Suggestions on Full Name support

[malmazan]

I have a forum that is the most succesful in its topic and language with 30 000 posts, and over 1000 monthly posts.

It's an old wwwboard where there is no registration. I am migrating to vB. I have always required full names on my forum. It's a forum for professionals to discuss their issues, and the Full Name policy has worked well over the years.

Now, what's the best way to implement Full Names in vB ?

1. Make no changes to vB, except for name checking. I could ask the user to write a Full Name for 'username' when registering. I can use a plugin to ensure some rules are followed (only text characters, at least two words and such).

What happens when users ignore those rules (and enter something like John Doe or Potato Waffle)? I would have to ask them for their user names and edit their usernames myself.

2. Add a plugin for user to change username. I could ask the user to write a Full Name for 'username' when registering. I can use a plugin to ensure some rules are followed (only text characters, at least two words and such).

What happens when users ignore those rules? I can use a hack to allow change of usernames by the user and instruct them (moderators or plain users can do that) to change it themselves if i see they are posting and not using a full name.

3. Add new field for Full Name. Add a new field for Full Name. This would be hiding somewhat at the bottom of the regustration form, though it can of course be a mandatory field.

Change templates so that Full Name is used on the forum and not 'username'.

This might create some confusion as the username would be used for loggin in.

What happens when users ignore those rules? I can use a hack to allow change of usernames by the user and instruct them (moderators or plain users can do that) to change it themselves if i see they are posting and not using a full name.

I guess any of these might be combined with making user registration moderated.

Another point is that i do not really mind silly or fake names as long as they do not post messages.

If someone has any experience with this issue of Full Names i'd be very grateful if you could share it.

[Reeve of shinra]

Havent had the need for it myself but I think option 1 where the full name = user name will work out the best. As of vb 3.6, I believe you can use regex to make sure that the username field is only letters and not numbers, wierd characters, etc. No plug in needed.

[ConqSoft]

You should also be able to use regex to make sure there is at least one space in the name, forcing a first/last name.