@Tmetcalf,
I think we're talking past each other.
I said:
I'm noticing that changing the username doesn't change any existing @ mentions. Do you have a way to do a find & replace on those?
You said:
When a username is changed past mentions will not be forwarded. Notifications for the old username are not deleted for that user.
I think you are answering different questions than the one I was actually asking. Let me attempt to address each one individually.
1.) "When a username is changed past mentions will not be forwarded." This is not correct. The username is simply the text that Lithium displays for the underlying user ID. The ID itself does not change. @ mentions displaying the old username and @ mentions displaying the new username both point to the same URL. No forwarding is required. Both the old and new @ mentions continue to function just fine. (See this post for an example.)
2.) "Notifications for the old username are not deleted for that user." Not sure what you're trying to say here. Notifications are triggered immediately when the @ mention is posted. There is no need to change old notifications a user has already received for past @ mentions.
3.) "changing the username doesn't change any existing @ mentions. Do you have a way to do a find & replace on those?" I'm not trying to change notifications and I'm not trying to change the underlying link. I'm trying to find out if the displayed text in old posts can be updated to reflect the new username? This type of find and replace was done previously with Jive to remove email addresses, etc. after other migrations.
The whole point of changing the username was to control visibility of personally identifying information to those who are not members of the community. The selection of new usernames by PTC during the migration to Lithium and then making them publicly visible without our consent was insecure and inappropriate. Changing the username fixes this going forward but it does nothing to help clean up the vulnerability that already exists.
How do we update the old @ mention text to reflect the new username? I'm 100% positive this is possible at the database level. If Lithium is not willing/able to do this, then maybe the only other solution left is to simply delete all posts and replies where this text string still appears...
