Message Boards Update: Signing in Using E-Mail Addresses as Screen Names

Good news, folks. The AOL Message Boards were updated today with a couple of changes. First, people can now participate in the boards by signing up using their e-mail address as a screen name (more on this in a moment.) Second, there's a change in how screen names are displayed on the boards.

Using an E-Mail Address as a Screen Name
Now, you can register for an account using your e-mail address as a screen name. (If my e-mail address is JosephManna@example.com, my screen name will be JosephManna@example.com). After you create your account, you'll be able to read and post to the message boards (as well as create an AOL Journal and do other things on AOL).

You can use your e-mail address to create a screen name by going over to AIM.com:

From AIM.com, under the Services menu, click Get a Screen Name.

Select "Use an existing e-mail address ..." and click Continue to complete registration.

The other change in the Message Boards is that displayed author screen names are shortened after 12 characters. For instance, for my screen name (Joseph V Manna), it's shortened to "Joseph V Man..."
:

Example of a truncated screen name on AOL Message Boards.

If you place your cursor over the abbreviated name, you'll see what the full screen name is. If the person is using their e-mail address as their screen name, you'll see their e-mail address.

Since AOL or AIM screen names can be up to 16 characters long, the boards team is looking in to how they can keep these from getting shortened.

And just to be clear, people using their e-mail addresses as screen names are treated just like everybody else on the boards: they have to follow the same rules; you can ignore and filter users the same way as before; and if you find that someone is violating TOS, you can report the post to the Community Action Team the same way -- by clicking the Notify AOL link on their message.

If you have any questions on these changes, feel free to let us know in the comments.

Tags: AOL, Message Boards, E-Mail Addresses, Update, Status

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