Forum names - does anyone care about the format?
 

When I signed up, I followed the request here in terms of choosing a forum name: http://www.4x4response.info/showthread.php?t=2

I notice these days that hardly anyone seems to be following either suggested format. I thought the idea of a forum name that indicated your response group was a good one... are people not doing it because they don't agree or because they just aren't aware that (or their full name) is the requested format?

On one of the previous vesions of the forum it used to be more enforced but since moving to V-bulletin (the current software we are using) we have added the custom field "real name" and made the display of this more prominent than a users log in, this has made the rule rather superfluous but it has been left in place to discourage in appropriatte log ins.

The FirstnameTeamname option was always intended to be the second option with real name in preference. There is no real reason to include your Group name in your login when it is one of the custom fields that you can choose in your profile anyway - you haven't done yours Clive.

We would ask though that a certain appearance of professionalism is maintained.

Re: Forum names - does anyone care about the format?
 

Tbh I was wondering if this rule had been ditched, as a tapatalk user I can't see real names on the posts so it still looks quite un professional.

Hmm, ok, I missed that requirement/protocol as I went into forum registration autopilot. I've been known as NoDo$h / ND on every internet forum I've posted on since the late 1990s (the cunning use of $ means googling me is difficult :D) without any issues.

Anyone care to point me at the right place to change my name? I can't see it in the user control panel.

Alan

Done it for you.

If anyone else would like theirs to be changed just ask, if I have another spare five minutes between phone calls that is!

Maybe worth clarifying the instructions then Simon. Give folks a choice and some of them are bound to choose the option. Or do neither of couse. Given my forum name included my group name, I didn't see the need to add the group name to the optional info..... ;-)

I much prefer that forum user on here use their own name as I also do on our own forum, this makes things much easier as everything tallies up nicely with the members info I recieve from the MemSec which means I can easily identify who is who without resorting to a plethera of pm and cross references to identify some obscure title as a bonafide member.

Nigel.

Which means you won't show up in any searches by group so you might miss out on info sent to group members etc.

Personally I don't really think the user name format matters now, except perhaps for the mobile users if real name doesn't display so perhaps we ought to re-inforce it - thoughts people?

The only concern I would have is that of presenting a professional image to non-members (including, and some would say especially, the press). I think most, if not all 4x4R members would consider themselves to be such.
Certainly we are being taken seriously by the Police, NHS, Ambulance Services and other LRF members so we we should, in turn, return that compliment by presenting ourselves professionally as they do.

Which sounds important - if anyone posts this way.... and if they do, shouldn't it be a mandatory field when you register?

I don't see the point of only letting folks know what's important in terms of registration details only when someone posts a question about it.... ;-)

I thought the group box was set to pop up/insist if you haven't filled it on to be honest. Will have to check on that. We can't make it compulsory as not everyone who registers is a responder and has already been shown very few people read the guidelines etc anyway.

It could be if some extra 'groups' were added...
The extra groups can be things like 'Visitor', 'Trade', 'non-member', whatever... (it is late o'clock for thinking) then there will always be a value that can be used to search, it doesn't need to contain just 4x4 Response group names.

Well, it obviously isn't / wasn't compulsory or else you'd not be mentioning I'd not completed it :-) (I did yesterday by the way).

As Mario suggests, if you want to make it mandatory, it can be done quite easily, even if you just add "None" as the top choice.

You could also auto generate forum names from the entered real first and surname if you really want to impose some order...

Thers's that impose word again

In the top ten in the book of how to alienate your membership

Ah yes but the word "impose" was preceeded by "if you really want to".

Gordon, if, when you registered for the forum it had fields that said "Forename", "Surname" and "Response Group" and then it created a consitent, professional looking, free from misunderstanding forum name for you, would that really feel like an imposition?

I already provide almost all of the info you mention and some that you do not, however that was my choice.

Next you will want

All callsigns used by the member
Blood group
Veh Reg
Veh type
Location

I could go on but let's just leave things the way they are

Incidentally all groups are autonomous "ringfenced" by National and will probably stay that way for the foreseeable

That's absolutely correct. But this is a National forum...

Never said that it wasn't

Their already are Mario - but you are confusing forum user groups and a custom field. The Custom field Response Group is now only set to display with posts for Responders. All Responders are in the same forum user group we do not have individual forum user groups for every individual response group.