The discussion revolves around a feature request to disable the “Name” field in the registration dialog on Discourse forums. Users evilal and Wall-E highlight the need for a setting to hide the name field, especially when full names are already disabled site-wide, to support anonymous usage and comply with privacy policies. codinghorror suggests a CSS workaround, which Wall-E finds helpful but seeks documentation. RichardC provides a CSS snippet to hide the field. The request is addressed by Moin, who confirms that the feature has been implemented in Discourse via a new option under the “Full name requirement” site setting, allowing the name field to be hidden at signup.
Feature request: Allow the Name field to be disabled on the signup dialog as a settings option.
As per the linked thread, this is to allow more anonymous use, for example when full names are already being hidden throughout the forum.
An alternative way may be, when the "enable names” setting is turned off, do not show the Name field in the signup dialog. (this avoids adding an extra setting).
Yes, I believe it could be solved in this way. The reason I suggest a change in behaviour is that it feels wrong that when you disable all uses of the full name it is still gathered. Hence I’m not sure if this is actually a UX thing.
On our instance we may not be allowed to collect email and name of people, the combination of which is considered Sensitive PII. Has there been a way to completely disable the name field at signup (and not even show it as an optional field)?
Emails - There have been topics about that recently and the bottom line is that email verification is a necessary part of Discourse. I suppose you could encourage use of a disposable email address, like from Guerrilla Mail.
Real Name - If there is no site option (I don’t know as I use real name) then you could use CSS in a theme component to hide that part of the sign up form.
