Pseudo-Authors for Worldbuilders Moving to a Professional Mindset | World Anvil

Pseudo-Authors for Worldbuilders Moving to a Professional Mindset


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Pseudo-Authors for Worldbuilders Moving to a Professional Mindset

Feature Upgrade · Access management (subscribers/authors) · Created by TinkerTech
closed
Author -Account pseudonym fake-name professional

What functionality is missing? What is unsatisfying with the current situation?

  Say You're Cheezburger23. You've got a small world built around your novel that you've lovingly polished to a sheen. You've written your book, you're ready to build your platform and get ready to publish. With real twitter accounts and everything! But... Your world is by Cheezburger23. All the articles are written by Cheezburger23. You don't want Cheezburger23 to be associated with your 'Writer' persona, be it your own name or a pseudonym.   How can you make your World look like it was written by Gerald D. Oppenheimer and not Cheezburger 23? At the moment the only method seems to be 'make another account and transfer ownership' or 'just live with the fact that Cheezburger23 is going to be visible all over the place, ruining your sense of anonymity.' Or, dreadfully, 'rebuild the entire thing from scratch under G. D. O.'  

How does this feature request address the current situation?

A Pseudo-Author allows the true Author of the World to use a different name when writing/maintaining their World without having to create another account or having an embarrassing screen name show up on their professional work. Many of us aren't planning to take our work pro when we start; we just want a place to hash out the details! But we don't want our standard 'not me' internet identity to be associated with our IRL one if we decide to 'go Pro'.   The Pseudo-Author appears as the one who created the world and its articles, without having to go in and manually adjust every single article the True Author has created. It's a mask, of sorts.    The world won't be entirely disconnected, due to accountability-the True Author would show up as a 'contributor' somewhere on the home page. The Pseudo-Author would have a fake 'profile' that would appear when clicked on, but wouldn't show up in any community activity like a True Author would. The True Author, in essence, would be the 'amazing community person' that helps get it all set up in the eyes of the rest of the fans.   The Pseduo-Author also allows the True Author to use a fake name for their work because look, some of us are going to get instantly pigeonholed into a genre if we publish under our real names.

The Team's Response

Hi! Thanks for the suggestion—as you (and other people in the comments) mention, this is an important feature to have. Good news though, it's already possible:
  • If you edit your profile (click your profile picture at the top right) you can set your first and last name. These will be displayed in your profile and they override your username everywhere on World Anvil. For example, if your username is "Cheezburger23" but you set your name to "John Smith", your worlds, manuscripts, and everything else will be attributed to John Smith (although your username will still appear in certain places).
  • If you want to completely erase your username, you can always change it to something more professional looking (if JohnSmith is taken, then something like JohnSmithAuthor looks professional too). You can do so by editing your account settings (again, from your profile picture at the top right). Note that, unless you're a Sage, all URLs to your content will change, since your username is part of the default URL.
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Current score

29/300 Votes · +2903 points

Votes Cast

  • -300

    by cow2face
    on 2023-06-18 10:32
    Why not just change the name of the account?

  • +300

    by HunterChristmas1247
    on 2023-06-17 16:21
    EXCELLENT POINT!!!!!   This should've already happened. And yes, there's a world of difference between internet names and real names.

  • -300

    by Moonlight Bard
    on 2023-06-17 13:03
    As has already been pointed out, this is not a problem: you can change your display name at any time from your Account Management page.

  • +300

    by KhansDen
    on 2023-06-16 20:23

  • +300

    by Jaen
    on 2023-06-13 03:33

  • +300

    by Auron Bladesong
    on 2023-06-12 06:23

  • +100

    by A Lusty Mimic
    on 2023-06-11 01:48

  • +100

    by a_esbech
    on 2023-06-09 10:53

  • +300

    by DemonDC
    on 2023-06-09 02:08

  • +300

    by prestonthedm
    on 2023-06-09 00:30

  • +300

    by J B Dorman
    on 2023-06-07 08:15

  • +1

    by A Fierce Dryad
    on 2023-06-06 22:35

  • +300

    by BenScerri
    on 2023-06-06 03:04

  • -300

    by UnknownWriter88
    on 2023-06-02 12:23
    Just like what 'A wild Mlem' said, You can change your username. Just click on your account tab in the top right corner of the site, scroll down and click on the tab label 'account'.

  • -100

    by A Wild Mlem
    on 2023-05-30 21:19
    Uh...I'm fairly certain you can change your user name, considering I have actually done that on here last year. There are already quite a few options for this

  • +300

    by Skaldiduna
    on 2023-05-30 06:37

  • +300

    by DoppelgangerDave
    on 2023-05-29 17:22

  • +100

    by Imthatguyhere
    on 2023-05-29 14:24
    It seems like some underutilized current features could be allowed to override. Why not?

  • -300

    by SoulLink
    on 2023-05-29 13:34
    1. Foremost, you can set the first and last name which then overwrites the username in most places, maybe make this more consistent. 2. Why not just change the name of the account?

  • +1

    by Nopp
    on 2023-05-29 12:41

  • -1

    by Fox Desert0
    on 2023-05-29 10:25

  • -100

    by Ratha
    on 2023-05-29 05:55
    You can already do most of what you're talking about with the Credits Override section under World Configuration.

  • +1

    by Masha Medov
    on 2023-05-29 01:05

  • +1

    by Alishahr
    on 2023-05-29 00:06
    Overall, I like the idea, though I think the implementation is more complex than it needs to be. You can already create an author profile in your main profile page and set your author name to be something different than your username. Having some way to display the author name in place of the username would be a much simpler fix imho.

  • +300

    by Colonel 101
    on 2023-05-28 21:52

  • +1

    by Adcheryl
    on 2023-05-28 18:09

  • +300

    by Scalenex
    on 2023-05-28 18:02

  • +100

    by LittleWispMarshy
    on 2023-05-28 17:59

  • -1

    by A Beloved T-Rex
    on 2023-05-28 17:45
    How can you make your World look like it was written by Gerald D. Oppenheimer and not Cheezburger 23? At the moment the only method seems to be 'make another account and transfer ownership' - then you can delete your first account and change email... solved

  • +300

    by TinkerTech
    on 2023-05-28 17:32

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