This is an oldy but a goody, but since it came up with a client recently, I'll share it again.

As a rule, you should allow your members and customers to update any of their primary contact information (e.g., address, phone, etc.) online, EXCEPT for their name. Why?

Because what sometimes happens is a member will leave an association and someone new will replace that person in their job. And then the new person will overwrite the name of the "old" person. And the end result is the history of that "old" person is attached to the new person. And now your data is bad!

(I see this most commonly with trade association membership where a primary rep may be updating other contacts within their organization.)

So what if someone needs to change their name? They should contact your association and allow staff to make the change. If it's the same person with a new name, that's an easy change. But if it's a new person replacing the existing person, then staff has some additional work to do, but it's work you want the staff to do.

So if your current system allows your members and customers to update their field names, fix that now! You'll thank me later.