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display name vs username in pretty urls
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icari

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display name vs username in pretty urls
« on June 2nd, 2013, 12:46 PM »
looks like the pretty urls uses the username and not the display name in the pretty urls
this user looks to have changed their display name http://wedge.org/profile/Road+Rash/

for some people they may not want their username visible anywhere but it is visible for the link to their profile.

there was a time smf users were recommended to have a different display name from their username due to the issues with trying to brute force login.

Arantor

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Re: display name vs username in pretty urls
« Reply #1, on June 2nd, 2013, 03:58 PM »
Actually it's *always* done that, even going back to Dannii's version before vbgamer took it over. And it's always done so for a reason: SEO (and legitimately so)

If you use the username, you're pretty much guaranteed to have a permalink since only admins[1] can change usernames of users, while almost anyone can change display names at will.

Now, that's a separate issue we may or may not have to deal with so much because if profiles aren't visible to users, the link gets stripped anyway - so if profile links aren't visible to guests, there's no SEO impact (because there's no permalinks that have to be maintained for search engines)... SMF even with Pretty URLs does not do this, the link is still there regardless.

Now, as far as solving the problem goes, seems to me that we probably need to keep a log of changes of display names (beyond the profile edit log) that we can refer to in the event of a PURL calling a name that isn't the user's current name. That gets messy if two users previously had the same display name (though we can prevent that, I guess)

I dunno. It's a complex issue that can't just be solved with a simple change.
 1. It may be admin only, it may be people with manage-members but you get the idea.
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icari

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Re: display name vs username in pretty urls
« Reply #2, on June 2nd, 2013, 05:38 PM »
i can see the reasons for SEO, maybe if pretty urls are in use disable the users ability to change the display name? although that could cause more support issues in the long run.

also just wondering if a user gets their username changed by admin will the pretty url be updated?

Arantor

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Re: display name vs username in pretty urls
« Reply #3, on June 2nd, 2013, 05:43 PM »
Quote from icari on June 2nd, 2013, 05:38 PM
i can see the reasons for SEO, maybe if pretty urls are in use disable the users ability to change the display name? although that could cause more support issues in the long run.
Doesn't seem to bother Facebook.
Quote from icari on June 2nd, 2013, 05:38 PM
also just wondering if a user gets their username changed by admin will the pretty url be updated?
It should.

icari

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Arantor

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Nao

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Re: display name vs username in pretty urls
« Reply #6, on June 2nd, 2013, 07:29 PM »
Nothing to add on the username vs display name thing, it's really for the best.
Oh, and vbgamer never 'took over', he never did anything with it anyway... If anyone took over, it's me. :P I'm pretty sure I'm 10 times more knowledgeable about this mod than he is, eh.

Okay, one of the things I wanted to discuss, is that I've been looking into giving users some privacy settings for their profile, a la Facebook (sorry).
i.e., they can enter their birth date, but only have it visible to their contacts. Or, enter their localization, and keep it to one of their contact lists, etc.

One of the 'obvious' things would be, how about limiting profile visibility entirely..?
But then it comes down to running the ob_sessrewrite portion that removes profile links, and only do it depending on the user. So it has to be done before pretty URLs are done, of course (easier to test against a profile ID, eh..?), but what would be the best way to do it, really..?
If hundreds of members start saying "my profile is only for contact list 1, 3 and 4", or some crap like that, doing an array('memberID' => 'list of allowed people') might become sizable, and testing against it could be overkill, I guess. Then again, it could also be quite fast, even if it's 'big', because after all there's only so many people that are linked in a page, and thus it's fast to go through the array.

What do you think..?

Arantor

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Re: display name vs username in pretty urls
« Reply #7, on June 2nd, 2013, 08:44 PM »
Quote from Nao on June 2nd, 2013, 07:29 PM
Nothing to add on the username vs display name thing, it's really for the best.
I can see the arguments both ways, though. I'm not entirely convinced it is for the best at this stage :/
Quote from Nao on June 2nd, 2013, 07:29 PM
Oh, and vbgamer never 'took over', he never did anything with it anyway... If anyone took over, it's me. :P I'm pretty sure I'm 10 times more knowledgeable about this mod than he is, eh.
That's not exactly setting a high bar, though, is it?
Quote from Nao on June 2nd, 2013, 07:29 PM
Okay, one of the things I wanted to discuss, is that I've been looking into giving users some privacy settings for their profile, a la Facebook (sorry).
i.e., they can enter their birth date, but only have it visible to their contacts. Or, enter their localization, and keep it to one of their contact lists, etc.
See, that's where it gets complicated as a bunch of that stuff is also admin discretion (e.g custom fields). I can see the argument of that but it's complicated. I would imagine it is difficult to configure for admins and for users, to a point.
Quote from Nao on June 2nd, 2013, 07:29 PM
One of the 'obvious' things would be, how about limiting profile visibility entirely..?
It's already at admin discretion, own vs any. Doing more than that is very complex but if we bolt a bunch more stuff in it, it would be a valid and major consideration.
Quote from Nao on June 2nd, 2013, 07:29 PM
But then it comes down to running the ob_sessrewrite portion that removes profile links, and only do it depending on the user. So it has to be done before pretty URLs are done, of course (easier to test against a profile ID, eh..?), but what would be the best way to do it, really..?
If hundreds of members start saying "my profile is only for contact list 1, 3 and 4", or some crap like that, doing an array('memberID' => 'list of allowed people') might become sizable, and testing against it could be overkill, I guess. Then again, it could also be quite fast, even if it's 'big', because after all there's only so many people that are linked in a page, and thus it's fast to go through the array.

What do you think..?
I dunno. There is more stuff in the profile than just the profile; there is access to a user's contributions, the warning system - you'd have to essentially override user choice for anyone who has any kind of moderation power.

icari

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Arantor

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Re: display name vs username in pretty urls
« Reply #9, on June 2nd, 2013, 10:43 PM »
Yup and as such it is preferable that it uses the username over display name for this... but there are other concerns as mentioned.

godboko71

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Re: display name vs username in pretty urls
« Reply #10, on June 3rd, 2013, 12:21 AM »
TBH I hardly ever have a different display name vs username. So it doesn't effect me personally. I guess a notice when signing up that your username is your permalink and can't be changed is in order. I have used the same usernames for close to 16 years so if people bruot force so be it, not much I can do to change it. Security through obscurity is not generally a valid practice.
Thank you,
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Arantor

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Re: display name vs username in pretty urls
« Reply #11, on June 3rd, 2013, 12:23 AM »
Could always do what FB did which that it doesn't give you a vanity URL until you apply for it, but once you do it's permanent.

It's not like you *have* to use profile links in Pretty URLs, it can be done separately to boards/topics.

Nao

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Re: display name vs username in pretty urls
« Reply #12, on June 3rd, 2013, 09:28 AM »
Quote from Arantor on June 3rd, 2013, 12:23 AM
Could always do what FB did which that it doesn't give you a vanity URL until you apply for it, but once you do it's permanent.
Yes, it's a possibility, I guess...
And provide a fallback, such as, a link to the person's user name will redirect to their vanity URL; and preventing users from choosing a vanity URL that matches another user's user name (or display name, for that matter..?)

What do you think..? I'm all for it, although yes, it requires an extra member field, but whatever... One more, one less, it doesn't change anything when you already have 357.421 fields in that table, eheh...

Arantor

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Re: display name vs username in pretty urls
« Reply #13, on June 3rd, 2013, 03:06 PM »
Well, if you saw the hooooooge post about permissions, I talked about taking groups out of the members table and putting them in their own table; that'd be 3 columns gone (two numeric, one textual)

So yeah the vanity URL That Cannot Be Changed (except by administrator) seems like a reasonable way to do it.
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