When adding items, I know that author name will always show, even if you have selected a signature. My question is a bit more involved.

When I first created my contact details, I included my first name and last name ( Ya think???). After that I created a few topics, etc. in forums and both my name and signature show up. Great. That’s how it should be.

Subsequently, I changed my contact details to say a name of Site Administrator. Figured this makes it easier for people to recognize “official” things and also keeps some of my "own" things separate. I will create another profile under my first/last names - using a second e-mail address I have.

In the meantime, when I go back to forums, my original first/last names are still there. I can understand this for previously posted topics, which I could delete and re-create. However, new topics or replies I create still show the "old" first name/last name.

I want some things to show as coming from Site Administrator and when I want them to come from me, personally, I will log in under the second name.

Is there a way I can get around this?

Barbara

Good question. I didn't realize it was doing that. Changing your name should actually change it on all prior posts too. I suspect what's going on here is the first time somebody accesses the forums, a forum account is created behind the scenes. To the user is an invisible, seamless process. But to our system an official "forum account" must exist in addition to the individual's regular site account. When this new forum account is auto generated, I suspect it's pulling in the name from the Profile, but apparently this only happens once. It should either periodically check for name changes, or maybe just pull the name directly from the Profile and not from the Forum account. I'll run this past the programmers, who will actually know what's happening here exactly and I'm sure they can put in a fix for this to catch name changes. Thanks for bringing this up.

From Dave: "That's because forum name is 'Screen Name' and that's a different thing than Profile Name." I.E. you need to simply change your name in the forum.

How does one change their name in the forum?

SITE ADMINISTRATOR wrote:

Question: Does changing your admin account's name cause any problems with the Root Admin functions? Would you need to change the name of the Root Admin to correlate with the new name on the original administrator's account?
And what about having another account with the Root Admins name, would that confuse the system?

ding ding ding...LOL. I just thought of creating an account named Site Administrator and giving it admin privileges. That would do the same thing and not mess with the Root Admin functions. Yes?

Maybe I'm missing it but I can't "simply" change my name in the forum. When I go to either MY SETTINGS or EDIT USERS, neither allows me to change the name....only the signature. Name is not an editable field. Same thing for EDIT SCREEN NAME under MEMBERS. I think I've tried them all.

My root Admin name adjusted automatically to match my contact file. Everything still functions the same.

Sorry, I mislead you. As you've pointed out your cannot change your name. At some point the programmers must have made that uneditable, which of course makes good sense. The forums do cache for a bit for system performance reasons, thus changing your name in your Profile may not cause an immediate name change in your forums. But it shouldn't be too long befor the name change takes effect (less than half an hour).

Must be me.... I changed my name several days ago in EDIT CONTACT INFO. Can't change it anywhere else. Just posted a topic in forums and my original name still appears.

Ok, I've been a little confused here. Hey, it's Friday. I deduced from what you said that you updated the name, it didn't immediately update, and then later updated. But now I'm gathering the name is not updating at all. Which means there is a problem. So I'm back to my original theory that the forum account grabs the name only 1 time when the account is created and then never changes even if you change your name. Which you can't do from the forums itself as I first indicated.

Confused yet? No matter, the bottom line is Dave will have to pull the name from the Contact Detail page. I believe right now the name is stuck in an uneditable forum name, which we can't have. Adding to Task List.

Yep. You got it now. Guess I wasn't being clear either.

Brad Switzer wrote:

Ok, I've been a little confused here. Hey, it's Friday. I deduced from what you said that you updated the name, it didn't immediately update, and then later updated. But now I'm gathering the name is not updating at all. Which means there is a problem. So I'm back to my original theory that the forum account grabs the name only 1 time when the account is created and then never changes even if you change your name. Which you can't do from the forums itself as I first indicated.

Confused yet? No matter, the bottom line is Dave will have to pull the name from the Contact Detail page. I believe right now the name is stuck in an uneditable forum name, which we can't have. Adding to Task List.

Just curious....any time when this will be changed? Thanks.

Shortly, this is grouped with several other forum tweaks all on one upcoming task. It shouldn't be too long.

Name now pulls from Contact Details page.

The name now pulls from the contact details except in one instance: The name showing on the Last Post is still the previous name, even though on the post itself the correct new name is showing. How is that happening?

Thanks, I'll let Rick know.