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Start ups, please don't force me to log in with Facebook

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Start ups, please don't force me to log in with Facebook

#111

Post by wvenable »

iloveyouocean wrote: post #94
loyaltyspace wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I've lost track of how many times I've gone to a Quora answer, thought 'I must take a closer look at Quora', gone to the root domain, realised you need a Facebook login, then just navigated away. I even have a Facebook account somewhere - just don't like logging into another site like this for some reason.

The inconvenience of finding/creating a Facebook account to use in joining Quora is, imo, completely worth the value offered by Quora. You have to choose your battles. At a certain point I would rather have access than have my way.

I never bothered to sign up at stackoverflow because of OpenID. Not necessarily because I have some philosophical issue with it, but because I already have a system to maintain this stuff and OpenID is just another hoop to jump through. Adding an optional user/password signup is hardly difficult.

Re: Start ups, please don't force me to log in with Facebook

#114

Post by jrockway »

wvenable wrote: post #111
iloveyouocean wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inconvenience of finding/creating a Facebook account to use in joining Quora is, imo, completely worth the value offered by Quora. You have to choose your battles. At a certain point I would rather have access than have my way.

I never bothered to sign up at stackoverflow because of OpenID. Not necessarily because I have some philosophical issue with it, but because I already have a system to maintain this stuff and OpenID is just another hoop to jump through. Adding an optional user/password signup is hardly difficult.

Honestly, I'd rather not give Jeff my password. So +1 on OpenID.

Re: Start ups, please don't force me to log in with Facebook

#116

Post by SHOwnsYou »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #25

Surely it's easier to write your own authentication system than plug in to Facebooks?

Have to agree with this.

It might take 15-30 minutes to develop your own authentication system.

Even if only takes 10 with facebook, the extra 5 minutes are worth it to me to keep 100% control over my users' experience on my website.

Re: Start ups, please don't force me to log in with Facebook

#117

Post by targz »

Murkin wrote: post #92
kylec wrote: post #7

This is by far my largest complaint with Quora.

And perhaps the main reason why they are so successful. People post with their real names instead of arcane nicknames from the 90ies. With all the psychological and social results that follow.

Great point. I hope there's another way of getting rid of anonymity than having us all have Facebook accounts, because that is a great value. Having your real name and ties which connect back to your social life can hopefully be achieved somehow else... albeit probably through other sorts of centralized profile stores which might have the same stigmas as Facebook with some people. I think the key is in having many options for where you can have your profile kept and what level of data is there. As long as a profile provider's minimum level of profile data is sufficient to do away with the amount of anonymity that is necessary for a service (say Quora), it becomes a matter of how accurate the profile data is, i.e., how easy is it to create a fake account on the profile service?

Re: Start ups, please don't force me to log in with Facebook

#118

Post by recoiledsnake »

scott_s wrote: post #96
abraham wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook always displays an allow page with what data the site is requesting.

Will it always do that? Are there any implicit allowances? Will there be in the future? For what's true now, I could look it up. But I'd rather not. For what will be in the future, I have no idea. The simplest thing for me to do is use my Facebook account for Facebook only.

Exactly. This is the reason that I am far more comfortable using my Google or Yahoo OpenID than a Facebook login.

Re: Start ups, please don't force me to log in with Facebook

#119

Post by liedra »

I think what is important here in the OP is the "at least give me a few options". Amongst my group of friends there has been a "quit facebook" movement in the last 6 months, and I can see why given the privacy issues that have been going on there. I probably would have joined them if I didn't live so far away from family and friends now. But really, it'd be nice to have a few options; lots of social sites allow you to use them to authenticate elsewhere, and things like OpenID which you can get from other places as well as rolling your own if you want to.

The only time you should be really concerned about whether your user really is who they say they are is if you are (or you are interacting with) some sort of official government or similar entity that legally and officially requires proof of identity. Otherwise it should be perfectly acceptable to have multiple, disparate identities on the internet.

Re: Start ups, please don't force me to log in with Facebook

#120

Post by harperlindsey »

I agree, users should have options to login. I'm giving the option to login with Facebook or Twitter, but users can also register for a completely new account on the site. Hoping that this method creates the least barrier for users that don’t' want additional accounts, but also provides a login option for users that don't have one of these accounts.
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