I received this question from a user on this forum:

Patrick,

What's the deal with changing the name on previously recorded posts by ChristianConservative and obliterating the name from the membership list after the fact? Seems totally inappropriate to me. If someone wants to stop posting under one user name and start using another one, that's one thing, but when OKCtalk changes the name on previous posts, that is another matter entirely.
The user in question requested that his username be changed from "ChristianConservative" to "Conservative". We honored his request. Anytime we go in and change a username of a certain user, it changes the names on all of the posts they've made previously. That's how the software works. To prevent this from occurring, we'd have to ask the user to create a new username. Most users don't want to do that since they've already racked up post counts, etc.

We've also recently changed usernames of a few other posters that requested new usernames. okcgoddess was changed to Faith. Jay was changed to OklaCity_75. mariner62 was changed to Curt.

When the username is changed, it is also changes in the membership list, as you will no longer find the names mariner62 or okcgoddess.

Again, for the old names to remain, the person would have to abandon their old account and create a completely new user account, something most users don't want to do....start over from scratch. Thus we honor username change requests.

Hope that clears up the issue.