You have multiple options:
type
column. All STI magic will be disabled automatically.type
column but want to use it for something else (WAT?), you can set self.inheritance_column = :_non_existing_column
in the class definitionself.abstract_class = true
This technique is useful to implement form models / presenters, where you want all the goodness of ActiveRecord but want to add additional logic for a particular screen (e.g. class SignUp < User
).