Well, look, identity has become an issue here, with the registration system and all. We've been here, what, a couple of weeks?

Identity's one of the key places where technology shapes the social "space" online. With this software, because you have an account, you can set up your display name, the name that's shown on the pages, which doesn't have to be your username. It occurs to me just now that that feature can lead to abuse if somebody puts another's username in their public name field. However, things like posts are tied to usernames, not public names, so as soon as that person changes the public name field, the name displayed everywhere changes (next time pages are refreshed). Names can mutate, but ultimately we can always track identity back to a user's account. The membership records show me only what people have entered, of course, but email addresses have a way of hinting at identity; that's the major one of several techniques I used to vet people who registered early. I know who's here, at this point, and for a while longer.

During registration, I noted a few Zoners registering new handles. That's their right. You might recall at the old place that the policy was that name changes are OK as long as there's no fraud or confusion or other harm associated with it. I'd object if somebody tried to register a name fraudulently (e.g. somebody else's familiar handle), but beyond that...and specificaly in "gothgirl"s case...there's no harm caused by the name change.

My advice is to take "gothgirl" at face value--don't try to link this identity with a previous one, just deal, in the present, with this person.