You probably just have a typo in your code...
If you include a
<%= text_field_tag 'firstname' %>
in your form, then you can get the value in the controller using
params[:firstname]
If you use nested resources, a
<%= text_field_tag 'user[firstname]' %>
in your form, will result in
params[:user][:firstname]
in your controller.
Regards, Tom
