cross
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Discussion of newuser.
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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?
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cross
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response 2 of 85:
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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.
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kentn
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response 3 of 85:
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Dec 2 13:55 UTC 2010 |
I'd like to see the web newuser be as simple as needed to set up a
working Unix account (username, password, "real" name, optional contact
information) that will allow web access, so that people can get an
account and get cracking without a lot of technical/confusing questions.
That web new user page should ideally fit on one normal screen. As long
as they only access Grex from the web, they should be okay and if we add
a few more web services they'll be even better off.
For the command line newuser, my assumption would be most people who
run that will expect it to be on the technical side. I'm sure it got
as complicated as it did due to all the issues new users had in days of
yore with terminal types, backspace key assignments, etc. That said,
I'm guessing there is an opportunity to simplify that program/process as
well(?)
Some people will want to register via the web and then use both command
line and web tools. In that case, we'll need to provide additional
assistance if things like their terminal and backspace aren't working.
Perhaps a script they could run (and a web page they could access) to
update their account settings would be a good idea to save staff time
(change shell, change "real" name, change backspace key assignment,
change password, etc.).
We do want people to learn about Unix, too, so technical questions would
be one of the hoops they need to jump through to get a useful command
line account. But we don't want it to be an onerous process nor do we
want it to be a dead end.
It would be good information for us to know how users got their
accounts, via the web or via the command line newuser program. That way
we could judge the popularity of each method and perhaps see a little of
how our user base is changing (if it is).
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