Data Explorer (SEDE)

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7:33 AM

A: What's the point of OwnerDisplayName/LastEditorDisplayName if it's not even correct?

There are a few of these "de-normalized" (they have a second functional purpose here) fields in the SEDE schema. Completing what you've already found here is the list of table and their fields where de-normalized data is stored: Posts(OwnerDisplayName, LastEditorDisplayName) Comments(UserDisplay...

> And having this "incorrect" data allows us to do, similar to what Ilmari did in his query, a list of "voters" (close, re-open, etc) that changed their displayname. This query shows that, sorted by most often changed and showing all known names and their occurrence in time.

I posted in some places some solutions how to get older usernames:

A: Recognizing identifiable users changing user names

Let me summarize what was said in commments and in chat. There are a few related feature requests on Meta Stack Exchange, but my impression is that they are unlikely to get implemented: Make the “past names” list public info for 30 days after changing your name, Keep short history of user display...

A: To whom am I replying?

Since the link in the accepted answer seems to be dead, here is a solution using SEDE. We're looking at comment replies used below posts by a given users and after comments by a given user. This is by no means foolproof, but usernames of the given user are certainly more likely to appear in such ...

A: Is it possible to know the name of a user with account deleted?

EDIT: Originally I suggested using SEDE (see below). But probably a better option is to use some tool getting data about the usernames from Stack Exchange API, such as the one mentioned in the comments. (It is also mentioned in some other places - on this meta: To whom am I replying?, on Meta Sta...

On of the things I mention there is this script:

Q: Find old display names of a user

As observed here, it can be confusing when certain users who had gone months under one name suddenly switched to new names So I've made a simple API-based tool: Old display names of a user It is based on /users/{ids}/mentioned method of Stack Exchange API, which returns all comments in...

It was mentioned in several posts in the network: stackexchange.com/search?q=url%3A%22%2Astackapps%2A6276%2A%22

For example, this is a post on meta.SO.

A: How to obtain the user name history of a user

It's possible if they were active on the site. The comments addressed to a user can be obtained using the Stack Exchange API, and old usernames can be (not always perfectly) recovered from those. See Find old display names of a user.

@rene Would it be possible to modify your (or Ilmari's) query to return old usernames of a specific user. Maybe you'd like to add this as an answer to some of the posts mentioned above. (Perhaps the one on Meta Stack Overflow is the most visible for users from various sites.)

I have seen some posts on Meta Stack Exchange with feature requests related to this, but I am not sure whether there is a post concerning various tools to find old usernames.

There are a few feature requests on Meta Stack Exchange, but it does not seem likely that it's going to be implemented: Make the “past names” list public info for 30 days after changing your name, Keep short history of user display names. — Martin Sleziak Jan 8 at 20:14

@MartinSleziak There is also this status-declined meta.se request Change all at-username references in comments when a user changes their name? --- I haven't seen it among your links, but I may have missed it. :) In short, it would make a lot of sense to update at-notifications automatically when a username is changed, but SE decided not to do this for performance reasons. — Federico Poloni Jan 12 at 9:15

3 hours later…

rene

10:51 AM

@Martin I might add my voters trick that leverages the posthistory table

@Martin thing is: I'm not 100% sure this info should be public. It is just an unfortunate design flaw that we are able to produce such a (partial) list.

rene

11:12 AM

@Martin that is unfortunate that Normal Human felt they needed to nuke their SE related internet presence altogether :(

Martin

11:42 AM

@rene I'd guess they are on SE under a different name now. (Although I am not entirely sure.)

I am pretty sure that I have seen at least one account after the deletion of the one called Normal Human.

Still, some stuff seems to be at least in the Wayback Machine, such as Stackmarkletes or lists of exercises.

The script for old usersnames (mentioned above) was also recovered from the Internet Archive.

rene

@Martin yeah, nicely done. I tried it for that user on SO with a known insane amount of name changes and it came out nicely.

Okay , I added two answers in that question list you suggested