Can I change my F@H username but keep my points?

[Dr.G]

Hi people,

Can I change my F@H username but keep my points?

I'd like to change my username (and possibly team) but already have 56million+ points under my current username that I would like to keep, and 'run on'.

Is the only possible compromise to use a new username with the original Passkey, and search for my (combined) contributions with the single Passkey?

Part of the problem is that I chose a username with a "." in it without reading the FAQ on characters to avoid as per https://folding.stanford.edu/home/faq/#ntoc31:

Are there any characters I should avoid in a username?
Yes. We strongly recommend sticking to just letters, numbers and underscore. Right now, we reserve the characters # ^ ~ |. # is used for firewall differentiation (see above). We want to save ^ | and ~ for other problems which might come up. Also, don’t put spaces in your username; please use some character like “_” instead. Finally, please note that usernames are case sensitive, so “Dave” and “dave” and “dAVE” are all different usernames.

The "." in my username means I can't register in certain cases because it's not accepted
I've found some info at viewtopic.php?f=61&t=19712, but doesn't directly answer my question.

I'd appreciate any help. Many thanks for your replies!

[Joe_H]

The PG policy is that the points stay with the username and team they were earned under. They stay in the database, so won't go away if you change to another username or team. But sorry, no you can not move them to a new username.

A passkey search without a username specified will show all points earned using that passkey broken down by username/team. However it will not show credits for work submitted without one and possibly for work that did not have a QRB.

[Dr.G]

@ Joe_H.
Thanks for the reply
I thought that was the case.

[bruce]

You can't query by name1+name2 but if you switch to name2, you can mentally add the points from name1, assuming it's a constant if you quit sending points to that name1.

Don't discount the query by passkey. You can only do that on the official Stanford points page, but if you've earned X points under name1, you can go on to earn Y points under name2. It will add the two together although you'll still have to figure out how many points were earned without a passkey and add them mentally. It will also exclude points that might have been added by someone else who happened to choose to use the same "name1"

Considering all those possibilities, it's a bit of work to figure it out for yourself, but once you've done it it becomes rather routine. Considering the number of options, it's no wonder that Stanford folks don't want to attempt to fix it for everyone.

[Dr.G]

Thanks @bruce,

Great answer, and thanks for the info.

Don't discount the query by passkey. You can only do that on the official Stanford points page, but if you've earned X points under name1, you can go on to earn Y points under name2. It will add the two together...

A while ago I was folding under name1 with passkey1. I then changed to name2 with passkey2, because of the "." problem in my username, and stopped using name1.
I suppose ideally I should have gone with name1 under passkey1, and then name2 but continued with passkey1, and then queried my points via the official Stanford site under passkey1.

It's ultimately not a big problem for me, and I suppose I can do the mental addition of name1 + name2... and yes, I can obviously see why Stanford wouldn't want to get involved transferring points; in fact you'd definitely want to discourage that!

I think I speak for everyone doing F@H (with the emphasis on 'home', which makes this global effort so amazing), is that being awarded points is very satisfying, even addictive. The points have been a huge incentive to see if I can do better than other team mates .

I think this sort of thing brings out an amazingly positive, competitive spirit in each of us. For me it's been a great challenge building the best rig, producing the most points, but with the least cost for components, not that you can call 2x R9 290x's cheap. But they do run off a very modest Intel Pentium G870 3.10Ghz , and realizing that combination actually worked was very satisfying! Pity the electricity isn't free...

Happy folding!