The name you go by

[Helios451]

Old university log on which is a shortening of surname and first letter of first name

You didn't happen to go to a certain University in North Wales, did you?

[g8ina]

you might want to email them the dicitionary definition of a phage and ask them why they're being idiots. It's a word FFS.

On a nearly related issue, fb has stopped me advertising my bearing mod kit cuz it contains the word "billet" as in, chunk of metal. Their oh too smart smart filters read it as a typo for bullet !! You cant win sometimes.

[Saracen999]

I wasn't initially sure if Saracen999 was actually you - was there a time when you used both accounts simultaneously?

Yes .... and no. There's a bit of a story attached.

The "yes" part.

It's not unusual for admins to have a second account. Over the years, I've done quite a bit of background work with creating forums, user groups, changing the permissions system (I.e. what unlocks after x posts, etc) and similar. And, as that system is a bit unintuitive, it can lob a curve ball at you unexpectedly if you change the wrong thing.

So .... Saracen999 was my fallback and/or test account. If I wanted to confirm that, say, a new user group both did allow access to those it should and didn't allow access to those it shouldn't, then I needed an account I could set to meet those criteria.

Then, set the '999' account as needed, log out of the admin account, log in as 999 and see what happened. Then log out of 999, log back in with admin account and carry on.

There were even times when I wanted to change what my main admin account could do, but if I'm amending that a/c, I wanted a back door with admin access in case I, erm .... cocked up. Locking myself out would be embarrassing so for rare brief periods that Saracen999 account would have shown as an admin, and 'Saracen' wouldn't. It was pretty brief though and I don't think anyone ever noticed. Or said anything, anyway.

But the default position was that 999 was manually adjusted to a locked account. Hence the "no" bit of my first answer.

Now wind forward to last year. Due to age, a long period as an admin and to unrelated events in my life, I was getting less and less time, and less and less inclination to spend on, how do I put it, that tiny proportion of members or ex-members, that I was fed up with dealing with. Being an admin kinda precludes me using the "ignore" function.

Essentially, it not only wasn't fun any more but was more and more a chore. It felt like ... a straitjacket. Time for a change. I had two options - leave entirely, or just stand down. And I have too many 'friends', or even just those I highly respect, to just walk away. And that obviously includes the mod and admin teams, but also a lot that aren't.

So, stand down it was, then.

But that main Saracen account was .... customised. Unlike nearly all other accounts, access wasn't just controlled by user group membership but had been manually tweaked. Rather than manually untweak everything, I just reactivated 999 to normal access, set the password, and then logged myself out of the main account, having set user group to ... whatever. I don't remember. But a non-admin user group.

What I should have done, but didn't even think about, was -

- rename Saracen to something else.
- Rename Saracen999 to Saracen
- de-admin the 'something else'.

It would have been less confusing.

But you have to admit, if I was trying to hide that Saracen999 was me, calling it that was .... careless. And monumentally stupid. It did provide a subtle hint.

Last detail. The 999 bit was so that when I needed a test account, I could remember what I'd called it, having used several others over the years and forgotten the names. And it just .... stuck.

But I've now worn it in and, like newish shoes, now feels comfortable having gone through the blisters.

I 'spose I could ask a kindly admin to rename the old account and knock the 999 off this, but it doesn't seem worth the effort. And it underlines the 'not an admin' thing, after so long wearing that hat.

[BobF64]

You didn't happen to go to a certain University in North Wales, did you?

I suspect it was a common theme across any system that has limited user name lengths, but requires some uniqueness.

Ours, for example was up to 6 letters of surname, first initial and, from the year I started, a year digit.

[petrefax]

I wasn't initially sure if Saracen999 was actually you - was there a time when you used both accounts simultaneously?

yes, as someone who used to frequent here a lot many years ago but have only just returned, this kind of threw me a bit

[Output]

I wasn't initially sure if Saracen999 was actually you - was there a time when you used both accounts simultaneously?

I have to admit, it initially threw me off too, and I thought that a new user had made an ill-advised choice of a username as we already had someone actively using it without the numbers. Saracen's posting style quickly shone through however and made it clear it was him.

I had just missed him stepping down as Admin at the time he did though (despite me still actively visiting HEXUS as often as usual), so hadn't realised anything had changed until something like 2-3 weeks later.

[Tumble]

I comprehensively destroyed a 1997 VW Polo about 20 days after passing my driving test, and I already had a reputation for falling off bicycles. MY colleagues decided to employ their singular wit and compose a poem about me and post it on the coffee machine. The Tumble bit was purely to service a rhyme

[[GSV]Trig]

Sooo, what was this poem then Timmeh....

[hb904460]

University username, pretty unique and not often spammed.

[Tumble]

Sooo, what was this poem then Timmeh....

I don't remember the actual poem, it was 20 flippin years ago!!

[Saracen999]

....

I had just missed him stepping down as Admin at the time he did though (despite me still actively visiting HEXUS as often as usual), so hadn't realised anything had changed until something like 2-3 weeks later.

I didn't make an announcement or anything. I just did it. It seemed .... easier.