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).