Can we have the display_name field in the /me/associated route?

Question

I'm reading the Authentication documentation and I've noticed that the /me/associated route returns fields like user_id, badges, reputation but not the display_name, even specifying a custom Filter.

Once I get via Oauth2.0 the access_token, the first thing I would do is to get the list of accounts of the user; without the display_name in the /me/associated route, I'm forced to make another call to the /me route for each associated site, passing the site parameter on the query string .

Is this by design?
Can we have the display_name field in the /me/associated route to save some API calls?

Answer 1

This is by design, for reasons of technical limitations.

Unfortunately, we don't have easy access to display names at a "network level". What's available (and what's backing the API) is very normalized, often somewhat delayed, data.

As a rule, only very small bits of data are pulled into global tables; as it all has to reside in a single database. Generally this means no strings, like display names (or about mes, or locations, so on).

I realize this isn't ideal, but it's the world we're in until some non-trivial upgrades in our infrastructure. Some of the necessary work is already being undertaken, but not all of it is in sight; I can't really promise changes for any particular API release.

What I suggest doing (and what the network itself does) is picking a way to choose a "primary user" and just fetching that one. We use oldest account (backed by creation_date on network_user), though in the past we have also used highest reputation. Either approach has its merits.