Self-hosted: Allow users to choose their tag at registration on username instances

(#3849) Feature Open: Under consideration self-hosting

Thread

Comment by dander
dander 1 vote edited 3 replies
Okay i have a few questions:
  • what is the point of reintroducing tags into a username based system, since usernames are used for login here it there couldn't be duplicate usernames anyway.
  • what is stopping you from just adding a tag (#xxxx) to the end of your username in a username based instance? it it would functionally look the exact same as on a email based instance.
i just dont see the point of this feature a more functional solution to this problem would be adding an option to force usernames to pass a regex filter on account creation. this way you could just force people to add a tag to their username. Edit: ive noticed that a selfhosted instance blocks you from adding a # to a username. i still think just letting instance admins edit a configuration for username regex requirements and selecting which characters are valid would be the most reasonable solution to this issue
Comment by marcy
marcy OP1 vote edited 2 replies
the point of this feature request is to allow username + tag on username instances aswell, it should not be locked behind just a email instance Hampus suggested that allowing users to choose a tag at registration could be a way to have this work, i agreed that that would be a great solution and is why i made this feature request i think that a regex configuration could be a solution but i personally would like to avoid having to deal with regex
Comment by dander
dander 1 vote 1 reply
fair enough, i just think that implementing regex filter configuration would be a more universal solution. like maybe there will be other instances that want usernames to adhere to a certain scheme that doesn't use that standard #xxxx tags. also considering that the tags would most likely just have to be part of the username anyway to avoid complications with the login system and to not have to add more complexity to that, i think it would be best if this was implemented as regex filtering. maybe the standard #xxxx tags could be provided as a possible preset
Comment by dander
dander 2 votes
After talking about it more, i have realized that it maybe wont be as easy to implement as i originally thought. tho this is how it could work:
  • the current system of having everyones tag be #0000 in the background could be kept
  • change it so the system ignores everything that isnt #0000 as a tag when on a username instance without tags.
  • implement a configuration in the instance config that lets admins set allowed characters and input a regex filter that usernames have to pass.
this way admins could make users in their instance adhere to a certain username-scheme. this would let admins decide on their own how to style tags for their instance or make usernames follow some other scheme. For example:
  • Different Tag styles using an arbitrary character: #xxxx, *xxxx, ~xxxx
  • Email like username scheme: username@example.whatever
this system could also potentially be used on email instanced that have tags disabled. one downside to this implementation would be that users probably wont be able to use anything like #0000 or #0 as their visible "tag" since that might break things