Folding Forum

Hi,

I look all the way to change my Donar name and i found out this.

"How can I change my username (donor name)?
The simplest way to change your username is to go to the Configure window (click the Configure button on the upper left corner of the screen). You can change your username at any time. However, old work units will remain credited to the old username."

I could not understand and not dare to change it which is "However, old work units will remain credited to the old username" is written on the FAQ.
Here are my question!

1. Will my Donar name will be completely change in the system?
2. Will my credit and WU will not link to new donar name?
3. Will my recognition will be the old name or new one?
4. If it is not related then could you guys fix it in the user control and database.

Thank You

1 For future work, yes.
2 Old work will NOT be transferred to your new name
3 Both will remain on the system
4 No, credit is never moved between accounts

So no 4 means that however you change your name. All the Credit and WU, recognition will be going to the old account.

5. If i want new user name with WU and Credit, i should create a new account and start from beginning.
I hope there is a way to fix this!

If you change your user name, you have created a new account.
To repeat, credit goes to and stays with the name that generated it.

I tried to risk my account to test for the others.
I gave up my account and use with another new name.
All the credit and WU is left on the old account.
My account was under a team where i changed to new one and it is still there without changing anything.
So you will be seeing your old account name under the team.
Your new account will be there too so please do not get surprise that two account in one team.
This system cannot transfer account name and their statistic because of their database is fix in one user account.

For those who are new beginner for this account,
1. Pease make sure you have a name which you really love it, otherwise you will lose all your contribution after creating with new name.
2. You will have to start from the very beginning of the start without any credit nor WU.
2. After changing your account name, you have to surrender all your statistic of an old account.
3. Please consult or share this knowledge and information to those who are starting to contribute.

Thank You for reading and Thank you to Mr Davidcoton for helping out answering my topic.

I also thought about this when registering: It is very simple to just type anything, and get going. It even says "you do not have to have a passkey"...

Even if it is true, it is a sloppy way of entering.


As I understand it each username gets a "number" that is linked to your "character_user_name".
That technically gives the chance to change username, especially if you have used a passkey to it, which kind of acts as a guarantee that you are the same account.

So

• I also would like to see better info when creating an account (for example if you choose a duplicate, then the stats will get mixed up with others having that username -> true story, that happened to me before I got a hold of that "user number" of mine)
• The popup window (where most choose username today) should check for availability. Not because it is not possible to have duplicates in this system, but mostly because the default links to stats go to "character based usernames" (where all the duplicates are)
• All links to "your donor stat page" should link to the "user number" you got, not the "character based usernames" (where all the duplicates are)

Oh, and do not see the above as a complaint, but a friendly feedback from an Identity expert which does these kind of things for a living.
Also these 3 above things should be VERY easy to implement into the client.

The user number you see in some stats searches is subject to change. As I recall, those numbers changed the last time the database was updated to its current layout.

Some of what you suggest is possible, but has costs in database access speed and legacy entries from about 20 years of stats data.

There is no user "number" on the F@H system, AFAICT. EOC stats assign a number but it can change, it does not appear to be a primary key.

My WUs are gone
I have changed my name but the WUs are not merged... I must start again from scratch...

Welcome to the F@H Forum jeffry,

Please note that WUs assigned to a username/passkey combination will not be transferred to another username/passkey combination. That's unfortunately a design decision made about 19 years ago.

And no, you do not have to start from scratch. If you search under the username all points associated with it will show up. Of course if someone else used that same username, their points will also show up. Username and team are unique, but anyone can join the same team. Username and passkey are always unique as long as you do not share your passkey.

Hi,

I didn't realise that donor name wouldn't be unique and I picked one that has been used previously. I'd assumed that username would have to be unique and was quite surprised when the three letter name I'd chosen was approved; I realise now that it's not approved, it's not checked for duplication. Is there anyway of me differentiating between the different users? Other than that the other users appear to be in teams whereas I'm not?

If I search under my username then it comes up four sets of results, all with the same rank. I guess rank is done exclusively on username.

Also if I click on the number of WUs hyperlink or number of credits hyperlink it seems to take me to the 'certificate' for the highest ranked user with the username.

I appreciate that passkey is meant to be kept confidential. Perhaps we could search on username and (for example) first three characters of passkey? Or username and hash of passkey?

Or allow users to change their username...

By the way, the FAQ says "User names are also case sensitive." but the stats doesn't appear to take this into account. At least not for me. I search for "DRQ" and receive results for quantity 4 "drq".

I'm not in competition and it means nothing other than being able to feel a bit of pride for contributing. With something as large as folding@home where one person's contribution is such a small part it would be nice to be able to point at that small part and say I helped there. I appreciate that some of this may stem from a design decision made a long time ago and that there were, I'm sure, valid reasons for that decision but was that expecting so many users?

And yes, I realise that semaphore raises similar points but I thought I'd mention my views so that when future decisions are made it is understood that it's not just one person.

Welcome to the F@H Forum DRQ,

Please note that the combination of username and passkey is unique and you can always check the status here: https://apps.foldingathome.org/bonus

Hello PantherX,

Thank you for the welcome and the link. I'd realised the combination was unique but didn't know that search was available. However it does only return "WUs Finished", "WUs Expired", "% Finished" & "Bonus Active" not rank, points/credit nor the 'certificates'.

And the number of WUs reported from that link (48) doesn't match any of the values reported when searching via donor name (58).

It's not a big deal, just a bit furstrating and seems odd that there isn't a more generally used (i.e. not confidential) identifier.

DRQ wrote:...However it does only return "WUs Finished", "WUs Expired", "% Finished" & "Bonus Active" not rank, points/credit nor the 'certificates'...

The Bonus lookup was created after the certificates but the certificates code wasn't updated in a while. I think it's on a to do list but there's no ETA on that.

DRQ wrote:...the number of WUs reported from that link (48) doesn't match any of the values reported when searching via donor name (58)....

That would mean that another donor may have folded WUs using that username. It could also mean that you may have folded those WUs before using the passkey.