Question

I have a table which stores users, another table which stores post information and a third table which stores comments.

I want to allow unregistered and registered users to comment on posts.

What is the best practice database design for that? How should I store unregistered or registered commenter information in the database?

Answer 1

You could create a dummy user record with the name, email, website of the guest user in your users table and link the comment to the dummy user’s ID.

Edit: Given the additional information you’ve added in comments:

Create a basic Users table with

• ID
• Name
• Email
• Website

Create a second RegisteredUsers table with the additional fields you require for registered users and define the relationship between the two tables as Users.Id = RegisteredUsers.Id.

The Comments table would then have a CreatedByUserId field where CreatedByUserId = Users.Id.