How I Chose My Nickname

One day I needed to choose a new nickname. I’ve had different nicknames in the past, none of them stuck. They were either too complicated, ugly, or hard to pronounce. I’ve identified some of the rules that I found useful and can recommend today to everyone: Consider only [a-zA-Z0-9] ASCII symbols. There should be no special symbols, such as underscores or asterisks. They are relics to me. It also excludes diacritics. Even though most modern environments accept non-ASCII symbols and diacrticis, there are a couple of reasons against it: people read diacritics differently; computers might show non-ASCII symbols incorrectly. You’ve probably seen the � symbol before. Thus, the basic alphanumeric ASCII makes it easy to stand out with its simplicity and allows for backwards compatibility. Select an easy-to-remember nickname. Ideally, it should be one word. So there is nothing glued together. There should be no obscurity. Modern chat programs let you ping someone by the nickname. The easier…

Commenting on Bubbles has been removed. Why? If you want to talk about this post, write to the author, use the comments on their blog if it has them, or reply with a "RE:" post on your own blog. Suggestions? feedback@bubbles.town