@bobday said:
it isn't a required field... right back when the application was new, we are talking ~1990 so it was definately not mandatory
before I started here it was made a required field, but not validated... so pretty soon it was filled with ".", "none", "askjfhaskj","yeeeeah right" and so the evolution continued before some bright spark decided that it was no longer required, but input was validated. (as being a correctly constructed email address)
So now, if they don't enter anything, that's fine. If they do enter something, it's validated.
it has to be an inherited working practice from the time that it was a mandatory field, then when it was validated... rather than blanking it out - they got "smart" to get around the "dumbass" application.
I could change it to reject 'no@email.com' but then I suspect that they might "work around" this defect by entering "iamafxxxxxgretard@ndthatswhyihaveadataentryjobatknobbers.com"
You're right, they will get around that with other crap.
But the question is why will your system accept 60,000 accounts with the same email address? emails are reasonably unique,
Find your "duplicates" on more than just email, I would say.
OR
Count them first, display a message that "60,000 accounts were found with 'no@email.com', Would you like to see the list" kinda of a prompt. That way, they can dodge the wait.
Of course, that me playing "nice dev". In my mind, I'm saying "If they are stupid enough to put in a bogus email when they don't need to enter any, they deserve to wait". Of course, that's little consolation for your poor DB server.