Uniqueness of the "author" property

[Pierre Lannoy]

Hi all !

 

Just wondering if the user property "author" (screenname) is unique on a network basis or among all ning networks (or not unique at all). I know there are many discussions about the NingID but can't find the answer... If anyone has information, I'm interested.

 

Thanks

Pierre

[Pierre Lannoy]

oops. Sorry for noise, I found the answer here. But there is a new question :

in this post, Devin said "We are currently in the process of removing the 'screen name' so the meaning of the field will change over time.". So, wich property can I use to uniquely identifying a user?

[Devin]

I misspoke when I said we are removing the screenname (author) field. Currently it is globally unique across all Ning Networks, in the future that may not be true.

 

You can depend on the screenname always being unique on each Ning Network. It is used when requesting content for a specific member.

 

[Pierre Lannoy]

Hi devin.

Thanks for your answer.

To summarize what I understood: if I want to uniquely identify a user, I can currently use "author", but in the future this "identifier" can identify a user A on network X and user B on a network Y. So I must build by myself an unique identifier based on the field "author" AND the network name. 

 Do I understand correctly?

In the future, can I rely on this for sure? (ie. what's this future? Are you  confirming to me that the "author" fields always exist?).

 

Thanks in advance for your answer, Devin. It's really important for me to understand on what i can rely on, now and in the future, for not reworking in 3 months the module i'm developing now...

 

Pierre

[Devin]

You are correct. You should use a combination of the screenname (author) field and network to uniquely identify a member across all Ning Networks.

 

The author field will always exist.

 

In general, you want to think of each Ning Network as independent from every other Ning Network. This is what most Network Creators want and this is what we are moving even closer to. Member IDs and authentication is something we are working on decentralizing and so it is in transition.

 

[Pierre Lannoy]

GREAT !

 

Many thanks for your time and your answers, Devin...

Pierre