I believe that the Displayname will be built dynamically in the future, in a way a portal admin can control. So I don't think this will be an issue in the future. I hope for even more support for the core profile to come in AF

Thanks for warning us. But keep in mind that the same things can happen when displaying First name, Last name or Full name. On this moment I use the Full name but I also display the username to be sure.

Thanks Wil for bring us up to date.

I asked for this feature too but I'm now seeing why using DisplayName may cause issues.

So you're saying that the DisplayName variable for a DNN User profile has no duplicate checking?

It's a pity that there is no way to disable or remove it from DNN without recompiling the source.

Fabian

Hello Will, as said by some of the other members it's correct that people could fake names and stuff by using other fields.
Currently i have users who use a firstname and a dot as last name because they want to relate to their avatar names in a game.
If for a form administrator it is important to know "who really wrote it" maybe it's an idea to make a token visible only for a designated role (forum admins) to see the quick info on a user like loginname, realname and ip-adres. as a htmlpopup or something like that. For the normal user there is always the profile to look. There is no way to be sure because creating a new account and write a message will always be possible. So if someone wants to cheat he can do it anyway.

Thanks Will.  If I read that correctly, you are saying that you WILL put this functionality in but just warn that it could cause problems if you use it, correct?  When do you expect it to be available?

My main concern is that I want a "real name" forum where people don't hide behind funny screen-names like "bigstud69".  For now, I have just set the forum to show "Full Name".  But some people are understandably a little worried about that and have asked if we could do first name, last initial.  I'm okay with that... which is why I wanted to use the DNN display name. 

Is there a way right now to set a "First Name" space "Last initial" as the display?

Thanks.

I agree having admin only tokens and normal user only tokens is a great idea... so admins can see username, ip address, etc... and user's can't.  Best idea is to have each token selectable as "admin only"

Regarding display names, most forums have the ability to check for duplicates, but also the ability to "approve display name changes" by an admin, so users can't rapidly change names at will, creating havoc.   Perhaps if the DNN core implements these two features, which I believe solves the initial problems Will has brought to light, Active Forums can then implement the feature. 

On the flip side, he could implement it anyway, and have it an admin selectable feature....  different sites and communities work very differently... some are prone to abuse in which the admin wouldn't implement the feature, but some are invite only, in which the users are generally on very good behavior, so the admin of that site could turn on the display name without issue.

Anyone know if there is a Gemini bug for the DNN Core to check for duplicate display names (is display name even i the core? I don't remember) and/or another bug for allowing an admin to approve Display Name Change Requests?

Good discussion...  :-)