InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Littering and...?"

ravenwing263 (ravenwing263) wrote in rp_tutorials,
@ 2014-04-21 14:31:00

Not exactly off topic, but maybe not exactly on either

But can anyone explain to me how popularity of enforcing a rule that usernames must be IC? OOC usernames allow the user to show a bit of their character's personalities, while IC are often no more of a jumble of letters.

Can anyone explain the rational behind this rule and its near-universality?

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ravenwing263
2014-04-21 06:48 pm UTC (link)

That may be the intention in theory but it doesn't seem to work in progress, perhaps because so many real, normal names are taken and derivations need to be used.

Like, okay, look at the holds for the upcoming game

gents. You can find them here. (Warning, this is a porny game, and may have NSFW text on the hold page.)

That is a game that requires IC usernames, and if you look over the holds, you see mostly unintelligible UNs that "count" as IC. (There are a couple of OOC names there, folks who I assume intend to change journals or hadn't read the rules before holding, ignore those for the sake of this conversation.)

I don't see any where I could actually pick out the name and say, "oh, yeah, this character name is [John Smith]." With vowels omitted and whole chunks of words cut off, they don't make any obvious sense.

Now, sure, once you're in play in a game like this, you can check their profiles and see, "Oh, this character's name is 'Edward Kinney,' now his username of '~wrdknny' makes perfect sense." But if the idea is to have people not need to check profiles, the current trends doesn't work to that end.

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hideko
2014-04-21 06:58 pm UTC (link)

Oh, don't you worry about me. That link with the shirtless Chris Evan icon can keep itself open on my comp (j/k, but now I'm off to troll tumblr for real).

Oh no, I agree that sometimes the usernames can look more akin to beast than man. I guess when you do interact with a char in game, they make more sense (like you said). I guess whatever makes people happy, you know? I wish I could be of more help here! I am just kinda like 'well, what they are doing makes them happy. I'll just stay over here and do my thing'. Maybe someone else will give us a better answer?

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