Why are you guys posting the old names of people who clearly needed their names changed for privacy reasons? Obviously any data posted online is going to be quickly archived somewhere, but that doesn't mean that your
highlighting/reposting of it has no effect. In some cases you may literally be putting lives in danger. If you were investigating a scam or something, that'd be different, but you seem to just be indiscriminately & recklessly dredging up data that would best be forgotten.
I'm almost certain that most name changes aren't done to hide who they are.
Privacy is the
top reason for me agreeing to a name change. It's just not often done for well-known users, and
I don't announce it.
there will always be quotes off your old name.
When a name is changed for privacy reasons, I sometimes partially or completely fix that. I consider quotes of the form
[quote author=... link=topic=... to be fixable; other quotes are not.
Plus trust feedback and flags don't change, so what's the point in doing that?
- If it looks like there's much chance that a scam case will be opened against someone, then I won't change their name to begin with.
- Flags/feedback most often don't exist for users whose names I change
- The Trust system is intentionally not accessible to search engines.
- Trust ratings don't usually mention a user's original name or other sensitive details.