Actually, we really do need a core solution for this because of the fact that users are tied to nodes in so many ways other than what they display to the end user. What happens to a node that is authored by several people but 'owned' by only one when the owner's record is deleted or inactivated? There's no way to transfer ownership to the other authors, because we don't know who they are. If we have a way to link to multiple authors, if one goes away the links to the others remain.

I do think this may be an example of what CCK in core might do in D7 -- the node author becomes a multiple value userreference field instead of a single value field.

Also, for whatever it's worth, whether you need this at all depends on your environment. In the blogging world, the people who write the blogs are the authors and the current system works fine. When you talk about tracking issues, again, the people who write the issues are the authors, and there's a one-to-one relationship that works fine.

But when you start talking about books or when you're publishing material in the business or academic world, 'authorship' and 'ownership' of nodes needs to be more flexible.

Either way, this is clearly something that won't happen until D7, but it's good to discuss.

My two cents :)

Karen


----- Original Message ----
From: Moshe Weitzman <weitzman@tejasa.com>
To: development@drupal.org
Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2008 7:17:40 AM
Subject: Re: [development] Multiple user aliases - Multiple user node ownership

I think this is pretty much a moot point. You can easily add a
multiple valued text field and display that everywhere, including
Views.

On 1/12/08, John VanDyk <jvandyk@iastate.edu> wrote:
> I have long thought Drupal's assumption that a node has a single
> author to be erroneous.
>
> >I've had several requests to: (i) To be able to have nodes that can be
> >(owned) edited/deleted by multiple users (group posts); (ii) To be able
> >to post under aliases - without logging into multiple accounts.
> >
> >Obvious answers: (i) Something nasty with Node Access; (ii) CCK field to
> >be displayed replacing the the usual user field, trouble of having
> >reusable or identifiable aliases as well.
> >
> >(in/sane?) answer: Write module that - (i) Creates a (blocked) user to
> >register 'nicks' (ii) Links 'nicks' with user(s) 1->1 or 1->many (iii)
> >uses nodeapi to add 'nick' to node form (iv) adds edit/delete to nodes
> >that relate to user 'nick's (just skipping and adding different access
> >control to present node functions).
> >
> >Just a check if I'm looking the wrong way, or if I'm just hanging out in
> >the marginal 20% as usual.
> >
> >ekes
> >http://drupal.org/user/10083
>
>