Mon Nov 27 2023 -

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Releasing Display Names

What's New

FastComments always supported display names for SSO users. However, this was never exposed to regular commenters. Today changes that!

In the Account Details page you can now fill out a new Display Name field. Display Name will be shown on your comments and your profiles.

Emojis

In the past, users had difficulty using emojis in usernames as you need to enter your username to login. However, now Display Name may contain emojis.

Uniqueness and Abuse

The point of Display Name is that it is not unique. If two FastComments.com users, on two very different major communities both have similar names, then we'd like them to just be able to set their preferred display name. However, we can't restrict where people comment with their global FastComments account, so sometimes this may result in confusion.

Having a similar name to another user, or a moderator, by itself is not a case for abuse. However, if you abuse this by intentionally impersonating other users, we may disable this feature on your account, and you will be limited to just using username.

Logging In

You still use your username to log in - not your display name!

For Developers & Gotchas

The regular User objects exposed via the API now have displayName.

In Conclusion

Like all major releases, we're glad that we could take the time to optimize, test, and properly release this feature. Let us know below if you discover any issues.

Cheers!