Members with email addresses as usernames

Many online stores and other sites that require registration have begun using email addresses as the login name, which I appreciate because it isn't always easy to remember every single login name you have. I think that's what's been contributing to the phenomenon of people registering with their email addresses as their username. I always send the person a PM asking if they were really sure they wanted to do that, but so far only one has realized their mistake and asked for a name change. How do you handle members that do this?

 

It's their choice what they want their username to be. They should realize it's probably not the best idea but I'm not going to go and tell them to change their names.

If they realize it's stupid and ask me to change their name then I will but I'm not gonna go to them and tell them to do it.

 

Never had this problem. I think there are modifications for vB and IPB to not allow this. Or you can just put it in the ban list for usernames.

 

Put what in the ban list for usernames, the @ at sign?

 

I think he means put words like @yahoo.com, @gmail, etc that way they make a username with those words in it.

 

Or you can use a regular expression (PCRE).

I don't really like the idea of members' usernames being e-mail addresses... because then they get spammed and blame it on me.

This is why I wish vBulletin had "display names" so that users can register and login with their e-mail address (and never have to worry about remembering/forgetting usernames) and then have a display name/alias like with IP.Board.

 

Me too - I want this so bad. I would love to have people register with their e-mail, get a unique ID, and be able to change their display name whenever they'd like. And so it's not confusing, their ID number can be shown in their postbit like on IPB. And the URL to their profile would use the ID.

I'm getting something like this coded on my upcoming forum.

 

I don't allow the @ or period in usernames so it wouldn't happen.

 

My advertisers like to use name@businessname for their user ID's. Sorta precludes me from killing the @ so I send a note to the few that do it now and again.

 

I would like to do this as well. Can you tell us how you did it and where?

Thanks,

Jim

 

Well in vBulletin there are two ways...

vBulletin Options -> vBulletin Options -> User Registration Options -> Illegal User Names

Enter @ . (separated by spaces).

I used the second option though which is applying a regular expression. You can do this on the same page.

vBulletin Options -> vBulletin Options -> User Registration Options -> Username Regular Expression

The value I have entered is ^[A-Z0-9 ]+$ which restricts the user to A-Z, a-z, and 0-9 and the space character. If you click on the inline help icon to the right of the option, vBulletin will provide several other examples. Or you can go to regexlib.com and find hundreds more.

 

Thanks, Wayne. I considered the Illegal User Names category, but hesitated because neither charcater is a "name." I also like the second option better, but I wonder what problems might occur if there are already user names with characters I do not allow.

R'gards,

Jim

 

It is not retroactive, so usernames that don't match the new expression won't be bothered; only new registrations are affected.

 

Would that include the maintenance task Update Counters > Update User Names? Will they be ignored, or will I be warned of any illegal names at that time? Will it actually remove those characters from user names without any notice? That could cause some upset users, especially in my little corner of the ether where the average age of my members is in their 50s and computer skills near the bottom of the scale.

Thanks,

Jim

 

Thanks for that post Wayne. As I was configuring the option for my newest forum, I had completely glossed right over that option. I generally never want to see a username as an email, if only to prevent members from being spammed (even though most email clients have spam filters now). Its still a privacy issue though.

 

We discourage it, and usually PM the member asking them to change their username.

 

I'm 99% sure they are not affected by updating the counters, even. It would be a huge drawback (in terms of vB functionality) if they were. It's a big change, so I would await Wayne's confirmation before doing it though.

 

i would not allow a member to join with their username as their email adress, cause i do not allow email adresses to be posted on the forum (if they wish to tell someone their email adress they can pm them, or they can set it so other members can send them emails through the forum)

if someone did i would pm them asking them if they would like to change their username, and explain to them that having their email adress as a username leaves them open to spammers and emails from strange people they dont know