I guess this technically isn't part of the website, but it's close enough
Currently, the ability to change your own nickname on the Cemetech Discord is disabled in order to prevent impersonation across the bridge. Discord usernames, which users are forced to use without the ability to change their nickname, are the same across all Discord servers a person is in. As a result, many people have different Cemetech and Discord usernames, which can be extremely confusing. I've suggested enabling nickname changing before in #disconnected, but it got somewhat buried in the chat:

commandblockguy wrote:
Could we re-enable nickname changing on the server, and maybe have the bot send a message to SAX/IRC whenever someone does so?
I know that it's turned off to prevent imitation, but you can still do that to a more limited degree by changing your actual username, since the rate limit on that is 2 times per 24 hours, or by adding an alt account to the server with the same name.
I feel that the confusion that results from people having different names on Discord and Cemetech and being unable to change them on either is more significant than the potential for abuse with imitation, especially considering that the latter is ban-worthy.


I know that a bot would be the ideal solution here, but considering how slowly development for that type of thing works nowadays, I feel that nickname changing should be re-enabled in the meantime in order to minimize confusion.
Considering how many other ways there are to impersonate someone, and that we still have basically zero instances of impersonation, I very strongly doubt that re-enabling nickname changes would cause any issues.

EDIT:
Apparently, the new bridge only sends the username anyway, so changing your nickname wouldn't even affect what's sent to IRC and SAX. This was probably the main concern with impersonation, since anyone on Discord can spot an imposter easily based on the profile picture and the roles, and verify by clicking the name to check the username.
Also, changing nick on Discord doesn't seem to change the nick that appears on SAX.
I think that sending edits and such to IRC is extremely annoying, personally.

As far as impersonation goes, this prevents nothing- it is trivial to make an alt account impersonating someone, and Discord itself lets you change your nick (albeit for all servers)
Also, giving the admins a special color in the Discord makes it very clear who is in charge- this was a thing until recently, I believe.
commandblockguy wrote:
EDIT:
Apparently, the new bridge only sends the username anyway, so changing your nickname wouldn't even affect what's sent to IRC and SAX. This was probably the main concern with impersonation, since anyone on Discord can spot an imposter easily based on the profile picture and the roles, and verify by clicking the name to check the username.


Honestly, the bridge was selected because it's the most "connected", in that we can bridge IRC, Discord, Matrix, Rocket.Chat and a few others, NOT because it ignores nicknames. That's a choice the bridge developers went with -- or maybe how Tari set it up? However, I also just learned that the bridge ignores nicknames; perhaps we can reenable the ability to change nicknames so that way the Discord chat can at least use Cemetech nicknames. It'll just be confusing when someone jumps over to IRC/SAX only to learn that peoples nicknames have changed.

_iPhoenix_ wrote:
Also, giving the admins a special color in the Discord makes it very clear who is in charge- this was a thing until recently, I believe.


Admin Discord members do not have a color associated with them because I want us to blend in. I don't want every message from an admin to stand out, most of the time we're in the conversation with you guys instead of brandishing the admin hammer Razz Hence why I want us to blend in.

I think the only change in regards to admins was that they are now separated from the list of users. I think this happened a few months ago, if not longer. Originally we were mixed in with the online users so that things felt less like a hierarchy, and if Admins needed to put their foot down, we expect the maturity of our members to recognize that. And that's really for everyone. If you see a conversation that's not appropriate (for the server or channel) it should equally empower you to tell folks to stop, which I feel a hierarchy would encourage members to not say anything or the offending users to keep going UNTIL an Admin steps in and says something.

That said, it's quick to tell if someone has an Admin role by clicking/tapping their name and seeing their roles (or just look over at the admin list). 🤷‍♂️ Thankfully, it doesn't seem like this has been a huge issue because offenses are very rare. But, if the Discord grows it's something we'll certainly need to revisit.
If we can't have this, can we at least grant the ability to change nicks to a couple more active, trusted members? Discord allows global usernames that are obtuse and obtrusive (not to mention potentially offensive), and it would be nice to allow people to make their name more palatable just for our server.

I see your point about it being confusing for IRC users. If the bridge was more open-source, perhaps, I would love to hop in and patch it. ;)

Anyways, the question of why it was disabled in the first place is still a little hazy- could you clarify this?[mono]
_iPhoenix_ wrote:
I see your point about it being confusing for IRC users. If the bridge was more open-source, perhaps, I would love to hop in and patch it. Wink
It's entirely open source.
_iPhoenix_ wrote:
Anyways, the question of why it was disabled in the first place is still a little hazy- could you clarify this?[mono]


I must have missed the question but this is the answer

commandblockguy wrote:
Currently, the ability to change your own nickname on the Cemetech Discord is disabled in order to prevent impersonation across the bridge.


It's not a perfect solution but it worked at the time.

Quote:
If we can't have this, can we at least grant the ability to change nicks to a couple more active, trusted members?


I'm definitely onboard with more active member perks, but I don't think it's fair to lock this ability behind something arbitrary like that; since users can change their nickname without issue on IRC (and I'm sure on other chat programs we may interface with in the future).

I'm more than happy to discuss potential perks/ideas in #disconnected or someplace.

Alex wrote:
perhaps we can reenable the ability to change nicknames so that way the Discord chat can at least use Cemetech nicknames. It'll just be confusing when someone jumps over to IRC/SAX only to learn that peoples nicknames have changed.


I'll go ahead and reenable nicknames and update the #cemetech channel description to reflect that usernames are sent across the bridge, not nicknames.
  
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