Require unique username

[Eric Myers]

Right now anybody can change their displayed username to anything, which allows for spoofing as someone else in the forums. Displaying the id# under the name/avatar helps prevent this, but doesnt' stop it.

We should require that all usernames be unique. They can still be changed, but whenever a name is chosen or changed it cannot be a name already in use.

[KSMarksPsych]

I agree that this is a good idea. My question is how do you deal with all the current duplicate names? Or is that even needed?

Duplicate names do crop up. Just for fun, I did a user name search over at Seti for Administrator (as that seems to pop up in the forums occasionally. There are over 10000 members with that user name. This is an extreme example. But it does demonstrate how many duplicates can really pop up.

[Ageless]

Reassigning to David.

[davea]

I don't think this should be done.

[MikeMarsUK]

Perhaps rather than making it mandatory, it could be a hint to the user?

"The username 'Administrator' is already in use by 12,345 other accounts, you may prefer to pick a different name to avoid confusion"

[Eric Myers]

How about making it an option for the projects to enable or disable? In keeping with keeping things the same it would be off by default.

For backward compatibility, you could allow existing dupes, but just not let new accounts use an existing name, or a change to an already existing name.

[Nicolas]

Or what about requiring a unique username only to participate in forums? First time you try posting, if your name is also in use by other users, you're asked to change it.