BUG: Unused User Names

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BUG: Unused User Names

GregChapman
This post was updated on .
Hi Israel,

Can you confirm that unused user names are not purged from the system when they are abandoned by a user.

Is there a work around to allow such changes as in these examples...

I am finding that once a user ceases to be "Chairman", "Secretary" and "Treasurer" someone else taking on such roles in a group cannot adopt that user name even if the original holder has abandoned it.

Also, where a user has used the wrong technique to change their address and made a second registration with their new address it becomes impossible for them to adopt their old user name with their new address.
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Re: Unused User Names

Israel <Nabble>
Administrator
Hi Greg,
1) Yes, unused user names are not purged from our database.

2) User names must be unique, so what you can do is send an email to the users asking them to change their user names. For example the old user have to change his user name from “Secretary” to “Secre” or another one.

3) In this case the user have to access the first account and change the user name to another one and then they will able to update (use the same user name linked to the first account) their user names related to the second account created.

Please let me know if you still have doubts.
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Re: Unused User Names

GregChapman
Hi Israel,
Israel <Nabble> wrote
1) Yes, unused user names are not purged from our database.
That is my experience.
2) User names must be unique, so what you can do is send an email to the users asking them to change their user names. For example the old user have to change his user name from “Secretary” to “Secre” or another one.
I've tried that! The trouble is that but I find that even when the original user changes their username to something else, Answer #1 still applies and a second user still cannot adopt the now unused "Secretary".
3) In this case the user have to access the first account and change the user name to another one and then they will able to update (use the same user name linked to the first account) their user names related to the second account created.

Please let me know if you still have doubts.
My experience is that your first answer always applies. In both circumstances #2 and #3 a username abandoned by a user is never released for use by another user.
I have even waited 24 hours to edit a user's username name on the assumption that there's an overnight routine that you employ to allow a username to be reused.
When attempting to change a user name there's no accepting or "User Name Changed" or "Name in Use" messages. The change entered just fails to happen.

The evidence I see is that your first statement is true and that once used, no matter who by, that username can never be used again by another user. (Can't say I've tried to re-instate an original after a replacement has been made by a single user.)
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Re: Unused User Names

GregChapman
Further thoughts.

The forum with which I am having particular problems at the moment has almost all users added to one or more user groups before the user registers. So their initial username becomes the part of their address before the @. (Could this "pre-approval" be  a factor in skipping username availability?)

All users are known in the real world and are encouraged to use their real names as usernames, so many are making change of username, having set an initial username on registration, which will be different to that selected automatically when they are assigned to a group in unregistered state.

Some people were registered two or three years ago but never posted and had forgotten about their initial registration. Now, in these COVID-19 days, they want to be active again. They register with a new address. I may have changed their username to a real name on their original address. (Is the fact that I may change a username rather than the user themselves relevant?)

Even if I change the original registration to some variant of the real name, the real name cannot be picked up by the newer registration made by the same person.
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Re: Unused User Names

GregChapman
I continue to have problems with https.forum.stalhambaptist.org.uk

On this forum every username is the person's real name. A number of newly registering members are finding that every username they attempt to use is reported as taken.  In all cases reported so far this is untrue. The names selected have not been taken.

Israel, can you investigate the cause, please.

Those affected are not the most computer literate and it is possible a username gets stored when it should not as the registration process gets abandoned or rejected for some other reason, such not clicking the terms and conditions box or  a reCapture fail.
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Re: Unused User Names

Israel <Nabble>
Administrator
Hi Greg,

Most likely they tried to do the process too fast and didn't received the email to continue with the registration process.
When the screen below is displayed ask them to click on "I'm not a robot" checkbox and wait at least 2 seconds before
go ahead and then click on "Register Now" button.



We should try to make an work around in order to solve the issue related to the usernames already stored.

1) The username is case sensitive so they should try to register themselves once again using an username like below:
    For example if someone called "John Smith" at his fist attempt tried to use "John" as username he should try once
    again with the first letter in lower case like "john" for example.

3) The second approach is to use his first name followed by the first letter of his second name,
    something like "John S." .