Recently I was informed that other users here were having difficulties finding and contact me using the various tools that are part of this site, and that the explanation given to them was that this was due in part to my display name being too short.

At the time, I had indeed aggressively pruned my Personally Identifiable Information out of an abundance of caution since it was clear there were people within the program who were more interested in Jeremy Hambly's crusade than basic scruples of privacy, but what's concerning to me now is that a) these people attempted to reach out to me but seemed to be unable to contact me by email (it could've been spam filtered, but it was long enough ago that I can't be sure at this point, and if I was functionally unsearchable that could extend to sending email as well), and b) there is no indicator anywhere on your profile or on the site that there are functional minimum requirements on your display name/profile information in order for your account to remain functional within the bounds of this platform.

Could someone please clarify what, if anything, those minimums are, so people can balance their privacy needs with those of the technical operation of this site?

I'm posting here rather than making a feedback/feature request because I wanted other users to be aware of this problem who may not have already known.

Hello Rebecca,

Hmm. I expect they would have been able to contact you by visiting your profile page and clicking “Send Email”, as that would pre-fill your username instead of using the auto-complete. As you might imagine, if your name is only one letter long, then it would be impossible to find you by searching by name - there are far too many users on this site whose names contain any two chosen initials, like “D” and “C” - there would be thousands of results. My guess, without looking at any code, is that there's a maximum number of results that the autocomplete “judge name” field is allowed to return.

On the “edit profile” page (https://apps.magicjudges.org/profiles/edit), you can find the following text:

Note: You are required to provide an accurate name and email address here. An accurate name is one by which you are known in real life, such as at events. This does not have to be your legal name, but it must be a name which you would expect others to use to refer to you at an event, and it must not be intended to obvfuscate your identity or create confusion between JudgeApps users. An accurate email address is one which is specific to you, and at which you are able to receive email. A company email address is okay, a public inbox is not.

(Yeah, I already know that there's a typo in there. :D)

As this explains, you can't use an abbreviation in order to obfuscate your identity. That only serves to make it difficult for other users on the site to find and identify you - as you've discovered. On the other hand, we understand that for many individuals, the name that they go by at events is not the same as their legal name, which is why we have no intention of checking IDs or anything like that. Just use the first and last name that you would expect to find on a staff schedule, or on the pairings at a tournament, or that you would expect a colleague to call you by.

Thanks,
Dan

Edited Dan Collins (May 29, 2018 04:16:25 PM)