I think the "aka" thing is new. Before I only used to see one name for an alias.
I .. don't get it. This is my original screen name/avatar, but when I hover over it, it picks one of my PbP characters as the "aka," an alias that has never been my default. On the other hand, when I hover over Mothman at the top of the page, it just says "Mothman."
Then...
...when I post as another PbP character, I still get "alias of Joana aka Douena Trestleben." Why is Douena even included? She has never been my default alias.
(When I post as Douena, I just get "alias of Joana.")
Would Douena Trestleben be the first one in alphabetical order? Just a guess..
-- david
Papa.DRB
I .. don't get it. This is my original screen name/avatar, but when I hover over it, it picks one of my PbP characters as the "aka," an alias that has never been my default. On the other hand, when I hover over Mothman at the top of the page, it just says "Mothman."
Then...
Nope, it's like 10th. It is the first alias I ever made, but I don't see why it merits an aka on my main avatar. When I float over your name, it just says Papa-DRB, not "Papa-DRB aka some random alias."
EDIT: Just for fun, I went to this page and checked all the float-overs. Everyone there is posting using their default avatar. LoreKeeper, Dax Thura, and Navior just get their respective default names when you float over them, but Wander Weir, Alexander Kilcoyne, and I get our respective default names "aka" another non-default alias.
Not a big issue, but I hope when the PostMonster is back in the office he can figure out why....
? test...
Darkwolf. Maybe it's tied to the alias with the most posts?
Doubtful, see: wraithstrike->concerro
Doubtful, see: wraithstrike->concerro? test...
Darkwolf. Maybe it's tied to the alias with the most posts?
One of my other alias list concerro first before wraithstrike which is the order I created them in so maybe that is it.
Your main avatar is in blue. All alternate aliases are in purple (save PFS characters which are in green). (This is assuming IE; I don't know if the colors are different in different browsers.)
Generally, hover-text on an alternate alias displays "alias of <main avatar name>." Which still doesn't explain why some of our main avatars give us an "aka <non-default-alias>."
...when I post as another PbP character, I still get "alias of Joana aka Douena Trestleben." Why is Douena even included? She has never been my default alias.Freya! I miss her, the little smarmy-pants.
Ha! Did you catch her last insult to Rauno? I had been saving it for a special occasion, but I got to deliver it to markofbane in another thread....
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I think if you have an alias that you post with a LOT – more than or approaching as often as your main account, it will be listed under ‘aka’.
Personally I think this is a great feature, especially when you have folk who mainly post with an alias that is not their main account. When these people then use a different alias for whatever reason (say in pbp), it can be very hard to figure out who they actually ‘are’ by hovering over their alias name. Now you can.
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? test...
Darkwolf. Maybe it's tied to the alias with the most posts?
This is my thought as well.
Hovering over my avatar lists "Lord oKOyA aka Eadric Cuthwulf"
Lord oKOyA is my main account. Eadric is my alias with the most posts. (more than even my main account Lord oKOyA in fact)
Hovering over my Eadric Cuthwulf avatar lists just "Alias of Lord oKOyA" and no more because Eadric IS my highest posting alias.
Hovering over any of my other various avatars results in "Alias of Lord oKOyA aka Eadric Cuthwulf"
The reason things don't work out exactly the same for everyone is that some people's main account is their highest posting account, while others (like me) have an alias account that has a higher post total.
So for Mothman for instance, his main account IS his highest posting account (again, unlike mine). So for him all his accounts end up just listing "Alias of Mothman" as there is no higher posting account to list as "aka".
Does all that make sense?
That is my take on it anyhow.
Cheers
EDIT: What do I know? My theory doesn't work out with Joana's accounts. Oh well, I tried. :)
Senior Software Developer
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The rule about the aka thing is: If you make a significant portion of your posts under an alias, we indicate that via "aka alias name." This is to help people recognize that hey, this person is actually also this whole other person.
"Significant" in this case means, more than 20% or so. So it's possible to have "aka alias1 aka alias2" but I don't know if there are any accounts with those proportions of alias usage. We don't pay attention to which alias you've got marked as default because that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how much you've actually used it.
Makes sense in the case of a person who makes their original account and then creates an alias for the majority of their posting. "Alias of Frank Glotzback" doesn't mean as much as "alias of Frank Glotzback aka SuperAwesomePopularPaizoSuperposterGuy."
It seems odd, though, that the longer one's PbP games run, the more likely one is to be "SuperAwesomePopularPaizoSuperposterGuy aka Joe the Fighter from that one game." Longterm, it would be nice to designate aliases that are only used as PCs in the PbP threads and exclude them from the list. Douena's all off stranded on Smuggler's Shiv right now, not making posts in the nonfictional forums....
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Senior Software Developer
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Yeah the play by post aliases are kind of a special case. I expect we'll get around to treating them special eventually but it's hard to teach a computer the difference between an alias that's oft-used but should be ignored and one that's used a lot. (At least, not without creating a system that's open to gaming and/or abuse, if we depend on the posters themselves to tell the computer what to pay attention to.)
Bah, you young wippersnapers with your fancy "aliases" and "akas". Back in my day, if you wanted to have two names on a forum, you had to have two accounts! And none of these sub-accounts, neither. You had to sign up all over again and start your post count over from zero. And signing up for a second account wasn't as easy as it is now. We had to use a whole separate email address. And we didn't have your GMail or your Yahoo, where you can go sign up for a new address whenever you dang well feel like it. No, we got one address from our ISP, and that was it! If we wanted a second address, we needed to sign up with a whole 'nother ISP. And we had to pay for it too. And most of the time, you only had a choice of one. So you would need to sign up for the other ISP in another town. Which meant you had to own a house in another town. And then you had to pay the mortgage on that house. And you couldn't just drive over to visit it and make sure it was still standing, either. We didn't have cars in those days. You had to walk over to the next town and back. And it was uphill. Both ways. Even if it was rai...... *sound of grumpy old man being yanked off stage*
