338393 - Split Real Name into First/Last Name

Status: NEW

(Bugzilla :: User Accounts, enhancement, P4)

Description

[timeless]

problem:
bugzilla currently has realname and username/emailaddress (and a usernumber).

this means that whomever assigns names and confirmities controls how names appear and this results in my inability to find anyone I care about.

the actual results are you get lists like:

Smith Daniel (Washington) <[e-mail]>
Smith Danny (Washington) <[e-mail]>
Smith Darin (Washington) <[e-mail]>
Smith Darin (Wilmington) <[e-mail]>
Smith David (Washington) <[e-mail]>
Smith David (Washington #2) <[e-mail]>

Imagine having a couple hundred of these items and trying to find someone. Then imagine that the admin got clever and decided to force you to use a listbox instead of letting you use the bmo style edit field (so far, each corporate bugzilla i've seen seems to think the list style is a brilliant idea).

expected results:
#1. User fields should be split
bmo (and others) have needs for:
Title
First
Middle Names/Initial
Last
Nick
Organization

I know this sounds a lot like ldap. I'm sorry, it's not my fault that i've started worrying about large bugzillas with lots of people.

#2. User Prefs should be enhanced to allow each user to specify to bugzilla how it should prevent accounts to the user. - If someone doesn't really want to do this in the same bug, i can and will file a follow up bug for it.
As well as the ability for a user to choose the order in which those things should be composed when viewing people's names.

Note that if user Danny Smith chooses to see First Last, and user David Smith chooses to see Last, First. Then danny will see "Danny Smith" and "David Smith", but David Smith will see "Smith, Danny" and "Smith, David".

As part of #2, there should probably be an admin user template option where admins can select the default presentation for new user accounts.

Comment 1

[Max Kanat-Alexander]

If we do this, this bug will cover only splitting Real Name into FirstName and LastName, and possibly MiddleName.

Note that those three categories don't always work well in an international environment, but that's fine.

Comment 2

[timeless]

I'm in an international environment. if you really want feedback from someone here, that can be arranged.

Comment 3

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

Why wouldn't this include a "nick" and "organization" field? 

Those would be hugely helpful when trying to find someone in bugzilla. Right now, for example, timeless' "Real Name"  is "timeless" and if I didn't know that but was trying to find his contribution in Bugzilla based on his actual real name, Josh Soref, I'd be out of luck.

Right now, I'm trying to help build the credits list for Firefox 3 and Bugzilla is the #1 source of that information but it's sorely lacking in basic information about people like their actual real name (as opposed to this nick/vacation notice field we're calling "Real Name" -- something timeless seems to want to codify as OK in bug 344430) or their organization.

So, what's the resistence to giving people a field to use for nick/vacation notice as a release valve so that we can get actual real names into the, you know, Real Name field. 

Comment 4

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Filed bug 1146127 about nick name specifically.