Add recover password link when user tries to register with email address already in use.

[bzcomputers]

When an already registered user attempts to register again with the same email address, either because they can't remember their username or password or just completely forgot they already had an account, the response that currently comes up just says "Email addresses must be unique. The specified email address is already in use." The only option is to dismiss the message, which just returns the user to the already filled in registration form. This, on many occasions, just leads to the user quickly editing the email address and registering with an email that doesn't work - just to quickly get into the site, since there are currently no other solutions offered on the page/overlay.

I think that offering a quick link to username/password recovery in this situation will lead to less users with multiple accounts and less accounts with non-working emails sitting in the awaiting email confirmation stage.

If the response said:
"Email addresses must be unique. The specified email address is already in use. If this email address: xxxxxxxx@xxx.com is correct. Click here to recover your account username & password."

I think giving the user a quick way to access their old account in these situations will help eliminate them creating secondary accounts that will never be used.

 

[Joe Link]

This would definitely be an improvement

 

[ENF]

"Email addresses must be unique. The specified email address is already in use. If this email address: xxxxxxxx@xxx.com is correct. Click here to recover your account username & password."

This becomes a privacy issue when people are fishing (phishing too) for email addresses that are registered on the site. There was a discussion before about people being able to determine if someone had an account based on this sort of system reply. I don't recall where this was discussed but this very point was talked about where this statement gives confirmation of someone having an account on a specific site. (IIRC, even the 'invalid' statement was of some concern...)

I agree on the duplicate/multiple account issues, but this definitely would be a privacy concern for some site operators and their members.

 

[bzcomputers]

I agree on the duplicate/multiple account issues, but this definitely would be a privacy concern for some site operators and their members.

I can see this may be of privacy concern for some site operators, but XenForo by default is already announcing the email address is already in use. This is just a request to add a link to recover password to that announcement that already exists.

This is the current automatic response when attempting to register with an email that already exists for a user:



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Now if you're worried about privacy, you could make a separate suggestion (if one doesn't exist already) that the above response be changed or removed altogether.

Then the solution may be to automatically send an email to the existing address notifying the user "Someone has attempted to created another account using your email address. If you need to recover or change you password go here...."

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As XenForo currently exists I think adding a recover password link to the existing duplicate email response would significantly reduce users creating secondary accounts.