The two last people who signed up on my discourse platform (self-hosted) have usernames like PoutyTurtle58 — is this a new feature or something that has always been possible and by coincidence it never happened before? Is there a setting for this?

Yes, this is actually a new feature: [image] Easier account signup using email codes megaphoneAnnouncements Discourse communities can now let users log in using a short emailed code instead of a magic link, offering a passwordless login flow which feels famili…

Right — can usernames be changed later on? A bit weird for a bunch of francophones to end up looking like a random zoo…

Yes, they can be changed at sign up and in their user page like normal later. All this has done is given the user an option to not select a name at signup, nothing else has changed, including the ability to select your name at signup.

Trying to find if I can disable the signup via code. People are not filling in the signup questions and I’m going to have a lot of confused people who have no clue what their username is… :anxious_face_with_sweat: [IMG_1963] Clicked on the link but it leads to « not found » [IMG_1964]

[image] stephtara: can usernames be changed later on Depends on how you define “later.” By default, usernames can only be changed for 3 days after registration (username_change_period site setting). You might also be interested in changing Random username nouns and Random username adjectives …

[image] Moin: usernames can only be changed for 3 days after registration Ok, that means I definitely need to « force » members to pick their username…

The settings that enable upcoming changes are hidden as long as the change isn’t permanent. You should be able to find Enable local logins via code in the list of upcoming changes [Screenshot_20260921_192743_Firefox] [image] stephtara: Ok, that means I definitely need to « force » members to …

[image] stephtara: Clicked on the link but it leads to « not found » [IMG_1964] It’s probably trying to bring you to the upcoming change instead of site setting and the link is just broken. Try disabling the upcoming change and it should go away but some feedback in the thread I linked migh…

Ah hadn’t realised it was an upcoming change, thanks! Have been off the Discourse grid for a while.

We’re about to switch the random usernames feature to default off in the next few hours, @keegan has a PR up that he will merge soon. Note that the words used in username generation are configurable, so for a French community, you could use French words there if you would like to keep the feature.

Random usernames?

Support

Moin September 21, 2026, 5:42pm 13

Feels like those settings should have defaults based on the locale of the forum. Locale-specific defaults for site settings (`locale_default`)

Topic		Replies	Views
Easier account signup using email codes Announcements login , signup	38	1489	September 21, 2026
Ability to Change Username on Discourse ID Forums? Support discourse-id	5	351	April 26, 2026
User has no option to change username? Support	14	17828	May 10, 2021
Generic “userN” usernames Support	12	2543	October 27, 2021
Anonymise all users by default during sign up Support	4	393	November 18, 2024

Random usernames?

Related topics