Introduction

The ability to log in with a social media account seems like it’s been in the website forever, but all good things come to an end.

When the next build goes in, the ability to create or log in via social media will no longer be available and I wanted to share why this is the case, and what to do if you log in via x twitter, facebook or google.

Why we’re doing this

There’s no single reason for sunsetting social log in, it’s more an accumulation.

1. Twitter API depreciation
2. Google+ shutdown
3. Frequent Facebook API changes
4. Dependencies for the feature preventing future upgrades

As a result of 1. I can no longer log in our third-party we use for social media logins!

Whilst I can workaround this as I have underlying API keys the truth is not many people use social media as a means to log into the website.

At the time of writing only 19 people have used a social media account for their avatar and of those only 4 use it as their only means of logging into the website.

In short the workload to maintain the feature doesn’t balance with the value it offers and my time can be better spent elsewhere on the site.

What you need to do

• If you only use the avatar feature this will continue to work for the time being, but you won’t be able to use another social network to change it. Profile images from gravatar are unaffected.
• If you use a social network to log into toepoke:
  • If you are still logged in, visit the change password screen to setup a traditional means of logging in
  • If you are no longer able to log in, please get in touch and we’ll help you get logged in

Posted in : sunsetting, toepoke, release