Making newuser less intimidating?

Jan 24 04:35 UTC 1999

I'm not sure if this belongs here or in Garage, so please forgive me.
  I've helped several people get new grex accounts in the past month. 
In each case, their eyes were glazing over pretty fast as we plodded
through the newuser script, and I ended up just giving them the defaults
because they did not want to even try to understand the concept of
control keys and shells right then.
  I propose that newuser be stripped to the bare minimum: username and
Password.  Once an account is created, offer them the change program,
and move all the explanatory text into help options specific to each
parameter which is settable.

Mebbe this should be a separate item, but it seems to me that we have a
large percentage of users who seem to collect multiple accounts for a
hobby.  Could we stave off the 64k UID problem if we asked in newuser if
they already have an account on grex, and if so, verify the userid and
password, then assign this new username to the same UID, and possibly
home directory?