Choosing a username

Your username becomes your profile address (historictrails.org/users/yourname) and how you're credited on any hike you create. Because people bookmark and share that link, changing it isn't free — read this before you pick one.

Picking one

You don't choose a username on the sign-up form — right after you register, we pick a starting one for you based on your name. On the welcome page that follows, it's shown to you and yours to change if you'd rather pick your own; as you type, the form tells you right away whether what you typed is free. You can also change it later, any time, from account settings.

A username is lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens only. Anything else you type — spaces, capitals, punctuation — gets converted automatically (Gregg H! becomes gregg-h), so what you see in the field is what you'll actually get. It has to include at least one letter, so a username can't be just numbers or dashes.

Changing it confirms it's you

If you have a password, changing your username asks for it. Either way, you'll get an email the moment your username changes, with a link to reach us if you didn't make the change yourself. The one exception is the welcome page right after you sign up: leaving the suggested username as-is there is not a change at all, so nothing is asked and no email is sent.

It's locked for a year after you deliberately set or change it

The one we pick for you at sign-up doesn't lock anything by itself — it stays free to change until you actually choose one, whether that's on the welcome page or later from settings. From the moment you do deliberately set or change it, it's locked for a year. The settings page always shows the exact date it unlocks.

If you have a genuine reason to change it sooner (someone is impersonating you, you made a typo and caught it immediately, and so on), contact us — an administrator can make the change, and it's always done with a reason on record and an email to let you know. This works even if the year-long lock was the result of an earlier administrator change rather than something you did yourself.

What happens to your old link

If you do change your username, the old profile link keeps working for a while: it redirects to your new one, and nobody else can register your old username, so someone can't pick it up and be mistaken for you. That reservation lasts one year, then the name is free for anyone to take.

Deleting your account doesn't free your username either: it stays reserved for as long as the account is deleted, so an impostor can't register it and be mistaken for you, and the account can be restored later. For the first year, anyone who still has your old profile link sees a notice that the account was deleted rather than a stranger's profile.

If you have a genuine reason to need a reserved name released sooner, contact us — an administrator can free it early.

Usernames that aren't available

A username has to be unique — case doesn't matter, so GreggH and greggh are the same claim. We also block a short list of names that could be confused with the site itself or its staff (admin, support, and similar), and any username someone used to hold, for the reasons above.