Hi everyone!

In our monthly announcement thread, we gave notice that our username-change policy would be changing (for those of you that didn’t catch it or see the subsequent discussion, you can go here). This new policy is now live.

What is the new policy?

Players may change their usernames at any time, provided that they have not changed it within the last 60 days. Changing your username incurs a fee of 10 gems, though if you are changing only the capitalization of your username, this fee is waived. Previously used usernames are not returned to the pool of available usernames, so no player (including yourself) can register your old username.

This information is displayed clearly in the username change interface (mockup here).

Why is this change being made?

Our goals with this change are:

• Make certain site mechanics reliable, including being able to associate a name with an account on the backend.
• Keep the system simple, both from a coding perspective and a player perspective.
• Ensure that it remains possible for players to change their username when a change is necessary.

For Mycena Cave, a unique association between usernames and accounts is necessary for a number of reasons, including:

• Stabilize a number of backend processes which previously required an unsustainable amount of manual intervention.
• Reduce significant cognitive overhead relating to moderation (e.g. “we gave ‘abe’ a warning last month, but ‘abe’ is now ‘bob’ and ‘corinne’ is now ‘abe’ so make sure you keep that in mind”, etc.).
• Enable us to maintain forum-pings instead of breaking them.

Many suggestions for our new policy were made in the monthly announcement thread. We followed the conversation carefully and discussed and mocked up potential adjustments to the policy based on your feedback. Ultimately, to keep with the goals described above, we decided to move forward with the policy as originally announced.

“Grandfather” policy

The gem fee for username changes is waived for the next 10 days (or for 10 days after your cooldown period ends if you are currently on a username change cooldown).

We recognize that the benefits of this policy change are largely helpful to us on the back-end. We also recognize that its effect on players is strictly neutral or negative, in part because it removes an ability you previously had, and also because most of the issues it solves have not been visible from a player perspective. Overall, we’ve found that the original username changing system was implemented without enough thought given to its consequences when actually used, and as we’ve grown its fluidity has been costing us far too many of our resources in the way of time and energy.

As a small team responsible for a growing community, it is necessary that we streamline areas that require an unsustainable amount of our resources so that we can spend more time working on core features and activities. Sometimes, this means making unpopular changes to existing features so that we can keep working efficiently. We understand that the general response to the heads-up we gave in the monthly news thread was negative, and we hope this clarifies why we are moving forward with this change.

If you’d like to further discuss this update, you are welcome to continue the conversation here!

Out of curiosity, why were these backend processes not tied to user IDs in the beginning? Wouldn’t that have been simpler?

Also, will the points that users have brought up in the other thread after glitch’s giant wall of text be addressed?

Crow

Maybe it’s because I’ve never needed to use the feature before, but I’m definitely on board for these changes. It makes a lot of sense as to why they’re being implemented. *waves her support flag*

Thanks staff!

Thank you for making this an official announcement and putting it in the banner. I’m also really happy to see the QoL update that fixes the broken pings! Are these retroactive or will they only apply to u/n changes going forward?

I am not happy with this change, moreso in regards to the way it was implemented/communicated than with the change itself. It’s not surprising that a change that was already decided on behind-the-scenes without user feedback didn’t incorporate any user feedback. Any possible alternatives are judged against the emotional and practical weight of something already-discussed and partially implemented.

I do wish Mycena Cave would spare some consideration for its existent community a little bit more, instead of putting all of it towards the nebulous future members of the “growing community” that keeps getting referenced in regards to changes that negatively effect the current userbase. You have a valuable, willing, and tight-knit community that’s already here, that you could take advantage of when it comes to discussing feature changes and balancing user experience with tech/staff needs, rather than trying to guess how best to handle the theoretical future masses.

I understand we’re not always going to agree with necessary policy changes, but this doesn’t address any of the concerns brought up after glitch’s last post a week ago. This basically just rehashes what he already said. I know we can’t discuss every detail of every change ever because then nothing would ever get done, but…. such a big issue like that was open for discussion and then abruptly cut off without a word doesn’t feel great. A lot of users had really great questions and suggestions and that all seems to have been… well, ignored. It’s been days since we had any kind of response and now we’re just back where we started.

Again, I get some things just have to be done for site improvement, but I don’t like the lack of communication in this instance. And I don’t like the precedence this sets for the future? I don’t think anyone was being unreasonable we just… want know what’s going on and help better the site if we can? We’re all on the same team here. Jacq echoed a lot of my sentiments here.

Thank you so much for putting the announcement as it’s own banner so people will see the notification as they log in!!!  I greatly appreciate it c=

Thank you for posting this as an announcement so everyone can see it. Personally I am still a bit baffled by the fact that usernames will forever be locked, even if they are not currently in use, but I understand the thing about whole multiple usernames can be a backend pain. Hopefully we don’t lose many usernames to the void.

I’m also baffled at the concept of usernames not taken by people just being… gone, and still think that this is the wrong way to go about it. But since not a single point of feedback was taken into account on the last thread so it seems futile to suggest another option.

I’m not personally affected by these changes, but I have to voice that I’m quite uncomfortable with the precedent this is suggesting, that future major site changes can be implemented by staff with little to no userbase input or forewarning.

I had to leave a roleplay forum group when the admins and affiliated mods became quite draconian with forcing through major world changes they wanted, even going so far as to talk down to users who disliked the changes or disagreed with how they were handled. I don’t see Mycena Cave ever doing such a thing, but I’m still feeling skittish and nervous.

If some reassurance that major site changes that could dramatically or negatively affect a majority of existing users won’t be covertly discussed and agreed to by staff without at least pre-informing users that changes may be happening, that would be awesome.

Also, I emphasize current users, not amorphous future newcomers being anticipated. If current users are disillusioned or even leave the site due to losing valued features, those coveted new users are not likely to be encouraged to sign up, never mind stay.

Hello everyone,

As a general reminder, sometimes websites change their policies for their own reasons. On Mycena Cave, we sometimes solicit player feedback about proposed changes before we reach a decision. When we do, we put up a google form, or clearly request comments and discussion in a forum thread designated to the purpose of discussing the change. In this case, we did neither: the policy change was a decision we made without player input. We posted an advanced heads up in the monthly news thread warning people that the change was imminent, we chose to provide a grace period on the fee in case people were currently on a “temporary” username to negate any immediate inconvenience, and then we posted a full announcement when the change occurred.

In spite of this not being a change for which we sought player feedback, we mocked up and discussed several alternative strategies based on some of the comments brought up (as one example, see here) during the interim. That said, as you can tell from the announcement in this thread, we ended up settling on the policy as originally planned and announced.

A final point to make is that Myla and I ultimately make the decisions about what to do with this website. We will usually seek input from our staff. We will occasionally seek input from our players. As we’ve stated a couple times now, this change is primarily geared towards streamlining running things here. I am gratified that many of you are interested in the “why"s behind it, and we have done our best to explain several of the reasons, but we have neither the time nor energy to expound on it further.

---

Finally, to address some outstanding issues and/or questions brought up in this thread:

• Purr one significant portion of non-numeric processes involves communication — for example, when moderators are communicating about 400+ different active users, doing so via number is not possible. With regards to addressing points brought up after my post in the other thread — no, we don’t plan to. Most were suggestions which do not meet our primary requirement (“one name cannot be attached to two players”), and at this stage we aren’t open to discussing the remaining questions further.
• Jacq avoiding broken pings will only apply going forward. Prior to the change, we cannot match past usernames to players, so those pings will stay broken.
• Corvani you are correct that this announcement essentially describes the policy that we gave the heads-up for in the monthly news thread. We did not, however, open it up for discussion and player input.
• Keilin Alyr this change neither affects any users dramatically, nor affects the majority of the userbase. We also did “pre-inform users” as you wish we had. The heads-up occurred in the monthly news thread.

I don’t want to put words in anyone else’s mouth, but for myself, a wish for more forewarning refers to some point earlier than this months’ update (though it’s possible I misread that response and it was meant to be more cheeky/exasperated than sincere). If there had been a small update in the news post last month (or whenever), that you were considering some changes to the username policy, and to expect this change to be announced later, I don’t think the response would have blown up the way it did. Even if feedback wasn’t solicited at that point (even if feedback was specifically discouraged with a “we are not seeking user input at this time”), it wouldn’t have felt so surprising. I feel like previous changes and features have been telegraphed in this way before? But I guess I could be wrong there.

The original update puts the entire reason for the change on “frivolous” name changes, meant to target a handful of users abusing the function. All the information about back-end processes wasn’t mentioned until later. Now, in this thread, that original reason is totally absent and the focus is completely on those back-end processes. While I can only speak for myself again, I would prefer “we’re not telling you why this is changing but we’re changing it for our own reasons”, to feeling like I’m being misled.

Agreed with Jacq. I understand we can’t debate every minute detail as I said previously, but we’ve always had a fairly open dialogue with staff about updates and this.. feels totally different. I have never felt ignored by staff before because again, even if feedback wasn’t taken into account or even necessarily wanted, at the very least concerns and questions were addressed. I’d rather be told up front in advance than wait around for a reply I’m not going to get? ie myself and several other users asked why we can’t have UNs under three characters and never heard back.

At the very least even replying to the old thread with something along the lines of “hey we hear you guys and value your opinions, but we’re not really looking for feedback in this instance” would be better than hearing nothing for a week and then having the update pushed through? And with such a big update like this I think hearing about it a bit earlier on, like Jacq said, would be helpful in the future. I’m glad you made a separate thread and put it in the header like people mentioned, but yeah I feel like a little more warning or something would have been nice.

At the end of the day you have to do what you feel is best for the site and I totally respect that, but you have to expect some level of concern from your userbase and a wish to understand these decisions better, etc.

Seconding everything Jacq and Corvani said. I am okay with the change itself; I’ve accepted that it’s what’s best for the site. I have a sour taste in my mouth because of how it has been handled.

Thank you for taking the time to at least address the questions in this thread.

The site has been changing, growing. When I joined/when the site launched, staff and users were able to communicate and provide feedback very easily. It was really nice, and not something I was used to (I did come here from digis, but I had only been poking around on digis for a very brief time before finding out about MC’s development - and at that time, it really felt more like a group of friends’ personal forum than a proper site). Lead staff (meaning glitch, Myla, and daemon) regularly chatted with users in a way that made them feel like one of us, held at least one livestream (my memory is pretty fuzzy from then, though, but I do remember it was really fun to watch).

I started going on small breaks here and there as RL got kind of crazy for me, and at least a year consisted of me logging on maybe once or twice a month, fishing, collecting bank interest, and then poofing again. When I started playing regularly again, one of the first things I noticed was that users IDs had gotten really high, the site had actually pushed past 15k user accounts - impressive in itself without even taking into account the one-account-per-user rule. As I began paying more attention to the news posts and really all other threads like the “Help” section, something else became apparent: Staff responses are becoming less personal and more professional. This site has shifted from a small tightknit community to a pretty large collection of users, and while we don’t really see it that much via the forums (as it’s mostly a chunk of users posting that have been around for years), the staff see the results of it on their end, I’m sure. So, some of the things they did in the past just don’t work smoothly like they used to. They’re managing a lot of data for the staff size and background, and for a site that was, if I remember correctly, meant to be more of a hobby than some big business. If they say the username changes were causing issues on their end, then we have to be willing to let them change what they need to to ensure the site continues to run well for us. Maybe there will be some point later on where they figure out a way to allow name changes again without things getting complicated for them. I was a little bummed about the changes when I came back, but I do enjoy the site and understand changes were inevitable given the open registration.

That all said, we really didn’t get much warning for this. I’m saying this as someone who changed their name once very early on (I was originally Pikachu like on FR, but changed to Diglett after an old “which pokemon matches your ID” thread reminded me that #50 was Diglett, and I have no regrets at all haha), and someone that understands that sometimes the staff need to do what they need to do. If it was a change that needed to happen quickly after discovering a problem, staff could have just said apologies for not giving more time to prepare, this was an update that needed to be done quickly. If not, we could have used a month’s notice. That, and it probably would have been a good idea to have a separate news announcement completely from the beginning rather than being added to the monthly update, for users that don’t necessarily read those (I admit I skip them sometimes if I already know next month’s pet or that an event is ending/ongoing).

Just echoing agreement for what Corvani and Jacq have said; they did a good job wording my precise concerns with this change. At this point, any other feedback I have would be either rehashing what was stated in the News Discussion or just simply expressing my dislike of this change, so I’ll refrain from offering any.

Thank you for posting this as its own separate announcement.

... sigh…. this is a terribly late question, but I related to my hubby about the name change, and he suddenly tells me he’d wanted to change his username.  e.e will the 10 gem fee now apply if he changes it?  (I’m thinking yes! but thought I’d ask for him all the same )

Crow  just a ping since my question could easily be lost in here. 

Hi OregonCoast! As mentioned under the “Grandfather policy” section, we are waiving the 10 gem fee for 10 days following the posting of this announcement, so your hubby can still change his name for free if he does so in the next few days!

Dove  =O Thank you so very much!!!!  I’ll go poke him right now, and reiterate how lucky he is c; 

happy

So, you mentioned that we will not be able to use any names that we have used prior from now on. During the grandfather period, is it still possible to go back to a previously used nicknames if we had one? Or is this choice already limited?

Secondly, if someone wanted to change their name back to their old username after the grandfather period, could they email a staff user to be reviewed for it? Or is this just something that will never be available to them after the free period ends? I know that there are a lot of users that have nicknames that are important and significant to them, and they like changing through them when it fits their current lifestyle, so I’m worried as to how having a restriction on what names can be changed will affect that.

Shizuo

The only names that will be impacted from this change will be ones that are changed from now on, not ones that have been changed since before this policy was in place. For example, if you changed from Username A before the policy, and decide to go back now that this policy is in place, Username A would still be open. If you decided to change from Username A now that this policy is in place, Username A will never again be available.

Once a username has been used, it will never be open again. There will be no process or way of getting the username back again. This will impact names changed even during this span of days where we have waived the 10 gem fees.