, which kinda defeats the purpose of the entire thing since instead of people just trying to hoard desirable nation names, you'd have them using junk nations to do so with desirable nicknames too.

The ability to change names would be nice. I'd like to get rid of the "The" I added as an innocent newbie. But we don't have that ability and it's low priority.

Though, I will say that -- though I'm well aware that few people read FAQs and OPs -- some do (I did), and it might be nice to add that name changes are impossible for the sake of the people who do read it (or just to have a place to point people to, for ease).

Reploid Productions wrote:

Crazybloxian Empire wrote:shut down the site for three days while you change the ID system

As for the "display name/nickname" idea, that one is unlikely due to just being an inadequate bandaid for the issue that only creates headaches both for moderation as it opens up a large new venue for malicious impersonation and confusion among the players. Unless display names/nicknames were limited the same way nation names are where you can't use the same one as anyone else, which kinda defeats the purpose of the entire thing since instead of people just trying to hoard desirable nation names, you'd have them using junk nations to do so with desirable nicknames too.

Then you should blacklist a few names and ban people from using display names which match an existing player’s display name. Or probably display the real name and display name at the same time like

THE EXAMPLE COUNTRY OF
Lorem1 (Lorem)

And for the hoarding part, make it disposable like newspapers. “Buying the newspaper” is when you pick the display name, “Reading the newspaper” is when you use it, and “Discarding the newspaper” is when you get a new display name. If you change your display name, the old name should be reused immediately after the player abandons it.

Crazybloxian Empire wrote:We can’t implement my display name idea until everyone agreees to wait for like 2 years or unless we want to sacrifice our posting history, in which case we’ll need to see it on the Wayback Machine.

2 years is such a long time, I hope you're aware. It is a combination of "If it isn't broke, don't fix it and screw it up."

Plus, not everyone abandons the game for good. There are a few cases where people come back after 10+ years of absence. Granted, I would like some names to be available, but derivatives and combinations are possible.

My name is such an example of "Valentine" not being available at the time. Improvise, Improvise, Improvise!

And it's not a case of Max using a broken or an out-of-date system either. For 2002, this was probably all they got. And it blew too big in popularity that changing to the new system will break every single parts of the old system. The old archives, the regions, the issues... Every. Single. Bolt. will be unscrewed and the whole tower will fall. *

* All based on my limited knowledge being here. I'm not a Mod or a Techie, so take my word with a bottle of salt.

Crazybloxian Empire, everything your suggesting will take months of work and testing and there are only two techies. The rest of us aren't prepared to give up months of Nationstates, just because you want a name change. There's a really simple solution right here.

"Create a new nation with the name you want."

No one is stopping you from creating a new nation. Just think about it, is your minor inconvenience of having to create a new nation worth the $10,000's it'll cost in volunteered time/server expenses/loss of enjoyment/permanent damage to site visitor numbers for other people?

Here's an idea just off the top of my head: what if your display name must be a substring of the full name of your nation?