I. History
On the evening of 31 August 2020, I posted in the Name and Profile Change Requests thread petitioning that the authorities of smogon.com/forums change my username on the website from Berks, a name which I have used for several years, to San Tomas, a pipe-dream name that I was called infrequently by my Spanish-speaking white friends as a play on my actual human first name. Edited a day later, the name change was granted. In the moderator edit, I was notified that this would be my final namechange. I considered this odd at the time, but riding the high of a reimagined self identity and figuring that whatever oddities led to the edit would be, at most, cosmologically inconsequential in the grand scheme, I ignored the edit and rejoiced in the self-induced high of reinvention that is responsible for the way high school theater kids act with the announcement of each new play (among other occurrences).
As can be expected, buyer's remorse set in not too long after. I was only further buried by the reactions of my esteemed peers, including (but not limited to) the following line which haunted me then and haunts me now, sent just one day after the fateful moderator edit:
As you can see, I was in a perfect spot to experience that feeling you get at 13 when your mom tells you that you have $20 to spend at Target and you blow it all on an oversized Mario Kart action figure that amazed you on Aisle B35 but that you realized two days later was just a big glorified Hot Wheels. This feeling naturally leads one to attempt to rectify the situation by any means possible, and I was no exception. Just ten days later, I made my way back to the Name and Profile Change Request thread and asked to revert my name change. I laid out an argument that addressed what I thought was the reason I had been told that I was on my final name change: I assumed that my first name change, H&MBerkeley > Berks, was being counted as a substantial name change (of which a user may only have one) and not as a removal of distracting text (specified to not count as the aforementioned name change). Having confidently argued my case, I was floored by the resultant moderator edit. In that edit, I was told that I had taken the name of an already existing account.
II. Grievance
Dear reader, I would never claim to be the most experienced user of smogon.com/forums that you can find. However, it’s certainly no stretch to say, after six years and a couple badges worth of activity, that I know my way around the forums. In particular, as a renowned creator of long OPs that nobody seemed to read myself, I tend to make sure that I’m careful to understand what a thread entails before posting in it. The Name and Profile Change Requests thread was no different: given who I am as a person, I knew there was a decent shot that I would not actually end up liking my name change. Therefore, as a precaution, I had already checked the users page and it’s various functions to see if my name change would take an inactive username. Evidently, that search had failed me, because upon petitioning a review of the case I was roundly denied a second hearing. I was therefore stuck with a strong case of namechanger’s remorse and not-too-infrequent conversations in the LC Discord wondering where Berks had gone, all because of a broken user search function that failed to do the one thing it was designed to do: find a username.
III. Petition
I humbly ask the moderators of smogon.con/forums to reinstate the like shop in its classic format. By doing so, they will allow me and the (doubtless) millions of others like me to rectify this injustice and those like it.
Thank you for your time, dearly beloved and most wonderful reader. To those of you fools and hooligans who chose to skip the bulk of this post and read the end, I wish my fate upon you with no chance for retraction.
On the evening of 31 August 2020, I posted in the Name and Profile Change Requests thread petitioning that the authorities of smogon.com/forums change my username on the website from Berks, a name which I have used for several years, to San Tomas, a pipe-dream name that I was called infrequently by my Spanish-speaking white friends as a play on my actual human first name. Edited a day later, the name change was granted. In the moderator edit, I was notified that this would be my final namechange. I considered this odd at the time, but riding the high of a reimagined self identity and figuring that whatever oddities led to the edit would be, at most, cosmologically inconsequential in the grand scheme, I ignored the edit and rejoiced in the self-induced high of reinvention that is responsible for the way high school theater kids act with the announcement of each new play (among other occurrences).
As can be expected, buyer's remorse set in not too long after. I was only further buried by the reactions of my esteemed peers, including (but not limited to) the following line which haunted me then and haunts me now, sent just one day after the fateful moderator edit:
As you can see, I was in a perfect spot to experience that feeling you get at 13 when your mom tells you that you have $20 to spend at Target and you blow it all on an oversized Mario Kart action figure that amazed you on Aisle B35 but that you realized two days later was just a big glorified Hot Wheels. This feeling naturally leads one to attempt to rectify the situation by any means possible, and I was no exception. Just ten days later, I made my way back to the Name and Profile Change Request thread and asked to revert my name change. I laid out an argument that addressed what I thought was the reason I had been told that I was on my final name change: I assumed that my first name change, H&MBerkeley > Berks, was being counted as a substantial name change (of which a user may only have one) and not as a removal of distracting text (specified to not count as the aforementioned name change). Having confidently argued my case, I was floored by the resultant moderator edit. In that edit, I was told that I had taken the name of an already existing account.
II. Grievance
Dear reader, I would never claim to be the most experienced user of smogon.com/forums that you can find. However, it’s certainly no stretch to say, after six years and a couple badges worth of activity, that I know my way around the forums. In particular, as a renowned creator of long OPs that nobody seemed to read myself, I tend to make sure that I’m careful to understand what a thread entails before posting in it. The Name and Profile Change Requests thread was no different: given who I am as a person, I knew there was a decent shot that I would not actually end up liking my name change. Therefore, as a precaution, I had already checked the users page and it’s various functions to see if my name change would take an inactive username. Evidently, that search had failed me, because upon petitioning a review of the case I was roundly denied a second hearing. I was therefore stuck with a strong case of namechanger’s remorse and not-too-infrequent conversations in the LC Discord wondering where Berks had gone, all because of a broken user search function that failed to do the one thing it was designed to do: find a username.
III. Petition
I humbly ask the moderators of smogon.con/forums to reinstate the like shop in its classic format. By doing so, they will allow me and the (doubtless) millions of others like me to rectify this injustice and those like it.
Thank you for your time, dearly beloved and most wonderful reader. To those of you fools and hooligans who chose to skip the bulk of this post and read the end, I wish my fate upon you with no chance for retraction.
