h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

EVIL I tell you. You're all going straight to www.hell!

Oh. I should justify that comment? well...

1) Long user names get repeated lots of times down the page, taking up valuable space. This is just as bad as having a signature, and just as annoying. You're NOT THAT IMPORTANT. Nobody cares! And if we did care, we could click on your name to get to your home page anyway!

2) Long user names often advertise some entry which presumably we are being encouraged to go to. But to go to an entry that's advertised there you have to go through the tedious process of copying all the text, taking care not to click on the link, paste it into the address bar, and then get rid of everything but the A-number. What a waste of time! whereas if you put it as a link in text, it would get autolinked, and it would be so much more simple.

3) the adverts are generally completely inappropriate - I can stand someone advertising for a new coffee-shop on an old coffee shop - but someone advertising for a new coffee-shop in the middle of a discussion on teddy bears - that's GROSSLY impolite. And advertising in user names does that.

4) those with long user names make the who's online list longer, and make lists of researchers to credit for collaborative entries longer. They also allow those with long user names to take up more than their fair share on such lists - and that's unsociable and greedy.

5) those with long user names often constantly change them, which makes threads rapidly lose their sense. People will comment on what's in the advert part of a name, and then it'll be changed, and all of a sudden that part of the conversation just becomes confusing and dumb-looking.

Ahhh - good to have got that off my chest.

You are right.

I'll change mine right away.

Well, I don't see that it's worth getting quite that het up about, but if you insist, I will change mine back soon. Not today, but by the weekend. Promise.

It's just that I spend long hours compiling the GerManiaConnection and have just implemented a big update and thought I'd jump on the bandwagon and tag it on to my name.

Although I never read them when other people do it, and I certainly never go to the A-numbers given.

As the person with the longest user name of 128 characters, I'd like to add my say to this discussion.

Lucinda, you say that having long user names is greedy. Sorry, but how is that possible? We're not talking about something tangible here - it's a bunch of words!
People do go to the A-numbers given. And what's all this about copying and pasting for heaven's sake? An A-number is 6 digits or less - surely you can remember that and just type it in like everyone else does?
User names take up very little space in a forum. And if you think they take up too much space in the Who's Online box, just resize it!
They usually also refer to some position they have in VR life on h2g2 - mine for example states, in as short a form possible, all my various jobs. Some people have a lot to be proud of you know!

I don't like to sound angry about this, but pointless arguments like this do annoy me...

My reply...

> "Lucinda, you say that having long user names is greedy. Sorry, but how is that possible? We're not talking about something tangible here - it's a bunch of words!"

It's being greedy for attention and fame - they may not be tangible, but they certainly exist. Especially for those with artificially inflated egos of course.

It's also being greedy in taking more time up from everyone who reads that list - time may not be tangible, but it does equal money.

My bank balance isn't tangible either, but it's still greedy to want it to have several billions in it.

> "What's all this about copying and pasting for heaven's sake? An A-number is 6 digits or less - surely you can remember that and just type it in like everyone else does?"

But a text link would be much more convenient, would it not? It would be more considerate and thoughtful towards your fellow human beings, and it would hopefully mean that you would only spam it once in any conversation, rather than with every single post. Beter yet you might spam it only when appropriate.

> "User names take up very little space in a forum."

A username such as yours takes up two lines for each post made. Typical posts are probably about eight lines long. So 20% of the space is being wasted on people's usernames.

> "if you think they take up too much space in the Who's Online box, just resize it!"

You want me to reduce the size of my font so I can't read anything? Or reduce the size of the window so I have to scroll the scrollbar stupid amounts?

I was talking about *relative* size. I'd be perfectly happy if people with longer names got their fontsize reduced in proportion.

> "They usually also refer to some position they have in VR life on h2g2 - mine for example states, in as short a form possible, all my various jobs. Some people have a lot to be proud of you know!"

And why do you think that the readers of this forum give two figs whether you're G.O. of anything? If it's relevant, then write it - if it's not relevant, then don't write it - but don't chuck it in your name so you *always* right it.

For example, I'm a scout. But 99% of the time that's not relevant - so it's wasting other people's time putting it in my username. So I just sign off those posts I *do* make in my capacity as a scout with "myre (scout) - ".

Myself, I wouldn't be terribly proud of self-appointed jobs anyway. In fact I might consider it really rather sad to have any.

If people care what jobs you have, they'll go to your userpage, and you can tell them (without having to use dumb abbreviations and leave stuff unexplained). All your username says is:

- professor Christopher Tonks
- something of something called "san beta"
- something of something and something else
- something of that san beta thing again
- something
- oh: and a project leader.

Only the first two are information - the rest are just meaningless garbage. You might as well fill your name with "wibble"...

>...those with artificially inflated egos...

You don't know me, so can't tell if I have an ego at all!

>It's also being greedy in taking up more time...

It's perfectly simple - just ignore the light blue box in every forum post. That helps you ignore the name, the credentials, and gets you straight to the post.

One thing you don't realise is that people want other people to know certain things all the time! It may not always be relevent, but in the places I go on h2g2 it is.
You can either have it in your user name (with the possibility for skipping it), or have a signature, which everyone *has* to see.

>...reduce the size of my font...reduce the size of my window...

No, make the window bigger so you can see more! (duh...)

Look, people don't care about user names, they're just there. Everyone has one, and it's up to them to set them as they want to. h2g2 set a maximum of 128 characters - if there was anything wrong with that, they would change it.
In my opinion, having a very short name tells people nothing about you - you appear dull (no offense to anyone has not yet realised this...)

> "It's perfectly simple - just ignore the light blue box in every forum post."

Just like banner ads, right - just ignore them? Yet plenty of people complain about those... same with TV ads, and the rest.

Ads in usernames, to me, are just another example of unsolicited, badly targetted, advertising. At least most advertisers have the excuse that they're trying to make a living. And untargetted it is - I don't believe that you only go to places where it's relevant - for starters, you're here.

Here's another reason - long names muck up the "current conversation" list - because you can't see the times of posting at all easily. Again, other people's long names cause me inconvenience - I don't like that, hence this thread.

Be that as it may, I'm not going to bother arguing with you.
I just think this thread doesn't have much of a basis on Netiquette as a whole, and hence won't be included in the finished article...
Some points on user names will be included, but I'm sticking to mine, thank you very much...

Well, it's a talking point, so there won't be a finished entry...

I didn't change mine in the end. At least, I didn't change the length. And I have decided to keep it, too. I find that people are going to these places I have put a lot of effort into.

Of course, I could keep a list of relevant links in my clipboard and post them at the bottom of every posting, which I think would be annoying.

Sorry Lucinda, but there is going to be a finished article - an official h2g2 help file in fact. Peta's asked me to draft it...
If you look through all the other threads here you'll notice I've been all over them...

The better alternative would be to only post the links where they're appropriate - and only once per conversation. Do an h2g2 search for "procrastination" and post to those entries and threads. Just for a start, check out:

http://www.h2g2.com/Search?searchstring=procrastination&searchtype=goosearch

There's even an edited entry amongst them - http://www.h2g2.com/A178355

I guess I'd be more understanding of your reasons had you tried targetted advertising, and resorted to spamming in your name as a last resort. However, you must do what makes you happy.

I may have to complain to Peta about bias from the drafter then...

Hehe...don't worry - I'm not taking offense or anything, and I won't incorporate an argument into the article. I'm just here to put into it what I think is best.
After all, I'm just assigned to read through all these threads and draft the article - Peta has the final word on it.

> "I'm not taking offense or anything"

Hmm - I'll have to try harder next time...

Yeah, you just try!

Lucinda, I fail to see how you can get so irked about something as trivial as a username. I for one think of them as a way to express my emotions in a way which can't normally be done online (sort of like seeng the smile or frown on a person's face before you talk to him or her).

I have thought about what you say about posting links where appropriate, but this excludes a large group of people who may not be in that thread at that particular time. And I have one thread where I continually post the link to the entry, because the thread started as an "Ask the Community" Topic, and on the basis of that I wrote an entry, but for some time the conversation continued in the Community forum. So, for reference, every now and again, I posted a link to the entry. I expect the regulars have now bookmarked it, and anyway, we have now started a new thread on the entry.

The procrastinators is something I particularly feel part of at the moment. When I stop procrastinating I shall update the GerManiaConnection and include that in my name again. As I said, this involves a lot of work, and is aimed more at people outside Germany, while also being a home base for the German speaking Researchers.

Thank you for posting the links on procrastination - I hadn't even thought of searching for it.