Fake users and accounts

Most users will know that they cannot change their OurLocality username, but it is easy enough to add a knickname to your user profile.

You can be playful for a day and you can change it as many times as you like. If your template supports it, you may be better off adjusting your bio.

Nicknames and display names are pseudo fake accounts and regarded as pretty much acceptable.

There are numerous occasions when a knickname is appropriate. Privacy may be one (you are doing something on someone’s behalf so your name appearing alongside would be incongruous) and in many settings it makes more sense to publish as the body corporate (e.g. East Barns Community Council), or just as Admin or whatever.

This has some limitations, insofar as when you change the Display Name it WILL be applied across all the web properties that you own or have been added to on Our Locality.

A second or third email address allows to create new personas, a little more confusing to manage if you’re not a regular and and you will need a unique password for each account. But occasionally it is necessary to use the right persona, e.g. if you are like many volunteering types and dabbles in a diversity of initiatives and wears many different hats.

Tip: If you are gmail user, you can simply add +something to your email address to create such an alias.

Other instances of fake user accounts are usually stopped in their tracks by our defence systems, and when they do pop up, very rarely these days, they are deleted pretty much as they are created – though sometimes we leave it until they have wasted some time and then delete their account.