I got an email from one of our members that says when he registered there was a conversation in his Inbox between a person with his name and another person, but he never had that conversation himself. To clarify, let’s say my name is ‘Frank’ and I register an account. I log in and check my messages and see there is a conversation between another ‘Frank’ and someone named ‘Anne’. But this Frank is not me.

Is this a known error? I’d really appreciate some feedback on this as this is a pretty serious problem because of privacy. Thanks.

[@mercime Participant 14 years, 3 months ago]

This plugin at bottom of post would help you – Creating a Buddypress/Wordpress Username availability checker for your site

[@hnla Participant 14 years, 3 months ago]

@mercime @fsdasdfasdff

That Username Availibilty Checker has been incorporated into the bp-xtra-signup plugin by Travel-Junkie which also provides password strength feedback. This is a plugin I would recommend people make use of.

However this issue is not ‘Username’ as there can’t be the same username twice

[@mercime Participant 14 years, 3 months ago]

True @hnla, there shouldn’t be a duplicate username in the first place.
It could be that a member named “Frank Furter” whose username may be something else like frankfurter messaged Anne who mistakenly replied to @frank instead of @frankfurter

[@hnla Participant 14 years, 3 months ago]

True! OP description does worry slightly though, but need more exacting detail.

I think though that frankfurter would have been messaging Janet?

[@modemlooper Moderator 14 years, 3 months ago]

Damn it Janet!

[@pcwriter Participant 14 years, 3 months ago]

@hnla

Well now, another Rocky Horror fan?

[@hnla Participant 14 years, 3 months ago]

Oh Brad!

[@pcwriter Participant 14 years, 3 months ago]

Well, this thread has gotten off-topic but, suddenly, I feel 17 again!

[@hnla Participant 14 years, 3 months ago]

Just thinking the same, it’s the Riff Raff that hijacks threads in this way

[@mercime Participant 14 years, 3 months ago]

Bless my soul next thing you know some Hot Patootie will be closing this thread

@fsdasdfasdff no offense meant let us know if the case of the duplicate Frank was caused by the error in @mentions. Cheers.

[@fsdasdfasdff Member 14 years, 3 months ago]

How does this remedy this issue though? I don’t understand how that plugin can resolve this.

[@mercime Participant 14 years, 3 months ago]

The plugin does not resolve the issue. It was my bad, as @hnla mentioned BP has checks to prevent duplicate usernames. The thing is, if the issue was brought about by what I mentioned above, then members should be taught to use @mentions with usernames instead of first names. Perhaps a plugin which shows a popup of “Franks” for member to choose from should be available to prevent breach of privacy.