Wedge

Hmm... I like the idea, but I have no preferences for where it should be, were it to be made.

Technically, we could also do it the Facebook Pages way...

You mean multiple owners per topic? Eeek that would be not nice for performance pretty much everywhere :/ Or failing that, the ability to post as another user (e.g. Post as 'Team' or Post as Yourself) - that interpretation would be interesting and is definitely getting into plugin territory.

For the functionality described in this thread, assume it will be built in some fashion. I'm just curious as to whether it should be core or not. I know there are instances it might have been useful here.

No. I mean a link that says something like, "Post as Nao" or "Post as Wedge"...I'm thinking that to be consistent with AeMe, we could use the same thing -- if user has permission, add an input where they can simply type a name (with autosuggest) for the post author.Like..?

I'm not so much thinking of how FB did it, but more how the blog posts got updated to make sure the right person was the 'topic starter' from way back, which is pretty much how you've suggested it there.

Well, i think - post as Wedge requires social groups systems.

Also I'm running forums nearly 6 years never needed changing post owner, topic owner yea that would be awesome plug-in.

I like the idea, I was posting fixes on SMF for a while for the post as alternate user mod, there was also a similar mod for YaBB.

I was a huge fan of it and often used it to post as generic staff account. The one thing I wanted to do with it and never got around to to was create permission settings so as to allow specific users to post as other specific users. If I remember right, the mod was either on or off or just admin only and offered to much potential for abuse as you could post as any user on the forum. A co-admin on one site would occasionally change or even create "funny" posts as regular users just to be chaotic and then would always mention that he did it.

As you can see there is a huge potential for abuse in the wrong hands but it can be quite useful when allowing others to write FAQs and what not, as a specific account.