First Name, Last Name

Support
1

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.

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2

this is the only settings for name

image

There is only one field for the full name and not 2 separate fields

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3

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.

Screen Shot 2020-09-30 at 2.42.05 PM
Screen Shot 2020-09-30 at 2.42.05 PM2210×1428 232 KB

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4

maybe just create an surname

then either do a post to update or get staff to fix user profiles

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5

Is there a downside to having a custom field for name, even if just the last name?

My staff or yours? I have no staff :crazy_face:

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6

I’d suggest not doing that.

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7

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.

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8

Trying to solve this with software constraints may be more difficult then talking to them about it.

You might also get some mileage out of a report (e.g. with Data Explorer) that compares usernames with real names and flags them for you to look at.

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9

I’m not familiar with data explorer. Sorry for the basic question but is that a discourse thing?

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10

Yep, it’s the Data Explorer Plugin.

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)
  • further technical measures
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11

Interesting … let me look into that.

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?

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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