[brazzledazzle]

Sure, but they could change all old accounts to use the screen name as the username, change their email address (locking them out of it) and force everyone to reregister. It's a pain in the ass but it's the only practical solution given the constraints.

But do they really need those comments on old articles? Why not just delete them? This is a community paper. How often are people reading old articles and how often are those people reading the comments? I have to question if the management of the paper are motivated more by unmasking certain shitty commenters than by anything else.

[degenerate]

Or:

UPDATE user SET realname=screenname WHERE screenname IS NOT NULL;

Done!

[chris_wot]

It's a cloud service, I doubt they have database access.

But remind me never to ever use BLOX. This seems like the MOST basic thing you'd want to be able to do.

[fleitz]

Doubtful, I'd 86 this feature as a PM. Way too much complexity for too little benefit.

[chris_wot]

Hardly. You'd simply just keep the status of existing posts as anonymous and any posts after turning on the feature would show the posters real name.

[fleitz]

I understand how to make the implementation work initially, however I would tell the client no we don't support that, and then wait for them to offer an amount of money to make it worthwhile.

It's not hard, however, it complicates the software leading to subtle non-obvious bugs, and then you need to support this features with all the other features you're adding, etc.

PS. What happens when they turn if off? ...and then back on? And then the 20 other subtle bugs that this feature introduces... And how many other features that lots of customers want are we delaying while we implement this?

All this work for $24.95 a month... yeah... no, 86'd.

[chris_wot]

I'd 86 the decision to purchase your software :-)

[gruez]

86?

[ams6110]

American slang term meaning "get rid of" or "remove"