Registering members that share email addresses?

[ColinJM]

Hi All,
In the community that I am tailoring an SMF for, there are couples that share one email address. Is it possible to  allow two people to register with the same email address? I know you can use a dummy email address for the purposes of internal registration. But the two couples may have different forum subscription.

Thanks and Kind Regards
Colin

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Email address must be unique for each account, but you can register second member with dummy address.  Depending on their mail service, they should be able to create an email forward, which would be a different address that delivers mail to the primary address.

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

In SMF email addresses should be thought of as usernames, because they actually are. You can login using an email. So no, two users can not share a username, unless they actually share the same user account. Which I wouldn't suggest either.

It should be safer for everyone, if they just registered a second free email like gmail or outlook, so I would suggest you simply point them to a free email service.
Sharing an email address that is used for registration to absolutely anything anywhere, is basically something I'd discourage for a multitude of reasons.

[GL700Wing]

FYI: Gmail offers a hidden feature called "plus addressing" and it can be used with SMF to register multiple accounts with the same 'base' Gmail address.

Plus addressing is a simple but powerful tool that can help you get even more out of your Gmail account.

Here's how it works: In Gmail, you can add a "+" symbol and any word you want to the end of your email address, and it will still reach your inbox.

For example, if your email address is [email protected], you can use [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected].

All of these email addresses will reach your inbox, but Gmail will treat them as separate email addresses.

[ColinJM]

Thanks heaps for all the replies guys - very much appreciated. Why people share one email address or how is beyond me. But that's their choice. Since I'll be hosting the forum, I can simply create email addresses that can have a redirect on. That way it will handle separate post subscriptions. I actually hate Gmail because they don't do anything about spammers other than to have a reporting tool. Luckily I can create my own domains and email accounts.
Kind regards
Colin