Web Wiz Forums Modifications - Display realname vs username

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Display realname vs username

Printed From: Web Wiz Forums
Category: Web Wiz Web App Support Forums
Forum Name: Web Wiz Forums Modifications
Forum Description: Mod's and Add-on's for Web Wiz Forums.
URL: https://forums.webwiz.net/forum_posts.asp?TID=28075
Printed Date: 28 March 2026 at 9:10pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.08 - https://www.webwizforums.com

Topic: Display realname vs username

Posted By: stevewagner
Subject: Display realname vs username
Date Posted: 29 November 2009 at 12:08am

My site uses the email address as the login name. We can't show email address in all the posts. Is there a built in feature yet for which name to display in the forum?

I did a full integration on ver 9.56a that works, but it sure would be nice to have this feature available in admin setting.

-Steve

Replies:

Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 30 November 2009 at 11:01am

This is how all forums work, which is why you have the username for showing a username throughout the forum, and an email address field which is kept private.

You should never use the an email address as the username as the username is the persons public name/internet handle and is shown every where within the forum so that members can identify each other and know how has created a post, topic, etc.

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Posted By: stevewagner
Date Posted: 01 December 2009 at 4:05am

I'm not sure you understood my need. I might have it wrong, but I think WebWiz Forums uses the distinct [username] field as the login AND displayname, [email] being optional vs required and not displayed anywhere in the forums and [realname] being available in the profile as an optional field.

Many sites now require/allow the email address as the login. That way we can have many steve users, but only one mailto:steve@mydomain.com" rel="nofollow - steve@mydomain.com . In this case we would need to protect the login name.

I understand your reply as WebWiz login functions like all the others, which I see your point. This question was posed in this forum at the time of the v9.56 and had a few replies, but no posted code to resolve. I would like to ask again, without meaning to undermine your programming direction, that we have or create together the option of which name to display within the forums ie the login value or the realname value.

I'd be happy to make the updates and document it for you if you feel you would add it to the next version, so I don't have to rebuild with each new upgrade.

Thank for the extra thought.

Steve

Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 01 December 2009 at 10:23am

This would take allot of work to change as the username field is unique in the database, the email field is not. As well as changing this which would break many established forums you also need to re-code massive amounts of pages within the forum to change how it works.

In most forums though admins want to ensure that they don't have members with the same name otherwise it leads to confusion. In your example of having multiple steve's you would not know which steve in your forum posted which post.

Forums generally rely on having unique usernames within the community so that people can recognise each other when chatting within the forum system. Abuse of forums is often a problem as well and if members had the same name it would lead to all sorts of issues.

For this and other reasons I can not see any benefit of having such a login system within a forum.

The only type of system where I could see it of use is if members could login using both their email address and/or their username, but still retained their unquie username as it is now for identifying members within the forum system.

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Posted By: wistex
Date Posted: 15 January 2010 at 7:37am

Steve,

It sounds like you are integrating an existing user database with the forums, and that existing user system uses e-mail addresses as usernames.

If that is what you are talking about, and you want to keep that system, then require them to specify a unique Forum Username before they are allowed to use the forums. In this scenario, the users would be able to login to your site with e-mail address and password but are prohibited from using the forum until they specify a unique username for the forum.

The forum gets the username it needs, and your existing login system works pretty much as it does now except for the addition of an additional required field, the forum username field.

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Posted By: wistex
Date Posted: 15 January 2010 at 7:41am

Also, it is possible to display the real name in the forums instead of the username, but as Bruce pointed out, this could lead to confusion, since there may be more than one Steve and Real Names are not unique, but usernames are.

What you could do is display both in the forum perhaps with the Username in larger text, and in smaller text the Real Name. This way you have a unique identifier for each user, and you also have the benefit of displaying their real name.

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