I'm impressed with the new format.

[Thingy]

Parksy and Damian have been incredible moderators for the forums for years and we wanted to be able to provide them with tools to help the community grow into the future.

Couldnt agree more.

 

[Hobbyt600]

Hey again, folks!

.....I mean, I was a fully empowered Admin on the old forums and I couldn't change my own forum name. I could turn off and delete the forums with just a couple buttons, but a name change was out of reach?

Parksy and Damian have been incredible moderators for the forums for years and we wanted to be able to provide them with tools to help the community grow into the future.....v

May I ask how one changes one's forum name, please? Or is this an Admin-only capability?

(I was surprised to find that this forum has two Moderators, but (apparently) seven Administrator accounts,)

 

[Parksy]

May I ask how one changes one's forum name, please? Or is this an Admin-only capability?

(I was surprised to find that this forum has two Moderators, but (apparently) seven Administrator accounts,)

I'll try to find out how to change your forum name and get back to you Hobby.
The forum started out with three moderators, one of whom was the forum admin.
Unfortunately one of the first moderators passed away and a while later a forum post asking for volunteers to join the moderating team appeared.
Three of us responded, two dropped out which left the original two remaining mods and a very wet behind the ears newbie - me. 😳
The original admin who set up the first PCv forum, Ken Watson, retired and over the years we've had various forum admins who all moved on as their careers at Haymarket progressed.
At various times we've recruited other volunteers but lifestyle changes and technology advances caused them to drop out which leaves Damian and myself as moderators.
The editorial staff of Practical Caravan magazine have admin permissions, as do technical support staff and of course the community development supremo Steve Haines who oversees the day to day functionality of this forum from Future plc. and who is the de facto forum administrator.
There are quite possibly more than seven admin accounts when all those involved are taken into consideration

 

[Hobbyt600]

I'll try to find out how to change your forum name and get back to you Hobby.

...There are quite possibly more than seven admin accounts when all those involved are taken into consideration

I’ll be very surprised if it proves practicable to change a forum user-name (for example - to change “Hobbyt600” to “Kestral99”) as this would not only affect a forum’s underlying record structure, but also impact on any references to the original user-name that had been made in forum postings prior to the change.

When a forum allows a user to create a personal avatar, it’s commonplace for that user to be able to change that avatar subsequently and this action may be simple (as here) or much harder. But a forum avatar is quite different to a forum user-name and changing an avatar should not have any significant knock-on effect on the rest of the forum.

XenForo software functionality includes a lot of ‘numeric' data. Information about Moderators/Administrators is provided here.

https://forums.practicalcaravan.com/members/?key=moderators

(I’m doubtful that this sort of data has any real value, though.)

What would be more interesting to know is - following the Practical Caravan/Practical Motorhome migration - how many registered users of the earlier forums have so far renewed their ‘subscription’.

I vaguely recall there being a footnote on the Practical Motorhome forum claiming that there were some 22000 members waiting on-line to chat, answer questions, etc. (or something like that!) This really boiled down to 22000 user-names having been registered during the forum’s lifespan, though it was very obvious that, prior to the migration, hardly any of those people were actively participating.

 

[Guzzilazz]

It's been done for me in other forums, and all your postings get changed to the new name....

 

[Hobbyt600]

So, when your user-name was changed, what happened to any existing references in postings in those forums to your ‘old’ user-name?

Was a blanket change made so that every reference to your ‘old’ user-name was removed thoughout the forums and replaced everywhere by your ‘new’ user-name, or were references to your ‘old’ user-name in postings left untouched?

 

[Parksy]

Did you want to change your forum name Hobby?
If so, what do you want to change it to?
Why are you so interested in knowing how many forum members we have, or the number of admins and moderators there are?

 

[Guzzilazz]

All posts under my old name on that forum had my name chagned to my new name...

 

[Hobbyt600]

Did you want to change your forum name Hobby?
If so, what do you want to change it to?
Why are you so interested in knowing how many forum members we have, or the number of admins and moderators there are?

I’m a long-retired mainframe computer programmer/system analyst (when a computer hall was the size of an IKEA store and the machines needed a small coal-fired power station to keep them running).

I’m not overly interested in the forum’s management structure and I suspected that the 2 x Moderators + 7 x Administrators shown in the Members listing did not necessarily reflect the present position.

Regarding how many post-migration members this forum has, knowing that could be useful to the Admin people over time as it should reveal the forum’s 'attractiveness’. I did not ask to be told how many forum members there are - I just said it would be interesting to know this. (In fact, if I were an Administrator, I certainly would not give the figure away!)

No, I don’t want to change my forum user-name.

I can appreciate why someone might wish to do so, but when SHaines mentioned not being able to do this when he was the previous forum’s Administrator but (presumably) can do this since the switch to XenForo, I was curious about how this would be done and (as I said) if it required Admin intervention.

 

[Parksy]

The previous incarnation of the forum outsourced the Avatar and username mechanism to a third party.
When Haymarket sold the PCv platform the connection was lost, which meant that neither admin or members could change these things.
This is no longer the case.
Anyone who wanted to change their forum name should ask to do so and the request would be dealt with in house.
As for the number of active members, as I'm sure that you'll appreciate this information is comercially sensitive and won't be published here. 🤐

 

[SHaines]

May I ask how one changes one's forum name, please? Or is this an Admin-only capability?

(I was surprised to find that this forum has two Moderators, but (apparently) seven Administrator accounts,)

You can message me with the request. If your account is in good standing and the name you want is free, no problem at all.

Just to add context, if a user down the road wanted a name change to get a fresh start after bad behavior on the forums, I won't be doing that. Consequences are important and we all earn our reputations.

I mention it only as a way of discouraging folks from thinking a name change will allow them to run from their previous behavior, not that I anticipate this being an issue.

 

[Gafferbill]

Good luck with that

What is to stop a forum member from doing a name change........all that is needed is a new registration with a different email a/c. to obtain a new or separate identity.
There are several members on this forum who currently have a different name than the one they were previously known by.

 

[Hobbyt600]

You can message me with the request. If your account is in good standing and the name you want is free, no problem at all.

Just to add context, if a user down the road wanted a name change to get a fresh start after bad behavior on the forums, I won't be doing that. Consequences are important and we all earn our reputations.

I mention it only as a way of discouraging folks from thinking a name change will allow them to run from their previous behavior, not that I anticipate this being an issue.

I can’t imagine why I should wish to change my forum user-name. I was merely interested in a) Was this possible? and if so b) Did it require Admin action? Both of those questions have been answered. - Yes and Yes.

Although a user-name change would (presumably) allow a user’s ’statistics’ (number of postings, likes, badges) and avatar to transfer to the replacement user-name, I’m guessing it would not automatically replace in the text of postings references to the old user-name with the new user-name. If my Hobbyt600 user-name were changed to a totally different name, I assume references to the old name in postings - like "Did you want to change your forum name Hobby?” in a Parksy posting above - would still have “Hobby” in it. Whether that sort of thing really matters is debatable, though it does have a small potential for confusion.

 

[Hutch]

Yes your old forum name stays in previous postings.

 

[Damian]

Yes your old forum name stays in previous postings.

No it does not.
If your user name is changed by request, all your old posts revert to the new name.

 

[Damian]

What is to stop a forum member from doing a name change........all that is needed is a new registration with a different email a/c. to obtain a new or separate identity.

There is a lot of tools in the box that check various things when registering a new user.

 

[Parksy]

Good luck with that

What is to stop a forum member from doing a name change........all that is needed is a new registration with a different email a/c. to obtain a new or separate identity.
There are several members on this forum who currently have a different name than the one they were previously known by.

That's true Bill, but a name change doesn't necessarily mean that the individual was banned.

 

[Beehpee]

I have to admit that when the new forum went live I wasn’t impressed at all, but after however long it’s been going now I think it’s great, I will also admit to being no spring chicken and change isn’t something I readily embrace, but having it thrust upon me has made me realise how the old forum was in need of this change, so well done to the PC staff who did all the excellent background work setting it up and well done to Damien & Parksy for all your continued work keeping thing running smoothly.

BP

 

[Hobbyt600]

Damian

I believe you are misinterpreting Hutch's statement.

It is to be expected that a user-name change would apply retrospectively to every one of the user's postings, with the 'new' name replacing the 'old' name beneath the user's avatar.

But when other forum members have in the past referred to the 'old' name within their postings' text (or used a variation of the 'old' user-name) those references will not automatically alter to match the 'new' user-name.

 

[Parksy]

Of course the text within comments won't alter.
A membership profile is entirely separate to forum text.

 

[Hobbyt600]

That just repeats my comment in posting #38 above...

 

[Parksy]

That just repeats my comment in posting #38 above...

You 'assumed'
I confirmed it for you 😊

 

[Damian]

Damian

I believe you are misinterpreting Hutch's statement.

Guess what? I really don't care what happens with names or anything else concerned with the way the forum works, as long as I can do my job with the tools available.

There are paid employees to worry about all the back end stuff .

I think you have too much time on your hands and to be honest, it is getting boring!

 

[Hobbyt600]

I’m sure my wife would agree with you that I spend too much time on leisure-vehicle forums - though she has a right to be rude to me and I suggest that you - as a forum Moderator - do not.

I had hoped, when the Practical Motorhome forum was rejigged to use the Xenforo software, that this might reinvigorate it, but it’s plain that it’s as comatose as ever and that the chances of it becoming more lively in future are minimal.

It was educational to learn about caravan weight peculiarities, but, as a motorcaravanner for over 20 years, caravan-specific knowledge is most unlikely to have practical value for me in future.

Auf Wiedersehen Pets and grosses bises, I know when I’m not wanted...

 

[Damian]

Let me put a couple of things straight.
Firstly, when I am wearing my Moderators hat I post in RED.

Any other posts are as any other forum member and I am just as entitled to my opinion as anyone else, and I find all the technical stuff about computers and how they work totally boring.
As long as my computer does what I need that is all that concerns me.
If it does not do what I want it to do , I know a man who will fix it.

The comment about the Motorhome forum is somewhat strange.
I do not see where changing software to the current version would have any effect on the dismal record of the MH forum.

You say that

as a motorcaravanner for over 20 years, caravan-specific knowledge is most unlikely to have practical value for me in future.

I find that extraordinary as pretty much all the internal equipment such as fridges, heaters, cookers etc are exactly the same units as fitted to caravans and I work on just as many motorhomes as I do caravans.
The only main difference is the base vehicle and its associated bits and pieces.