I would like to draw the attention on how more accessible Mobilizon could be if it doesn’t become necessary to have an email address to sign up.But only stays an option to be able reset the password or receive notifications, like on riot.im, for instance.
I am keen to mention it, because I have been using Meetup to create inclusive groups reaching out to people who are marginalized and have very limited knowledge of IT.
Their only access to internet is via their mobile phone, when they have a smart one. And they don’t all have an email address or know how to use one…
So, joining the Meetup groups and indicating their intention to come or send a message to the organizer, has been, for too many of them, too complicated !
If the initial sign on process for an event could just be : nickname + password + community to join, and anything else optional, that would be great !
I guess an antibot question could be necessary too, to avoid abuse, but maybe have one only afterwards ? Like to provide additional possibilities to comment an event and send a message for instance, but not just to indicate an intention to come to an event.
It could also be useful to have the possibility to enter a mobile phone number, to be kept updated of any change for the event by the organizer , if no email address has been entered…
It is not ideal to have an account without third-party identification (email, phone number) necessary for many operations such as password reset, and email remains the most common factor.
To address the issue of people who are uncomfortable with email, we are realistic and not fundamentally opposed to the possibility of offering registration and authentication via third-party identity providers such as Google and Facebook, but also Mastodon. In the end, the action we take is only to ask these suppliers what the person’s email address is to register, we keep a possible authentication with the email if the person ever closes his Facebook account for example. Framasoft will most likely not enable these features on its eventual public instance, but they may be available to others in the long term.
I want to emphasize that we want most of the possible actions in Mobilizon - outside the organization within the groups - to be possible without registering on the platform. In your message it is for example to send a message to the organizer without being registered.
It is up to the administrator to define what is possible without registering, but we would like there to be no constraints on the application itself.
Finally, the possibilities with a phone number (registration and notifications) are limited by the fact that sending SMS messages is usually not free of charge, but it may be an appropriate channel for some people with limited access to their emails or with a mobile device that does not allow them to access the platform.
Finally, authentication within Mobilizon is oriented around the email + password couple which then gives access to identities (which would have the “nickname” of which he is talking). Allowing to identify yourself only with the “nickname” of any identity + password (unique to the different identities, therefore?) would require a lot of technical changes.
Thomas
P.S : Sorry for the delay in my answer, I was on leave.
