[Amelia]

It makes me wonder why so many people are changing their screen names? What is the purpose? Don't they want us to know who they originally were?

I can see why some people might wish to change their screen names, if said screen names were timely or descriptive several years ago, but aren't any more - for example, screen names referring to Gore, or to a place a poster no longer lives.

I agree that it would be good to know who the poster originally was, and I think we can both see why someone would want to keep their original sign-in date.

My question refers more to what I see as rank hypocrisy: Dales admits he has more than one screen name, but the rest of us aren't allowed to have but one. It appears to be a case of the rules only applying to some people, and I was hoping perhaps someone would tell me why appearances were deceiving in this case.

[Neets]

I did a name change and asked to keep my sign-on date, but I make of note of who I WAS on my profile page.

I did because because keep asking me if I was from that part of NY State or if I was American Indian and neither of those two were why I had chosen my original name.

So I picked another name alot of my close friends of FR knew me as.

I just think that no matter what changes are made on/to FR to appease/please any number of FREEPERS, there are going to be that small fraction who won't be pleases, who will see sinisters reasons behind things that are/are not done here.

That's just life.

This isn't all that serious, and people who have problems with FR, FR members, moderators, owners, etc would serves themselves better to just find some place else to go.

[Dales]

I suppose I could get upset at the use of the word hypocrisy there. Too often, discussing things in good faith leads to such accusations, which ends up people deciding it is not worth their while to try to talk about things, which leads to suspicion, which leads to... and so on. Please keep that in mind.

I have had several names. The history of each is straightforward and not really all that astounding. Dales was first. Then one night, long before being a mod, I got tired of being hit on via freepmail (apparently, Dales is an androgynous name) and I decided to make a change. I mailed Jim asking for a name change and he said then that he didn't have a way to easily do it. I mailed him back asking him if I could make a new account. He said go ahead. Hugh Akston entered the forum. And I didn't hide it. This was back when taglines still were around (and hey, they are back now, but this was during when they were originally around). And for months my tagline was "The Freeper formerly known as Dales". I had it in my profile.

Over time, I decided to reclaim my Dales name, for several reasons including one which tpaine can speak to. I then abandoned Hugh in place, updated his profile to point back to Dales, and started being me again.

Then Joe decided to try to demonize me. It took me a while to decide what I wanted to do with it. Jim suggested a name change, if I wanted it. I figured that a new name showing up, with the same 'born on date' that would occur if he changed my name in the system as he now easily can, would probably not work. So I created a new one. This was all done with Jim's permission.

I also have two accounts created for specific tasks, which have never been used for anything that could be considered debating. one such account is an account I set up that all moderators have access to called "I am not a mod". Again, this was done with Jim's permission.

The key to all of this, is that all of this was done with Jim's permission. I don't think anyone has ever lost an account for having more than one name when done with his permission.