Title
Make renaming free...but with a little catch.
Short, concise description of the idea
Allow a user to change their username for free, but with a catch; they can only do it once a year or once every two years, so they have to pick wisely.
Full description of the idea
I think it's fair to allow renaming. 15 USD may be difficult for those who have financial issues or don't feel comfortable tossing money around online. If a user can only change their username once per year or once per two years, it'll prevent abuse. Perhaps a little message under the new username or on the user's profile that says "Formerly so-and-so-name" for a month will help prevent confusion over who this new person is. Also, users won't be able to rename to taken usernames or usernames that are too long.
An ordered list of benefits
- People with financial difficulties won't be burdened.
- Someone can change a username that no longer reflects them without losing years of journal entries.
- The hassle of informing communities of a new username will be diminished.
- The long wait time between changes will prevent abuse.
- Users who abandoned their Livejournals may come back.
An ordered list of problems/issues involved
- Serial abusers might wait out the one to two years.
- People who just made new accounts because their old one doesn't reflect them anymore will probably feel put out.
- A troll might change a username to something similar to another user to cause trouble. (Banning them from communities will take care of this, leaving the person being trolled to keep posting without issues.)
- Communities who organize post tags by usernames will have to change the tags.