Remove discriminators in favor of unique usernames

this is an unpopular opinion due to history on discord. (if you recall, they replaced the #xxxx discriminator with unique usernames despite strong backlash) however i do strongly agree. discriminator-based systems are rare and weird. i have nearly same username on all platforms, and it practically never changes. as an example, my full username is jan_Sanku; if underscore is unavailable, replace it with a dash. if capitals are unavailable, replace it with a lowercase. by following simple intuition, you can guess my username on nearly all platforms; except for fluxer and stoat. the fact that the discriminator is not fully static is extremely inconvenient. i'm strongly considering getting nitro plutonium, and of course i would make use of the customization. but if i decide to cancel it in the future, i assume the discriminator gets re-randomized. that means i can't reliably link my username on websites or in code without being sure it'll be valid in the future, unless i decide to fully forego customizing it with Pu. unique usernames are used literally everywhere else, and we have proper display names on top of our usernames already! the ONLY reason to use #xxxx is discord nostalgia, which, in my opinion, is not a good reason.

of all the features to replicate from discord, this shouldn't have been one of them. it either reads as shallow pandering to nostalgia or, more nefariously, value-padding for the paid tier feature list.

Despite everything Discord has done, this is by far one of the very few changes that I wholeheartedly agree with. It has made adding people significantly easier. Usernames should've been used from the start. Other than Fluxer, I don't know any platform that uses discriminators. Discriminators are very confusing for the average user.

I disliked it when Discord did it, just because it seemed like the platform was losing some of its identity. But, since then, I've realized how much simpler it is to have just one unique name and use it everywhere. I think starting with them was a bad idea, just because of the unrest it will cause to go through the fiasco of removing them again. I would love to use just one username everywhere, and not have a discriminator tag on as well. I see that it lends uniqueness to the platform, but I don't know if the uniqueness is ergonomic. People have already transitioned away from the discriminator system with Discord, and I suspect there are many people like myself who have gotten used to their new usernames. From my perspective, adding it back to Fluxer is a strange move. Although, I do also see another part of the argument. Why are people so attached to usernames? Is it terrible when someone else has the same self-expression as you? It's annoying when you have a username you use everywhere, but have it be taken when you sign up for a new platform. I'm able to see why they were originally implemented. What are some of the bad things that might happen if they were removed? Are there any benefits I didn't consider here?

It seems most of the comments here are for removing discriminators, so I'll be the naysayer. One of the strongest arguments for KEEPING discriminators is that when Discord removed discriminators, it created a huge black market for accounts with short names overnight. It also promoted an increase in scams and malware across that platform from hackers looking to take over accounts with desirable usernames. Discriminators on Fluxer are not just there for nostalgia factor (and besides, Discord wasn't even the first platform to use discriminators). Ironically, the major benefit to discriminators is nobody has a desirable username. While that is a minor pain point for everyone individually, it also largely demotivates such bad actors from targeting users on the platform. Also as someone with a visionary account, I realize there is some irony in me saying this. However, when the platform gets large enough I think most visionaries with #0000 discriminators will need to change to a more normal one just to avoid being easily spotted. For the central instance, I think it is probably important to keep discriminators. Self-hosted instances can give everyone visionary so they can set their usernames to #0000 if they want, and while there's no way to enforce that I feel when federation comes most accounts on self-hosted instances will already be using #0000 so the issue of potentially having double discriminators is easily sidestepped.

The discriminator could be circumvented by having searchable IDs like on Steam. Steam has accountnames that only you know and you must not share as you login with it. accountname password The username on your profile. MTF-8 Frank The user ID that you can link your profile to others. https://steamcommunity.com/id/userid A friend code that can be changed. 1231412312

If you remove the discriminator you end up with Justin43232489 anyway as people want the username Justin and just add gibberish at the end to get it.