Allow same email to be used

[ashkir]

For RPGs, fan fiction forums and even world building or collaboration type forums it is extremely common to use multiple accounts.  It is so common now that the largest IPB 1.3 hosts added fast account switch. ProBoards as well. phpBB is discussing making it a core feature. The other paid software: XenForo, vBulletin and other major software such as MyBB and SMF allow the same email to be used for multiple accounts. I'm only naming them to show the status that IPB is now pretty much the only one that doesn't even have it as an admin option which most others do. 

 

Please consider dropping your hard coded requirement for the same email being used. Please make it administrator choice to disable or not. I searched for similar threads. There are several dating back to 2005 requesting this feature. This is another requesting this feature. 

 

This is feature is a very high priority one for me and a friend. We both bought a license and now we're both very sad that this isn't even an option as we never ran into this issue before. Apparently email is used as the unique variable between modules. I don't understand why if every user is assigned a unique numerical id anyways? 

Who uses this feature?

RPGs, Fan Fiction forums, and some collaboration type forums.

What is the point of multiple accounts? Why can't you just use 1?

RPGs tend to have very unique personas per account. Each account is meant to mimic an individual person, to be completely different and unrelated. This is why we like to use things such as the Linked Accounts modification you have. This has been a standard feature of RPGs since the early 2000s. IPB 1.3 supported it, and is currently one of the most popular forum software choice for RPGs. IPB's removal of it was a degradation of features that has been requested for adding back to the software since 2005. 

I don't want this, so why should it be added?

All we really want is an option to enable it. You don't need to enable this if you don't want it, and it wouldn't affect you.

How many RPGs are there now?

A majority of Jcink, InvisionFree, Zetaboards, ProBoards, ForumMotion, and several large MyBB, and the largest forum and phpBB forum in the world (with over a billion posts) all are RPGs and all allow multiple accounts. 

Why are you posting here?

Support said to post this here to have this feature considered for future releases. 

How important is this a factor in the continued use of IPB?

Very important. There have been several threads requesting this over the years, a handful of them never even got a response. This is a vital feature and RPGs need to work around it by using the addition sign addifier to emails. 

 

Thank you for considering this. 

[MADMAN32395]

Currently there's a multi user plugin and as for emails most good email providers all you to add stuff at the end of your address like my email may be myemail@gmail.com , but for testing I may have a myemail+testaccount@gmail.com

Anything after the + still goes to themyemail@gmail.com inbox.

 

Seems we had it figured out in your other topic here.

 

[Morrigan]

I live and breathe in the RPG world so I totally understand the plight, I do not, however, support this. There are a few reasons as to why and I will try to describe them in the best detail as possible.

• It's a security risk - I can't go into details (I'm sure someone more security savvy could) but having multiple emails is not a good way to go.
• Forgot passwords - Multiple emails means that forgot password loses functionality.
• There are better alternatives - There is what @MADMAN32395 described above as well as I am working on my character mod for IPS 4 which doesn't even need a secondary account to achieve what appears to be a secondary account.

I believe my character mod is the best alternative to this but it has been delayed due to me having to re-learn the software (and honestly) I didn't know the scope of the need because only a few people have asked for an update.

Seeing that there is a more broad need helps me get more driven to create it and will get it released as soon as I can.

[Mandalala]

It was one of my forums that I wanted to convert over to IPB. Out of the two, one is a smaller community that is being built up while the other is a much larger, established one. Both are RPGs and depend on users being able to use the same email for multiple accounts.

When I purchased IPB I did not realise that this would be an issue. I'm disappointed that it this is the case.

@Morrigan I would love to hear more about your mod sometime.

[Claire Field]

@Adriano Faria has a working plugin on 4 that we paid him to adapt for RPG forums. I believe the original version solves the issues in this thread too. Contact him for more details.

[ashkir]

I would be highly interested in a plugin that can even "change" or generate "fake" emails for the sub-accounts. I just tried out @Adriano Faria's current marketplace plugin, doesn't do that, yet. But, we can easily attach accounts and the switching between accounts works flawlessly. It's a beautiful piece of work

[Adriano Faria]

1 hour ago, ashkir said:

I would be highly interested in a plugin that can even "change" or generate "fake" emails for the sub-accounts. I just tried out @Adriano Faria's current marketplace plugin, doesn't do that, yet. But, we can easily attach accounts and the switching between accounts works flawlessly. It's a beautiful piece of work

 

[Lindy]

E-mail addresses have been a primary/unique identifier for years now. With a multitude of login handlers and integration options, allowing multiple e-mail addresses would be a bad idea. I suppose I get the use case, but a modification such as what's mentioned is a better alternative to core infrastructure changes. While other software may or may not allow it, it's pretty accepted as standard practice to uniquely tie accounts to e-mail addresses.

[Simon Woods]

If there was a genuine need for this then it'd show in demand -- unfortunately the aforementioned topics with 0 replies reflect the truth: there aren't enough people who run RPG sites that are actually committed to making them work well on software of IPS quality. Very often the mentality I have observed is "it's just a hobby" from a lot of people who are involved in the forum-based RPG community, which I imagine contributes to the lack of concerted effort to prove the value of this change. I mean, honestly, a lot of people who run these sites end up abandoning them so I don't blame IPS for not catering to this demand, even if I would be happy to see greater flexibility in this general area.