reasons why Discord's new username plan is a terrible idea
2023/05/12 5:35 PM (UTC -5) | tildearrow
a week ago or so, Discord announced a radical change to the username system, which has been very controversial. only today I got this message.
some of you may argue that the current name/tag system (e.g. Username#1234) is weird, but then this new plan brings more issues.
here I am going to tell you why is this not a good idea (at least in its announced form):
- lowercase only: some people may require usernames with uppercase letters (otherwise it looks ugly). Minecraft allowed these. why can't Discord do the same?
not friendly to those who change username frequently: whether for pleasure or to be difficult to find. I know a few people who do that.I have read the announcement, and it appears that you are allowed to change your username...not friendly to those who change username, even rarely: e.g. for rebrand purposes. what if you want to use a new username to start fresh, or you have decided that your company is changing name? does this mean you'll have to create another account?I have read the announcement, and it appears that you are allowed to change your username...- what if your account is compromised? you won't be able to use that username again until your compromised account is deleted! and no, don't bother adding a 2 to your username in your new account... people won't find out that easily.
- impersonation: now take the example I provided in the previous point... what if somebody creates an account with your username with 2 appended to it or something, and then proceeds to tell everyone that it is your new account?
- adds one more layer of confusion: display names. if it differs from the username (which most likely will), then it means having to remember the username, which you're not going to look at often.
- impersonation, part 2: take the aforementioned point. since guild owners cannot change users' display names, somebody can change the display name to another user's name and pretend it's that other user!
- gradual, slow roll-out: which allows older accounts to change username to that of a well-known new one. what if for example, you're known as "CoolPerson" but you created your account in 2020 (and somehow managed to be popular and have your name well-settled in several communities)? you gotta wait until you get the prompt to use that as permanent username... a period in where somebody with an older account may take YOUR username and prevent you from using it any further!
many people have spoken out already. it's time that Discord finally listens and retreats...
but well, I guess it is in the name... Discord...
nitpick
is there any reason you used the old name for tag, "discriminator"? sure, in the developer docs it's still named like that, but in the rest of the UI, if I recall correctly, in 2020 you renamed it to "tag" because "discriminator" sounded like a bad thing to you.
so what happened here? all of a sudden you start calling it "discriminator" again?
it shows how half-hearted this decision was. I am pretty sure that not even your employees are happy with it.
besides, you shouldn't be using Discord anyway. sure, it's easy to use and most people on the Internet employ it primarily, or even exclusively... but then it has lots of other issues, from privacy ones to censorship and horrible user interface! when will I talk about the buggy Android app that I refused to embrace until now...