Discussion of newuser.

Dec 1 23:00 UTC 2010

This item is for the discussion of newuser.  What should it ask people for?
The following are pretty much required:

1) Login name.
2) "Real" name (they don't have to put in an actual name, but we need
   something for the GECOS field in the password file)
3) Email address (so we can email them their password).

Right now, it asks for some other stuff and uses that to build the user's
.plan file: phone number, address, the type of computer you use, what you
do for a living, gender, birthdate, and what other interests you have.
None of this is necessary.

Actually, for legal reasons, we may *have* to ask for birthdate, but I'm
not a lawyer and not sure.  But I remember that that was a thing a few
years back.

What else?

response 2 of 85:

Dec 2 08:52 UTC 2010

At one point, there was a federal law requiring online services to ask for
users' birthdates, and if they were below 13 years old, verify that their
parents had given them permissions to get accounts.  We just sort of punted
on that.

It has nothing to do with membership.