How to allow same usernames?

[nerofix]

Hi,

does someone knows how to allow same usernames when people register or in general?

[Lynne]

Same usernames? You want to have multiple users with the same name? I have never seen a modification that allows that.

[nerofix]

Yes I'd like to allow this...

In example, more than one member can have an username called "Lynne" :-)

... because everytime users have problems to register because their name is already in use and after trying 5 diffrent usernames (all in use), then they are just annoyed and they says "fock off then I wont register here"

I think this is a bug in vBulletin and should be fixed.

[Lynne]

I don't know of any modification to allow this. I have seen users talk about allowing a second profile field where they put their Real Name (like here - you can see it in the postbit) and many people can have that same Real Name.

[nerofix]

Yes and this is exactly the problem / bug.

I have this "real name" field in our community too, but now I have to remember always 2 names (username and real name) for every person and it's irritating all members, because when I want to write someone a private message in example, it says "write message to destroyer" or another example, it says "be friend with destroyer" ...

... but who da fock is "destroyer" ? ... I just want to be friend with "Lynne Mustermann" and I don't know anyone with name "destroyer".

... furthermore, like I said, it's annoying people who wants to register, "username already in use" ... it's blocking new registrations a lot.

[Lynne]

I'm surprised it is such a problem on your board. I've had our board up and running for four years and never had anyone complain about the username system. They are all used to it from all the various torrent sites they visit - all require a unique username. I'm curious, but did you used to use different board software that allowed this and so that is why they are frustrated by the unique username required?

[nerofix]

Okay, let me just give you a simple example:

Do you think that facebook.com would have more than 100 million users when they would use vbulletin? I say no! Blocking someone to register just because the username already exists is very stupid in my eyes.

When my name would be "Lynne" too, I could not register here. That's a bug! :)

[Lynne]

Well, another example would be getting a new email on gmail. Do you think people don't get email addy's cuz john.smith is already taken or do you think they choose something else?

Maybe adding something to the Registration form saying the username is simply a unique way to identify the users and that they may enter their real name in the Real Name field that is also present on the registration page and that need not be unique.

[nerofix]

with email accounts I can understand because it must be unique like domains, I can not register vbulletin.org because this would be a conflict then.

of course, like in your example I HAVE TO do it at the moment, but it causes that almost every 3rd friend of me I've invited tells me that he can't register on our community because username "Christian" is already in use. Then I say use another name, and he say "I tried ChristianM" and I get the same error message "already in use" ... and after 3 tries, my friend was annoyed and said "fix your website first, then I register" ...

And I have this problem with almost every 3rd member, and to be honest, I don't have the time to explain them the vbulletin world first.

Furthermore, it's irritating and people don't like this, see my example above with "send message to username" or "add username". People expect to add "Christan Mustermann" as a friend, not a strange username like "destroyer8873" or something.

An ID is already enough to identify Users, no unique Usernames are required, like I say: Make it easy for people to register and don't block them in any way. It's really annoying and even when they are registered, it's irritating.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

This is not a bug, but working as designed. Also allowing duplicate usernames will probably give you a lot of troubles as some function need a username (for example banning a user).

[nerofix]

Yes, that's the actual problem, when I want to ban a person called "max mustermann", then it's confusing when you have to ban "destroyer888".

Banning by ID and it doesn't matter anymore which name the user got.

Well, here's an example of two diffrent username, but they looks almost the same: OTTO , ОТТО .. It might be hard to see this, but these are 2 diffrent usernames called OTTO.

If you don't know the diffrence, then tell me and I could register another "Lynne" username account here. This is where the bug begins.

[Lуnnе]

Well here it is!!

I have a username called "Lynne" .. but shouldn't it be already in use by the original "Lynne" above?

Greetings
nerofix =)

[Lynne]

Well here it is!!

I have a username called "Lynne" .. but shouldn't it be already in use by the original "Lynne" above?

Greetings
nerofix =)
Hehe. I saw this and was thinking... I was NOT up at 5:30 in the morning posting on this forum!

Personally, I'd find it more confusing to look at a thread with several "Lynne" posts each from different users. How do you tell which one is which? If you and I kept talking in this thread, and if our usernames were not different colors, how would people tell us apart? And if you want to send a PM, how do you tell it to send it to Lynne and not, um, Lynne?

Maybe what you need to do is code it so the username is automatically generated as the userid. And then have the required field of the Real Name. Then just change the code to use the Real Name instead of the userid/username in the Postbit and other places.

[King Kovifor]

Okay, let me just give you a simple example:

Do you think that facebook.com would have more than 100 million users when they would use vbulletin? I say no! Blocking someone to register just because the username already exists is very stupid in my eyes.

When my name would be "Lynne" too, I could not register here. That's a bug! :)

Facebook does require unique usernames - it's the user's email.

Well here it is!!

I have a username called "Lynne" .. but shouldn't it be already in use by the original "Lynne" above?

Greetings
nerofix =)

How you managed that - I'm not sure; but you should have been able to.

[Lynne]

How you managed that - I'm not sure; but you should have been able to.
The username is actually.... oh, it won't even let me post it cuz it wants to parse it....

L & # 1 0 9 1 ; n n & # 1 0 7 7 ;

OK, there it is, only with no spaces.

[King Kovifor]

OK which I would say may be a bug there.

[noppid]

You need a feature, like some sites have, registered member name and display name. So, a hack adding a display name to replace the username may be what ya need.

[Paul M]

There is no bug here, just users making use of the fact that in some fonts, letters with different ascii codes look the same when displayed.

[Kinneas]

It's not a bug with the software just because it doesn't function the way you want it to. It seems to me you want vBulletin to be Facebook.

I don't know what kind of userbase you have, but most people understand that forums require unique usernames. Most people understand that they're going to have to think of some kind of alias, and in fact, for a lot of forums people don't necessarily want to use their real names.

Maybe you'd be better off describing the "username" as a "Nickname" to new people trying to sign up. Maybe that would work better. But you can't seriously expect a large portion of vBulletin's architecture to be changed just because it doesn't currently do what you want. I can't even begin to imagine how many changes and problems would arise from making the changes you suggest.

[nexialys]

I think this is a bug in vBulletin and should be fixed.

Ok, you did not understand yet, people are the bug here, not the software... if you do not understand yet that your username is taken and you have to choose a new, gosh, close your computer... 100% of the internet work that way. go register at hotmail, msn, yahoo, myspace, youtube, any site... nowhere you will see the ability to have the same name...

[nerofix]

hehe nice said nexialys .. "people are the bug here" ... :D

well, I can't fix the people, but the software and I think it would be the faster and better solution.

please do not compare vb registration usernames with the registration of hotmail emails. that these email names must be unique is logical, but forcing to have this in vb registration isn't.

I know, this is a point of view if you think this is needed for your vb community or not. We need it because we know it helps growing the community and it stops confusing our international members.
That's why we are also willing to pay for this: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=194091

PS: We don't want to be like facebook, this is a boring american network, we can do much better =)

[nexialys]

if you can do better than Facebook with the same goals, you'll be rich -- which nobody have done in the last 2 years yet

[nerofix]

oh, there are already communities better than facebook and I worked for such a community which got more than 20 million members now. I know how it works and I have the ideas. The reason I left this team was because they didn't care for my friends in europe and the rest of the world and the last things they did were to copy exactly the negative things which I don't like on facebook.

Our community got some diffrent goals and for now we are trying to reach them based on the vB System, but my developing knowledges aren't the best so we are looking for several developers to join our team.

There's a big chance now for vb developers to join the next famous network beside the existing networks.
I already tried to find some, but until now, all of the developers wanted already a lot money before they even started to develope and before they showed their developing power. Also, many of them are always asking for the sense or the reason of a new feature and even when I told them, they have problems to understand the deeper sense of it. I personally don't like this because it just rips my time. We have community managers to understand the sense of something and we need developers only to brings us the things we want.

It is so easy to be better than facebook, but most people are missing the believe on this, so they fails before they ever tried.

If a vb developer reads this and if he is ready to trust in the success, just PM me now, I will not try to explain you more of this chance to be one the devs of a million user network. ;-)