[wp-hackers] Members Database

[Alex Hempton-Smith]

Hi all,

I'm building a social network with BuddyPress and WordPress, but I have a
special use case which I'd like some advice on. This isn't a BP specific
question though.

We need a database of 'members', but some will be offline (no need for a
login, possibly won't have an email address) and some will be online
(username/password). I'd like to build this on top of WordPress because all
of the other tools I'm building are WP plugins. There will also be different
'types' of members, which I will use custom user roles for.

I have a two options I think:

   - Custom post type for each 'member', and for online ones create an
   actual WP user in wp_users, assign that wp_user ID to a 'member' via post
   meta
   - Kind of hack wp_users with users who don't have an email address or
   password (auto generate a username?) - will WP allow me to do this, and is
   it best-practice?

Does anyone have any better ideas? I'm not totally happy these are the best.

Many thanks,

-- Alex  (Hempsworth)