Re: Email address vs Nickname?

Michael Koziarski
Sun, 13 Mar 2005 18:11:25 -0000

On Sun, 13 Mar 2005 05:08:35 -0800, Joe Noon
<joey-ZEVs864fXHyI0AUCcRWsNg@public.gmane.org>
wrote:
> >>I''m putting together a rails sites with multiple users. I
want to be
> >>able to refer to each user as:
> >>
> >>http://site.com/user/:username
>
> You could use the primary key of the table:
> http://site.com/user/1 ... http://site.com/user/2 and so on
>
> > You need justification?  It is the right thing to do...
> > email addresses change, so should be a seperate field.
>
> Depending on your application, as long as they can update their email
> address you should have no problem.  Everything associated with the user
> should be to their primary key in the table and not to their
> username/email/nickname etc.
>
> It could raise a problem if people were changing usernames to hide their
> identity, although there are some things that could be put in place:
> username/email history, limit changes to once per week,month, 2 months
> etc.  Although if all your data is live, they really wouldnt be hiding
> themselves very well.
>
> As you are, I am also opposed to making a user have a username.  Just
> one more thing to remember.  Id like other peoples thoughts on this as
> well.  Im all ears if someone thinks they have a good case that
> usernames are _really_ necessary.

Sure,  good URLs don''t change:

http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html

If you''re using the email address I can''t bookmark your
''homepage'' as
it''ll stop working when you change your email.

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--
Cheers

Koz