Confusion between multiple accounts and possible solution

Aerobil · February 8, 2022, 6:05pm

As a translator on the platform, I had to create 3 different accounts:

One on couchers .org for the main account
One on community.couchers .org for the forum
One on translate.couchershq .org for the translation

Being also a translation lead, I have to keep track and communicate with other translators and it can get quite confusing (duplicates, different IDs, different passwords, etc.)

A possible solution would be to unify accounts under a Single sign-on (SSO) system so users could sign in once and for all.

This would improve consistency across services and minimize confusion.

I know such implementation isn’t easy, especially if not designed from the beginning, so I’d be curious to see the devs answer.

– Peace –

richee · February 8, 2022, 8:58pm

That “problem” is known and they try to integrate it.
Not sure why they didn’t do it from the start, but appears to be complicated.

aapeli · February 9, 2022, 1:19am

I’m a cofounder and the engineering lead, so maybe I can provide some info.

Regarding SSO for the forum: there’s been a lot of discussion and argument both ways. Currently the consensus is that you should be able to have a forum account disconnected from your account on https://couchers.org, so that you can freely discuss without it being linked to your profile. However, we’d still like to provide a way of logging in with your Couchers.org account on the forum.

For the translation platform: we haven’t really thought about that much. There are a lot fewer translators than forum users, so hopefully they can bear with us. However, if we do end up implementing OAuth2, then we could as well do it on the translation platform (weblate) as well.

phaula · February 9, 2022, 4:09am

I second that SSO for the forum would be of great help! Maybe it could be possible to log in with Couchers account, but not have a link to your profile?

I agree that SSO for Weblate is not that necessary, but would be nice, if that’s not too much of a trouble. Apart from the reasons @Aerobil mentioned, some people also come from GitHub (I guess), and that would make it easier to get in touch with them.

richee · February 9, 2022, 4:36pm

Not sure if it’s possible but when you sign up for one of the different platforms (community, app, translations, …) have the possibility for a tick-box or something to “transfer” data to the other platform, so you can log into that with the same credentials, but for those who don’t like it can still create a different account without issues, just don’t tick the box or follow a URL or whatever option you provide.
That way SSO is possible for those who wish, but disabled for all others who don’t want to.

Aerobil · February 14, 2022, 10:23pm

For what it’s worth, I’ve just welcomed a new translator and their first reaction was to be “surprised by the unexpected level of complexity” (referring to the 3 accounts needed).

EU.Won · March 17, 2022, 9:54pm

Having a ‘separated’ profile on the Forums platform makes great sense for the reasons mentioned (and could be easily satisfied within the existing system), but my guess would have to be that those needs are diminishingly few compared to the majority of ‘regular’ users that would expect to be able to flip back and forth seamlessly between ‘surfing’ and using the Forum functionalities. IMHO Thanks!