The discussion revolves around requiring first and last names for users signing up. Currently, users can enter their username or only their first name as their full name. agf1997 proposes creating custom fields for first and last names, but IAmGav points out that Discourse only has one field for full name.
supermathie suggests not requiring separate fields for first and last names, citing potential issues with different naming conventions. Instead, supermathie recommends making a general announcement and using Data Explorer to identify and flag users with incomplete names.
Another issue is that users signing up with social logins through Auth0 are not having their full names pulled from Auth0 into Discourse. agf1997 wonders if it’s possible to make Auth0 populate the Discourse sign-up fields. cokestroke mentions that there may be an option to let OAuth populate the Discourse sign-up fields, but this has not been confirmed.
We currently require users to add a full name when signing up.
Unfortunately, a fair number of users are using their username as the full name, or simply using their first name.
Is there a way to require a first name and last name?
Would it useful to create custom required first name and last name fields and disable full name?
It’s worth noting we are using Auth0 as the database for our users. It appears when users are signing up via Social logins their full name isn’t being pulled across from the Auth0 database.
Understood .. I was going to do something like this to create a custom fields for first name and last name? Then disable full name. Wondering if there’s any significant downside.
I probably also need a script to move users current full names into the new fields based on spaces in their current full name.
Interesting read. Maybe I just attract too many people to my community with names that include numbers. In all seriousness, I guess I’ll just post and ask people nicely to update their names.
Honestly, not knowing your application it’s hard to gauge exactly how much work you need to put into this but the steps I would instinctively take would be, in increasing time required:
general announcement
browse new users, check usernames, PM them
use data explorer to look for common problems (e.g. username == fullname)
Related but slightly different. We are using Auth0 to handle our users. Most are doing social sign ons. Their info gets pulled into our Auth0 database and usually includes full name. That, however, doesn’t seem to propagate over to Discourse when their discourse account gets created. They are prompted to fill in their username and full name on the first login to discourse but that info seems to match rather than pulling the relevant info from the oAuth provider into the appropriate spot in discourse. Is there any good way to make that happen to avoid so many users with no good full name?
I read briefly somewhere that there’s an option to let the OAuth populate the Discourse sign up fields. I’m having the same issue with the first name surname too by the way
