Monday, March 7, 2011

Hey Salesforce, Is "DE LOGIN" a new synonym for Logout, or a German login page?

The authentication methods to post to the plethora of salesforce community resources is a nightmare. Many times I have abandoned replying to a forum question, or adding a comment to an Idea posted in the Ideas exchange.

This morning, I was trying to reply to a post about a bug in version 21.0 of the Apex Data Loader on the http://forums.crmsuccess.com forums. I dutifully click Reply, and I'm prompted to login, which I do, and it appears to have succeed. Except, I don't see the reply text-area I expect, in fact, I don't see the same forums at all. I'm not even on the same damn forum any more. The salesforce authentication page has shipped me off to the http://boards.developerforce.com Force.com Discussion Boards!!?

I navigate back to the post on the http://forums.crmsuccess.com to reply, but I'm still not authenticated, I try again, and same thing, I end up authenticated on developer-force. I scratch my head, thinking what I have done wrong, because this must just be a case of me being dumb on a Monday morning. I look around, and I spot this gem:
What a odd way to display a "Logout" button? Or.. is this a login portal exclusively for Germans? How curious?

I click on that DE LOGIN button, get prompted for my credentials, which I enter, and click "Login" and where do I end up? In my production Salesforce Org.

To the person at Salesforce who had the bright idea to create a login button, on a forum, that is supposed to be an abbreviation of "Developer Edition Login" that logs me into my Salesforce org. You sir, are an idiot.