Let me tell you about my password recovery experience.

I came here to ask a question about Krita. I hadn't been here a while, so my browser didn't remember my login. No problem I thought. I entered the nickname I use most everywhere and the password.... Nope.
Hmm. Maybe that's the wrong password. I tried several others. Nope.
Oh well, guess I'll recover the password. So I entered my nickname and my email. Nope. I got the following helpful message: "Email address does not match those known for the given username. Username does not exist."
The username does not exist? That's weird. So I googled one of my old posts, and sure enough, MadMinstrel was written right there.
So i tried again, incredulous. Nope.
Aah! - I thought. Maybe this is one of those websites where the display name doesn't match the username.
So I tried some variations on my commonly used usernames and passwords, but no. None of them worked.
So I went to gmail and looked through my archive for some sort of welcome email from when I activated my account. And sure enough, I found that.
Welcome P**** A****, the email said. There! That must be my actual username!
So I entered that into the password recovery prompt, but was foiled again. Nope. That's not my username.
Back to the activation email I went, looking for any alternative username that might be hiding there. I examined the activation link very closely, then even the headers, but didn't find anything.
A little disappointed, I thought, no big deal. I'll just register another account.
So I went to the registration screen and entered my name and my email. Nope! Foiled yet again. The forum won't let me register another account with my email address.
Increasingly discouraged, but eager to ask my question, I went ahead and registered for a whole new email address with another provider.
Back to the registration screen. I entered my name and my shiny new email address that I didn't really want or need, got the activation email, clicked the link.
Finally, I got to the screen where you choose a username.
Eureka! On this website, you can't choose a username for yourself, it's automatically generated based on your name. How silly of me not to know that.
I deducted that I must have used one of the ones that were generated when I first registered.
Back to the login screen I went and tried each of the ones that I had seen in the registration screen. But I was foiled yet again!
So I guessed that the registration screen was automatically filtering all those that were already taken. Of course.
I tried a dozen or so combinations that were similar to the ones that were generated for my name, but weren't an exact match.
Finally! I had guessed the right username and the password reset email was sent.
As soon as I changed my password to the same thing it had originally been from the start (I had never forgotten the password, just the username, apparently), I was ready to ask my question!
All this only took an hour.

Please fix this, this is awful. In the login screen, please display the password requirements. In the password recovery screen, only require an email. Or else at least disclose how usernames are generated. Send a registration email to the user with his actual username in it upon registering a new account.

Hm, how should we fix the fact that you forgot your username?

I guess what happened is that you registered at some point where the forum was not coupled with identity, and in identity you can indeed not use a random username (it is used for developer accounts which have to be based on real names). You can later on for the forum and wikis, though.

Again, how could we fix the fact you forgot your self-chosen username in the forum?

I get your not-so-subtle irritation with the fact I forgot my username, and yes, I probably should have written it down somewhere. You're right.

That said, I forgot my username precisely because it was *not* self chosen. I normally use only two nicknames all over the internet. I'd never have forgotten if I could have chosen it myself.

But that in itself wouldn't be so bad at all. I don't mind that usernames are based on your real name. It's nonstandard, but it's fine. What needs fixing is that this username is not used anywhere later on except for login. It effectively becomes a second password, unless you remember precisely how kde.org's registration works, which you probably don't if you've arrived at the password recovery screen.

What you can do to fix it, I already wrote. Allow login with your email instead of your username. Allow password recovery with your email only. Inform the user what the username/password practice on the forum is - right on the login and recovery screens. Send new users an email stating clearly what their username is.

Implementing any single one of these things would have cut early on the whole procedure I described in the opening post.

AFAIK you can choose your own nickname in the forum, just not in Identity.kde.org, but that doesn't have any effect on the forum username. Mind you, sometimes the username of your choice is already taken, and there is very little you can do about but talk to the other person and try to find an arrangement.

Login in the forum is done through identity since quite some time now, so you shouldn't even need your forum username for that.
As for the username in Identity it's quite easy to remember, as it should always bee a first name initial followed with the family name, with slight variants if there are identical names already registered.

I do agree with you that using the mail address instead of the username to register sounds like a good idea. No idea why this is not an option, though, might be due to some forum or identity restrictions I don't have knowledge of.

i can't believe you have not changed the system of password recovery. It is insane. The level of bloody mindedness required to recover account information is ridiculous. I have tried in the past to recover my username, but have just given up in frustration. Today, I am an hour into shrinking my Kubuntu partition, so have some time and managed to find this post, which gave me a clue. But I don't know what anyone else with the same initial and family name would do. Just stop using the forum or re-register with another email?

Lunacy.