Talk:Single User Login finalisation announcement/Archives/2013-05

Username length

Resolved.

What if the old username + the new "~xyzwiki" suffix is more than 256 bytes (the technical limit)? Also, will test accounts already existing like "Liangent~ocwiki" and "Ghyll~mediawikiwiki" interfere with the real renaming process? PiRSquared17 (talk) 18:29, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

If the new username is longer than the byte limit, we'll do an ad hoc alternative name. Your test accounts won't interfere with the process if they're global, or they are not clashing with anything (just be confusing to users!). Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 19:00, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Gotcha :P Liangent~ocwiki will clash with currently unattached Liangent@ocwiki :P (nah, this shall be rare, I guess ad hoc solution then) --Bencmq (talk) 09:06, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Responsibility for doing renames

Resolved.

Who is going to be responsible for doing renames now? Is it stewards only? Or will a global group with the necessary permissions be created? Maxim_(talk) 01:48, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Stewards will have the ability, as well as the ability to create a new global group who can do this function. It's for the community to decide how it wants to proceed, not for me to dictate. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 03:15, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Unmergable after May 27?

Resolved.

There are several accounts unattached to SUL. These accounts unmerged before the May 27(i.e. renamed account due to this measure) would be permanently seperated and cannot be merged to SUL? Best regards. – Kwj2772 (msg) 09:25, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

It will be possible (but irritating) for stewards to fix this situation for you. (They would have to detach your new Kwj2772@foowiki from the global Kwj2772, and Kwj2772~foowiki@foowiki from the global Kwj2772~foowiki; move Kwj2772@foowiki to Kwj2772_(usurped)@Kwj2772 and Kwj2772~foowiki@foowiki to Kwj2772@foowiki, and then attach Kwj2772@foowiki back to the global Kwj2772 account.) Once we are done with this phase of work, we might build a tool to make this easier (though there are a lot of other things the stewards need). Consequently, if you can unify your accounts right now, please do so. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 15:29, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Post-rename control of accounts

Tracked in Phabricator:
Bug 45101

This is tangentially related to SUL finalization.

At present, when you get renamed, it's still possible to log in with your old account name (possibly by mistake on your part), and consequently autocreate accounts in that name on any wiki you go to. Are there any plans for this to change? And, consequently, for old names to be freed up? I can see one potential issue of that being that while page histories will be updated appropriately, old signatures would link to new people. Not sure what the workaround would be.

This came to mind for me when realizing now that the potential supply of good user names for a new user on any given wiki is going to be reduced by a large factor as a result of global uniqueness. Although our user base does display a dazzling range of styles in choice of name, I expect we'll be seeing a lot more "Joe12345" type names in future as people registering on less popular wikis find themselves unable to choose simple user names. — Scott • talk 11:33, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

If user names will be reassigned to someone else, then I think that the links will have to be updated to the new user name. It won't help people looking at old revisions of talk pages, though.

Example: German Wikipedia has a few links to de:User:Stefan2 and to the corresponding talk page. The problem is that the German account belongs to someone else (that is, it doesn't belong to me). When accounts are forcibly renamed in a few weeks, the user name will be reassigned to me, and the links will suddenly start pointing at me instead of the other user. I'm hoping that German Wikipedia won't oppose changing those links to the other user's new name in order to avoid confusion. --Stefan2 (talk) 12:34, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Stefan2 is correct; in this particular case, because accounts are being renamed out of the way of other accounts, it will not be possible to log in using the old username/password anyway. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 15:35, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

How many accounts

I'm just wondering, how many accounts are we talking about ? And how many of those are in active use (say over the past year). Also how many accounts became inactive before SUL was introduced (so had little opportunity to enable SUL) ? There might be some 'well known' names on that list, perhaps correlate with a bit of editcount data ? TheDJ (talk) 18:44, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

We don't have exact figures yet (partially because they keep changing as users change their accounts, partially because we're still hunting down accounts that we can merge on people's behalf without their intervention), but it's relatively substantial (currently it's looking like approximately 5% of our accounts, or 3 million). Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 19:01, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, there are well known names including sysops. mw:Admin tools development/SUL Audit has some numbers, a #List of users has been requested. --Nemo 19:04, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I know you've asked for the list, and I've explained why you can't have it already, but to repeat: we can't give you the list because it doesn't exist yet. Sorry. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 19:14, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I was just answering to TheDJ to give him more context on your answer. :) --Nemo 09:46, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Change login error message accordingly

Resolved.

I suppose we'll need to adjust the login error message accordingly. For example, if I'm "Daniel" on some wiki and I try to log in next January, it'd be nice if there were a clear note saying "your account may have been renamed due to SUL finalisation; check here" or something like that. We don't want users to think they're losing their minds when they suddenly can't log in any longer because someone else now owns their account name. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:37, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Actually, we're looking at a tool that looks for "Foo~<wiki>" and tries to log you in as such if you tried for "Foo" (and, if it succeeds, puts a note on the login page saying that your account was re-named). Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 03:39, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Oh, even better. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 03:51, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Coders can also see/review how at gerrit:61074. --Nemo 14:02, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Clash of two groups of accounts

Resolved.

I have a slightly different problem. At my main login there are two groups of accounts belonging to two different users, each has accounts in more than 5 wikis, a significant number of edits (not less than a thousand) and none of us has SUL because of this conflict. The accounts can be clearly separated in two groups belonging to two different users, how this conflict can be resolved, which of the users will get the right to use SUL and what will happen to the other one? Assume that both of the users want to have SUL and not a huge set of different usernames, of course, so detaching account by account will not be an option — NickK (talk) 01:19, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

One of you will get SUL under "NickK" and the other will get all of their accounts grouped and renamed to what the software determines is your or their "home" wiki. Things to note: "home" wiki is determined by the software on the wiki on which you have "highest" privileges (e.g. sysop, bureaucrat), and then by number of edits, and then by age of account; grouping of accounts is determined by having the same account name and confirmed e-mail address.

I'm not going to discuss the details of the decision algorithm until after we've run the finalisation, because I don't want people to try to game the system and so disrupt the wikis. However, in your personal case, it looks like you are a bureaucrat on one wiki, and so if you were to not be selected as the "winning" global account, you will be considered to have that wiki (uawikimedia) as your home wiki, so your accounts would all become "NickK~uawikimedia", which isn't great (but that's why we're building a tool so you can rename). If you "win", it looks like the other NickK's main wiki is dewiki, so they would become "NickK~dewiki" and you will retain "NickK".

Hope this helps! Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 02:16, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

NickK, this situation is very common. DerHexer proposed a different way to handle it at #Unclear passages and missing information: who clashes and what to do. The current plan, described by James, is indeed highly disruptive. --Nemo 09:45, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Nemo and James. I forgot to mention an important thing: NickK~dewiki has no email, so he will receive a set of different usernames instead. And nobody seems to care.

I agree that the plan as described by James is indeed disruptive. This could have been done correctly had we gave enough time, but it is almost impossible to do correctly in three weeks. We have many users who are little active or on wikibreak, have no email and do not check their talk page regularly. I will try to contact NickK~dewiki, but I have no guarantee that he will respond in three weeks, but I am almost sure that he will answer one day. And it would really be disruptive if one of such users is unaware of the change and becomes completely unable to log in to his account (as it will be a SUL of another user) without any warning (as this is not his talk page anymore). It is not uncommon for people to be inactive for 3 weeks, May is the end of student exams and beginning of the holiday season in most countries. As it is completely impossible for stewards to deal with 3 million accounts, users will have to resolve conflicts by themselves, and I can hardly imagine how this can be done in three weeks, given that users have not received any warning yet. Thus I suggest that either more personalised conflict resolving system has to be introduced or the implementation should be delayed for at least a few months — NickK (talk) 19:59, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I understand the concern, but people have not had three weeks, they've had six years. We've been talking about the need for this step since 2005. If the people on local wikis who were around then have failed to ever tell the newer users that this was coming, that's very sad but it shouldn't in any way be a surprised. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 20:02, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, I wasn't very active back in 2008, so I didn't even hear about SUL until 2011. If SUL hasn't been activated yet, then it may often mean that people simply haven't heard of it, unless there are multiple active users using the same name.

I am in the same situation as User:NickK: I will obtain accounts on three projects, and the guy on German Wikipedia is still editing once in a while. Also, the Commons account obviously belongs to the same guy, but as no e-mail address seems to be set (Special:EmailUser doesn't work), the German Wikipedia and Commons accounts are going to get different names, which he probably won't like. His latest edit appears to be from August 2012 (many recent edits are in fact my edits which were imported to German Wikipedia using Special:Import). While this will bring an end to Special:Import misattributions, the German user might not find out that his account is going to be renamed until after the accounts already have been renamed, due to the lack of an e-mail address and his infrequent activity. My plan is to put notices on my user pages on German Wikipedia and Commons (and ask someone to translate them to German for me) so that he will be able to find his account and include a link to the page where he can request a better user name, and keep those notices there for the foreseeable future. I suggest that you (NickK) put similar notices on all relevant user pages so that NickK~dewiki will be able to find his account the next time he returns. --Stefan2 (talk) 20:33, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

If users have chosen not to set an e-mail then they can hardly complain about being surprised by things changing. If we were to wait one, two, six, twelve, or twenty-four extra months there would still be plenty of users with no e-mail set who would not have logged in. We've waited far too long as it is. I know that it will be painful for some, but like a sticking plaster, slowly peeling it off makes for more pain, not less. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 21:30, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Do I understand correctly that all concerned users will receive an email warning (not a talk page notice, as many projects did not have email notifications until a year or so — I do not remember exactly)? Will it be one warning per account (in this case I think most of people will need to look for these mails in spambox, as users with multiple unattached accounts will receive a dozen or more) or one warning per email? And I definitely disagree that this is a sticking plaster: most of users did not worry that they can't finish their SUL because of some other guy having an active account in some random project they had never used. The universal rule was that once you are an active user, nobody can force you to change your name: no project allows usurpation of an active account. Thus you cannot say that users had to know about this since 2005, on the contrary, they feeled confident that they have their username forever. As I can see now, forever will suddenly end on May 27, with a three week notice only — NickK (talk) 22:11, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I have to agree with Nick here, the plans to finally unify the accounts were as far as I remember never widely nor decisively announced. This is especially bad since despite the fact that the decision has apparently already been made there are still no lists of affected users available. There is also no mention of how will the technical issue of renaming an unspecified (but huge) number of likely active users be solved; the renames done using Extension:Renameuser semi-often result in a half-finished renames, including edits unattached to new renamed accounts. There is also the bug about accounts being magically unattached I mentioned somewhere below that still has no solution, and it's completely unclear whether this will still be causing trouble after the great unification. In short – while I see and agree with the point about a few years of this lurking around the corner, I'd still greatly recommend postponing the change – by a month or two, not more. Matma Rex (talk) 22:37, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree that most people thought this was never going to happen, although the wisest expected it and took precautions in the last few years. However, I don't know if this needs a month or two; assuming the notifications are sent some time in advance (two weeks very least?), we should probably see how many clashing accounts should be moved out, what's the response and how big the renaming backlog becomes (given James' response of 16:50, 2 May 2013, should be much less); the WMF should IMHO be ready to postpone, if needed.

As for email, EmailUser is not a reliable indicator (I suppose WMF will email directly); among the unattached accounts, "only" 19 % of the total and 27 % of those active in last year have no email set. Again, we constantly boasted about not requiring even email to edit, but it's not entirely unreasonable to think that the users caring most about their account usually set an email to recover it if they lose password and so on, except a few email-haters. Maybe WMF could (ab)use the watchlistmarkers and calculate how many accounts read the notifications on talk page... --Nemo 06:35, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, we'll be sending out the notice with a couple of weeks' notice to users' talk pages and, if set, their confirmed e-mail (even if they have "enable e-mail from other users" switched off, which is common).

I agree with Nemo on his points about the number of active users who lack an e-mail being affected will be relatively low (of course, to a user who is affected they don't care that most other people aren't), and those who have not set one in general being less engaged with the projects. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 16:05, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Meta power grab?

Resolved.

The way I understand this, Meta has now used a 50% consensus in a little-followed debate to enact Global bans, it will now have control over account renames, and it is in the process of compiling username policies from all wikis so that it will be the one to decide what usernames are allowed on any wiki. Would I be correct in extrapolating these dots to a point where Meta makes most if not all of the decisions about what user behavior is to be tolerated and what policies should be applied, possibly as determined by hired managers? Wnt (talk) 15:25, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi! These decisions are not made by Meta, but on Meta by the Wikimedia community. Any Wikimedian is welcome to comment, not just "Metawikians". Besides, this choice was made by the Wikimedia Foundation. The reason Meta-Wiki is used for these announcements and RfCs is simply that it is a central, multilingual project, and this is its purpose (coordination of all WMF wikis). Regards, PiRSquared17 (talk) 15:29, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

The global ban thing was also proposed and decided (in the terms of use) and proposed (in the RfC) by the WMF, and the RfC was closed by a user with 75 % of his edits on en.wiki... --Nemo 16:13, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

In these cases the decision wasn't really even on Meta. It was the WMF who chose. Meta is just being used as a centralized discussion place where they can announce and propose stuff to the whole Wikimedia community. They also notify the mailing lists, the local communities, etc. PiRSquared17 (talk) 16:18, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Yea, in this case the foundation made the mess, and meta is where all of us volunteers are going to have to figure out how to clean it up. There are also discussion on en.wp at UAA and elsewhere about how this will effect our local policies and practices and what we will need to do, I should hope all of the larger wikis are having similar discussions by now. It is not a "power grab" by anyone, the foundation owns all WMF wikis and can make such global changes as they see fit. I am much more concerned by the very narrow time frame between the community being informed of this and the date of implementation. The time right after the change is likely to be a very nasty mess, and that mess is going to be here at meta. I hope the stewards are willing and able to handle the new responsibilities this places on them. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:48, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't know about the global bans bit, but because of the nature of SUL, it makes perfect sense for Meta to be the go-to place for dealing with account policies. That being said, the short notice (which, at least, is better than the no notice en.wp got before being Facebooked) is going to cause this to go over like a lead balloon in some areas. I see above that there are at least 3 million accounts impacted. If even 0.1% complain, stewards and admins all over the place are in for a rough ride. Things like this should have far, far longer lead times on notifications. Resolute (talk) 13:49, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

We need to start developing procedures and cleaning up pages like SUL (and their local equivalents) to prepare, get it all translated, etc. Let's hope this goes smoothly. PiRSquared17 (talk) 13:53, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

More than that. There are legit concerns at en:WT:UAA about how this impacts their policies, how messages, procedures and templates and the like need to be changed. The short time frame is asking a lot of the volunteers in that area. Likely most other big wikis will have similar issues. Resolute (talk) 15:57, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Unclear passages and missing information: who clashes and what to do

Resolved.

1. (See also #List of users) "Clash" is not defined. «First questions such users will have here is if this means a user will have a different username on each wiki, or all local accounts pertaining to the same user will be merged and at what conditions» (as I already asked).
2. (See also #Leftover accounts) For those so unlucky as to fall under the definition of "clash", it's not clear what "ask for their account to be renamed further" means. James said RenameUser will still be available to stewards somewhere, but I don't know where and for what, nor what the global rename will allow (link to docs needed).
3. It's already late. 3 weeks are not enough to do the local renames. You need to immediately 1) have a process/tool, 2) have instructions, 3) communicate them.
4. There's nothing on the 5000 edits limit.

--Nemo 06:52, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

For point #2, it means rename of accounts works at a global level, instead of a local level, but you can still change your name instead of stuck with Example~svwiki. for point #3, renames will be done by them, not local bureaucrats. --Bencmq (talk) 09:09, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

for point 1, if you don't own the SUL then there is no link between your local accounts. I believe this means that if you are Nemo_bis on 10 projects, with the SUL owned elsewhere, then you will be Nemo_bis~enwiki; Nemo_bis~enwiktionary, etc. - in other words you will now have 10 different names, one for each project. You will be able to request a rename here to have these all moved to a single name. QuiteUnusual (talk) 10:15, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

This is correct. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 15:40, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Replies:

1. "Clash" means you have a local account and someone else has a global account of the same name (in which case you will be renamed), or you have a local account on on wiki and someone else has one of the same name on another wiki (in which case one of you will be). This is the same meaning of "clash" that we've been using for six years now. :-)
2. It's not the place of the Foundation to tell the stewards and community at large how to use the tools we provide (except for legal/site stability reasons). I'm not going to make up a policy for the community.
3. I disagree, and the renames don't have to be done before this date. Again, it's not my place to tell the community how to run community account renaming.
4. There isn't a 5000 edit limit for this script; for global renames, that is a provisional limit to avoid over-loading the servers.

Hope this helps. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 15:40, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

1. Hm? I'm not aware of any established definition, links? Your definition doesn't answer the question, because we don't know what accounts will be automatically merged: usual example, how will User:Nemo look like after the automatical merges? How much time will there be before the forceful renames?
2. I didn't ask for policy but for tools. When will RenameUser stop being available to bureaucrats? When to stewards? When will the global rename be available and what will it be able to do? (Per bugzilla:14862#c36 the global rename will not help.)
3. Not true, after the forceful renames normal renames will be much harder and you said that at some point they will not be possible.
4. Yes and it's not written on the announcement. --Nemo 18:55, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Groups of clashing users - named the same or each independently?

Split subthread from section above

Why are checks for similar mail addresses [or passwords] not possible? If they fit, combine them. Cheers, —DerHexer (Talk) 17:33, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

If you have multiple local accounts with the same e-mail that only clash with each other or a global account with the same e-mail, those will be merged. For security reasons, we do not store the plaintext of your password anywhere, and because of "password salting" cannot compare their encrypted form, so we cannot do password-based merging of accounts. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 18:05, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

But if the global account A@enwiki clashes with the unattached A@dewiki and A@dewikisource which have both the same mail address, you won't combine A@dewiki and A@dewikisource to a new, second global account but will only rename them to A~dewiki and A~dewikisource so that this person has to request a merging in the aftermath? Cheers, —DerHexer (Talk) 23:17, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, yes (otherwise, we would spend a great deal of time trying to work out answers to "which of these would we pick?" and other questions that would still be dissatisfying to our users). Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 03:18, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Why? You'd just have to rename A@dewiki to A~dewiki@dewiki and A@dewikisource to A~dewiki@dewikisource and merge them: we'd have a working global account which can easily be renamed to whatever the user wants, leaving us to recover only accounts with different or no email set. --Nemo 08:01, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. That would minimize the number of requests by renamed accounts to be operable for stewards. Cheers, —DerHexer (Talk) 08:15, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

OK, we will group-merge renamed accounts (renaming each to your "home" wiki). Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 16:50, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Wonderful, this reduces the extent of the "clash" definition the other concerns. --Nemo 06:14, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Will you merge *all* formerly unattached and now renamed accounts to one global account or will you check whether they have been used by multiple persons and merge them to various global accounts, depending on the number of matching email addresses you have found? Cheers, —DerHexer (Talk) 22:16, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

We will only merge accounts if they have the same confirmed e-mail address (and the same name, of course) - there is no other basis for us to know that the user is the same. This means that if users haven't set an e-mail address they will get lots of different global accounts. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 22:40, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Forced usurpation?

Resolved.

Tell me if I have this right: suppose I have the SUL Wnt, but on the Laputian Wikiproject someone else has the name Wnt with 100,000 edits so I had to register as Wnt1 there for my one edit. After the rename, my accounts mostly remain Wnt, but on the Laputian server I'm Wnt1~lpwikipediawithmaybeacoupleofextrawordsthrownintomaketheusernamereallylongandannoying . And the Laputian Wnt is now Wnt~lpwikipediawithmaybeacoupleofextrawordsthrownintomaketheusernamereallylongandannoying . But I and only I have the power to log in as just plain Wnt, so probably the local admins will allow me to rename my new account to that. The net effect is that I've usurped the Laputian guy's username. This works even better if I've never contributed to the Laputian server since then I have nothing to merge and can just edit directly without worrying about it.

I saw something about "5000 edits" above but it isn't explained on the page - if there's a limit, I don't know how you practically implement it when there's only one User:Wnt the same for every project.

Regardless, it sounds like you should be contacting all the wikis and telling them, we've decided to override your usurpation policy with our own, so from now on, could you just approve all usurpations no matter what? That way at least they could handle the issue on their own for some accounts without having to send people for Meta renames afterward.

Did I get anything wrong there? Wnt (talk) 15:49, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

This is my understanding of it: You'd probably own the SUL for Wnt1 as well anyway. If you do, then you would end up with Wnt1 and Wnt, and the Laputan guy would end up with the account Wnt~lpwiki. If you don't, you'd end up with Wnt1~lpwiki (you) and Wnt~lpwiki (him). You will retain SUL "Wnt". He would then probably request a rename to something else, and get SUL for the new username. The 5000 edit limit does not apply to the script, according to Jdforrester's comment above in the bottom of the "Unclear passages and missing information: who clashes and what to do" section. Note that (almost) all wikis have been contacted about the SUL finalization. For example, xh:Wikipedia:Community_Portal#.5Ben.5D_Change_to_wiki_account_system_and_account_renaming. Hope this helps, but let's wait for James F to comment. PiRSquared17 (talk) 16:02, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

No, this is not right. If you already have the SUL account for your name, you will not lose it. The other "Wnt" would be renamed away from clashing with your existing global account. Your other accounts called "Wnt1" will (presumably) become a global account at that name too. It will be possible for you to get your "Wnt1" accounts moved to "Wnt" on their wikis, if the stewards agree. Sorry for the confusion. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 16:48, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

How is that different from what we said? PiRSquared17 (talk) 16:50, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

No need to beg local admins to 'let' you rename your global account; this will be done on meta by the stewards. There will be no 'usurpation policy' on local wikis any more. Also, Nemo's comments about 5000 edits maximum refer to a testing period for the global rename tool and are misleading and you should feel free to ignore them for the purposes of this discussion. :-) Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 16:55, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

As I understand it, local users won't even be able to rename anymore. So I guess what I wrote was correct? I just want to know if I understand this, it's not simple. PiRSquared17 (talk) 16:58, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

What you wrote was entirely right; I was replying to him, not you - sorry for the confusion. This is why we need Flow. :-) Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 17:08, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

The "test" will create a lot of disappointment when people will ask renames and they will be told it's not possible (that is, during the testing period, because the most active users will request renames first). The sooner they know about this limitation, and the fact that it's temporary (which wasn't said anywhere so far; all information we had suggested the contrary: permanent until found unnecessary), the better. --Nemo 06:09, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

The "information" you're going on is the status updates I've written about the tool as it's being developed, which all highlight that the 5000 edits limit is for the initial testing version, or people parroting that information, who are wrong. :-) Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 16:08, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

I certainly don't claim to have special sources of information! Of course any information other than that coming from you is potentially misleading, that's why I asked you to tell people about the initial limit of 5000 edits. ;-) --Nemo 21:33, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Existing links to renamed/usurped user pages

Resolved.

This came up in a section above, but I think it deserves its own section.

User:Foo has a SUL account, except on one wiki where someone else registered User:Foo first. After the forced rename of the local Foo to Foo~lcwiki, links to User:Foo, such as those in old talk page signatures, will point to the SUL account, not to the user page of the person actually meant.

Is this considered a problem worth fixing? Or is it just something that each wiki community will have to deal with on its own?

-- LtPowers (talk) 18:09, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

We can't go and retrospectively change people's comments (especially when some users will have made several thousand edits). We should expect users to do what is normally done when users are usurped - a little tag at the top of their user and user talk pages saying "I'm Foo, but another person used to be called Foo - they're now at User:Foo~enwikivoyage" or similar, at local discretion. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 18:49, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I asked about the same thing at Commons:Commons:Bots/Work requests#Links to renamed accounts. In my opinion, we should definitely update all links. Otherwise, it will be very messy, especially when an account has made thousands of edits. Some accounts are abandoned, and only users who are still active will be able to add notices to pages. --Stefan2 (talk) 18:52, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

On the other hand, as long as the user page is not recreated, following the red link one will see the log action for the rename. --Nemo 06:50, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

I would strongly counsel against editing all existing links. Quite apart from the beavy burden on the servers, this will lead to nonsense in what people have said ("Dear Foo, you will be renamed to Foo~commmons" -> "Dear Foo~commons, you will be renamed to Foo~commmons" or "Dear Foo, are you the same Foo as the one on meta?" -> "Dear Foo~commons, are you the same Foo~commons as the one on meta?"). Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 14:54, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Merging of multiple accounts?

Resolved.

I am en:User:B. As this name was already taken on Commons (and the user has an editing history and, as of November 2012, was an active user on de as de:User:Balû), I created Commons:User:UserB to be my Commons name (and my name on any wiki where B was taken). If I understand this correctly, Commons:User:B is going to be renamed to something else and I'm going to get a brand spankin' new Commons account with no contribution history. Is there going to be a way, instead of giving me a brand spankin' new account at Commons:User:B, to request that my Commons:User:UserB contribution history be moved to that name? (Note that I have asked a similar question at COM:BN.) Thanks. --B (talk) 15:23, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes. Your case is similar to that in the section #Forced usurpation?. UserB@commons can be renamed to B@commons once the current B@commons has been force-renamed to B~commons@commons. --MF-W 15:35, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Okay, so I should make that request after May 27 when everything goes into effect? Where do I make that request? Here or on the Commons renaming process? I was under the impression that local bureaucrats would no longer have the ability to rename users? Thanks. --B (talk) 15:46, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, after 27 May; here on meta (there won't be a Commons renaming process any more - instead it would be done as a special case by a steward). Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 16:10, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. --B (talk) 16:17, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

[In] May the forced B's with you. — Scott • talk 19:57, 3 May 2013 (UTC) (sorry)

See also en:Wikipedia:Unified login/Finalization. Cheers, —DerHexer (Talk) 16:40, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

German wikipedia import of history

Resolved.

Tracked in Phabricator:
Bug 7240

Hi,

German wikipedia tended to import history from other wikipedias (I'm not sure if they are still doing this) - which for attribution reasons is a good thing in general. However this creates problems with attribution when with unification of login there will be renames etc...

The example is: I'm global user:Niels. I made an edit to en:Exarchate of Ravenna in 2007 ([1]), but this is now attributed in de.wikipedia to de:user:Niels (a different person). When I look at his contribution list there are several of my contributions listed in de:Niels' list, because of imported history.

As finalisation of unified login will mean that de:User:Niels will be renamed to Niels~wikipedia.de - I'm wondering what will happen to the contributions I made that ended up in his contribution list? Although I do not feel strongly about a couple of misattributed contributions here and there - I do wonder if there are more (substantial) cases like this? Would be something to look at seriously, I think. Niels (talk) 23:37, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Import is not necessary for legal reasons since 2009 when we switched to CC-BY-SA and has always been a bad idea, causing more problems than it fixed, at least since then (but yes, of course they're still doing it).

That said, this problem has always existed, see bugzilla:7240. #Existing links to renamed/usurped user pages is somehow related. --Nemo 10:34, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

@Niels: I'm afraid that this is unfixable, so your contributions will be renamed along with the other user's actual edits on dewiki - sorry. This is why we have always said that Special:Import should not be used on production wikis until SUL finalisations was undertaken - my apologies that it has been so long that these incidences are somewhat commonplace.

@Nemo: The bug you link is tangential to this (it would only fix new incidences, not existing important), and will become irrelevant when SUL finalisation is complete (for WMF public wikis) anyway.

Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 14:51, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

You are not alone. For example, some of my edits have been credited to de:User:Stefan2. I'm not sure if that is legal even without renaming the conflicting user account as the "action=history" page links the user name to a user page which is clearly not mine.

Whether you need to use Special:Import or not is a matter for discussion. Without using Special:Import, lots of people aren't credited in the PDF files which you can create at Special:Book or from the "Download as PDF" link in the "Print/export" menu, and this is probably not legal. The PDF files do not contain any edit summaries, so there is no way to tell if a user is credited in an edit summary or not. --Stefan2 (talk) 21:08, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your answers. I just wanted to make sure that this potential problem was on "the radar" of people involved. As mentioned above I personally do not care that much, but there might be others that do. Niels (talk) 22:37, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Bans grandfathering and uniformity

Resolved.

What if a person has a username in a local wiki which is banned but has another username on a different local wiki which is not banned. How will this be resolved? Total ban on the whole Wikipedia? ALSO, does it mean that a ban in a local wiki will result in full ban across all wikis and projects? E.g. if I'm banned in Russian wikipedia, will it mean that I won't be able to edit English wiki, German wiki, wikivoyage, commons, etc.? Considering how some local wikis are run that's a HUGE concern. Leo711 (talk) 10:02, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

This is only about user names and doesn't have anything to do with blocks or bans. Blocks and bans are local unless you get a global ban. --Stefan2 (talk) 10:29, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I have two different usernames. Which one do I get?

Resolved.

I have a username in en:wiki and another one in ru:wiki. Which one will be changed? Leo711 (talk) 19:44, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't see an en.wiki username listed for you. Is it under a different name? MBisanz ^talk

Aparently, if I had two similar usernames in both wikis, I wouldn't be asking this question. :-) Leo711 (talk) 19:36, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

They both will become global accounts. But you should consider merging them under one global username which will ease your login, etc. Btw., what's your second username? Cheers, —DerHexer (Talk) 20:13, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

WHY?

Resolved.

Nobody seems to ask or be willing to explain, WHY is this being done? "as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users" doesn't really explain this radical change. And I don't remember any discussions or too many people demanding it. Would someone from this "developer team" care to explain why this sudden change? Leo711 (talk) 19:48, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

(Not a developer:)

(a) This is not "sudden" at all, having been understood as a necessity since as far back as 2005.

(b) Having a system that allows a crazy mish-mash of overlapping and clashing usernames on a variety of interoperating systems is a bad idea.

Does that help? — Scott • talk 20:47, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Not really. People have lived with "clashing usernames" for a decade and it worked just fine. This move creates a lot more problems with people being angry about their username suddenly being given to someone else who possibly has never even been to the wiki where "his" username is being used. I don't even know if MY username is used in, say, Italian wiki or Chechen wiki or somewhere else. And I'll be VERY upset if all of a sudden my username changes to some lame set of characters simply because someone somewhere is using my nick. I will also be upset if it works the other way - I don't want to usurp a good editor's username somewhere in Spain or Poland. BAD idea.

Interoperating systems sounds very strange - each wiki is actually on the same server running the same set of codes. Leo711 (talk) 19:43, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

It will allow implementing things like (these are just potential examples) global watchlists and global notifications in a clean way. Superm401 | Talk 05:19, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't like the sound of "watchlist". So much for "free" encyclopedia? Who is this watchlist going to watch? Global notifications is also a lame excuse. How many people you know who speak (and actively edit Wikipedia in) more than three languages? Leo711 (talk) 19:43, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

You use the watchlist, it doesn't use you (except in Soviet Russia). There are lots of people who edit multiple wikis. PiRSquared17 (talk) 19:52, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I was just going to delete the part about watchlist. I totally forgot about this feature. Soviet Russia has been out since 1924. Shouldn't have skipped the history class. :-)) And by "multiple" you mean how many? Two? Three? This change will open a HUGE can of nastiness that will last for the next decade of Wikipedia existence. Leo711 (talk) 19:58, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

See e.g., my stats for an example of someone who edits a lot of wikis. PiRSquared17 (talk) 20:00, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I hope this is a mis-wording

Resolved.

Apparently " user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis." This means that I (and all other users) will have to have 900 different logins. Please tell me that the wording was clumsy and that it really meant "a unique user account will apply across all 900 Wikimedia wikis" Tonywalton (talk) 23:39, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

It means that for instance, the username "Example" can not belong to two different people on two different WMF wikis. Instead, one unique "Example" (the person who ends up with this global username) will own it on all 900. This is the same as your latter quote. Superm401 | Talk 05:17, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Tonywalton, (s)he means yes, it's a miswording. :-D Leo711 (talk) 19:47, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

WHERE IS?

Resolved.

Where is my content; i.e., User Page, Watchlist, Contributions, etc., etc., etc.?!?!?! I've been around since 2006 and am not happy to find it all gone with a click of a button. JimScott (talk) 14:40, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Since this hasn't actually happened yet I'm not sure you are asking in the right place. If the problem is just here on meta I would try asking at Meta:Requests for help from a sysop or bureaucrat. I looked you up on en.Wikipedia and your userpage, contribs, etc are all still there. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:54, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Is this about Meta? If so, weird. You only have two edits (none deleted), and the only message on your talk page here, which was never deleted, is an automatic welcome from 2011‎. Do you mean on Wikipedia? Or is it under another username? PiRSquared17 (talk) 21:09, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

900 wikis? Really?

Resolved.

That's interesting. Rickyrab (talk) 17:33, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I wonder what they counted, too. :-)) About 200 official languages in the world, many of which are not even on Wikipedia yet. Meta, commons, voyage. What else? Leo711 (talk) 19:46, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Special:SiteMatrix. PiRSquared17 (talk) 19:49, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Complete list of Wikimedia projects —DerHexer (Talk) 20:09, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

HOW?

Resolved.

Imagine there are two Leo711's in this world. One in, say, Portuguese wiki and one, say, in English. Which one will get to keep his original username and which one will go home with his stupid Leo711~loser username? Leo711 (talk) 20:00, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

The one who owns the SUL account will "win". I recommend you go to Special:MergeAccount because your current account is not SUL. PiRSquared17 (talk) 20:08, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Will my username be changed?

Resolved.

How do I know whether my username will be changed? I have a unified account, I think. Does this mean I have nothing to worry about? Numbermaniac (talk) 22:23, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Numbermaniac is unified. You can check this at Special:Preferences (for your own account, "All in order"), or for anyone with Special:CentralAuth/Numbermaniac or sulutil:Numbermaniac. Your account will remain. PiRSquared17 (talk) 22:52, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Cool

Resolved.

I'm for it. I have a couple of random impersonators out there, from back before the single user stuff started. Good call, guys. Kafziel (talk) 21:33, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

process/steward knowledge of local naming policies

So, where and what is the process going to be for users that are blocked for a username violation and wish to change it? I get that the stewards will be responsible for this, but are they now to be expected to be familiar with the username policies of all WMF sites, or is there going to be some global policy, or what?

I ask because I would expect that this process is going to be flooded with users blocked from en.Wikipedia. I believe our username policy is one of the more involved and nuanced ones and most stewards are probably not familiar with it as up until this point it is not something they would be expected to know. We probably block an average of thirty to forty users every day for username issues, and about a dozen of them usually decide to ask for a rename. I would hate for us to block someone and then see them renamed with another username that does not fit the policy and have to go back and do it again. I also wouldn't want to distract the stewards from the important work they do with something we have up till now been handling locally, and conversely would not want "soft" blocked users to have to wait a week for something as simple as a username change if/when the process gets backlogged. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:55, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Also, currently we block such users but, in all but the most extreme cases, allow them to post an appeal proposing a new username. Should we just start sending them here, or should our local admins determine if the new name is permissible or not and then add a request here on their behalf? Beeblebrox (talk) 17:24, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Hmm the latter could be good if we want to reduce the workload on the stewards and allow local admins (who are more familiar with the username policy as you noted above) to assess a request. I'm not sure if this has been discussed elsewhere yet, it'd be good to see what stewards have to say. :-) Thehelpfulone 17:28, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi! At first, we are currently collecting Rename practices across wikis and have been working on a Global rename policy even longer. Both now are in our focus. Furthermore, I considered a similar process as Thehelpfulone's. Local communities might still have a place where local users can request global renames, e.g. in their native language, and a team of experienced sysops, crats, or someone else will forward the request to meta. Cheers, —DerHexer (Talk) 17:44, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Clearly the answer is to not have local user name policies that conflict with each other, given that user names have been global since 2008? Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 18:20, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I guess the problem is that some names are offensive in some languages, but normal in others. It would be nice to have a global username policy rather than a bunch of inconsistent ones, but I don't know what the communities would think of that. PiRSquared17 (talk) 18:26, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Well then, a first step would be "not allowed a user name that is offensive in any language in which you operate". But this isn't really the best venue to discuss this with the community. :-) Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 18:28, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

As an admin active in this type of work I can tell you that the vast majority of username blocks at en.WP are for names that represent a group or organization, not for being offensive. Our policy on the matter is here and I don't think it is right to suggest that we change it to fit with other WMF sites or that they change their policies to fit ours. Traditionally each site gets to make its own decisions about local policy, and the organization name policy has strong support from the community there. As the biggest project we attract the most spammers, many of whom have only a passing familiarity witht the English language or in some cases none at all. I don't see how a universal username policy is feasible given the different languages and cultures represented across the entire spectrum of WMF sites, and I really don't think any of us want such a policy foisted on us from above.

i would also like to know, since you mentioned it, if this is not the right place to discuss this, where should we discuss it? This seems like the natural place since this is where this change is announced and meta is where all renaming activity will be in the very near future. This change was is being made whether we like it or not. I accept that the WMF owns this site and has the right to do such things, but now it is up to the volunteers to figure out how it is actually supposed to work, since apparently not much thought has been given to that end of it, so "this is the wrong place, and just magically reconcile all the username policies" is not really the helpful input we need from the foundation right now. We have been given less than a month to work this out and set up new procedures to deal with this new reality. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:54, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

If you want to create a page like Username policies detailing the various username policies, feel free to. It could be like Rename practices. Not sure if this is what you want. Or you could start an RfC on it (preferably after analyzing the current situation). PiRSquared17 (talk) 00:00, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I would assume it's impossible to have a global naming policy; For example User:Jerker could be in violation to enwiki local naming policy, but it's also a normal Swedish name, and thus possibly highly appropriate on a Swedish wiki. AzaToth (talk) 20:30, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Normal English names, for example Jay Hater, can be a violation of the sometimes ridiculously applied enwiki local naming policy.[2][3] Thincat (talk) 14:26, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I think I understand this.

Resolved.

I read through the above and initiated the account unification process. Because I've only edited the English Wikipedia, I [think I] now have a unified account active there and now here, on Wikimedia. During the process, I was told my username was registered by others on the Spanish and Romanian Wikipedias. Neither of those users have made any contributions. Given that I speak only rudimentary Spanish and no Romanian, I have no interest in usurping those usernames, but I want to make certain I keep my username as-is after the big merge while theirs are presumably assigned the appropriate suffix. Have I done everything I need to do to ensure this? Thanks for your help. --Drasil (talk) 03:49, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes. In fact, ro:Special:Contributions/Drasil has made a few edits in 2007, but that won't matter since the global account is now yours, and existing global accounts will not be changed. --MF-W 03:57, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the speedy response and the assurance. I actually came back here to fix my malapropism--I see now this wiki is referred to as "Meta," not "Wikimedia" like the Foundation. I'm still new to areas outside Wikipedia. --Drasil (talk) 04:00, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Translation of forceful rename notifications

Resolved.

I assume those will be delivered localised? Easiest way is probably to add them to some MediaWiki extension (CentralAuth?) and translate them on translatewiki.net very quickly. --Nemo 22:50, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

We'll be translating them through the Translate extension on meta in the normal way. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 03:14, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

And then copy and paste to whatever tool you use to deliver the messages? It's a bit error prone with so many languages. Do you confirm that, if everything is translated, notified users won't receive a single string in English? It was opened at Single User Login finalisation announcement/Personal announcement, now we have to find translators. (Too bad we're not able to tell users what to do.) --Nemo 08:07, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

What the page does not say is how users that are being renamed will be notified that their names are being changed and what their names are being changed to. (Duh!) DWorley (talk) 15:29, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it does. Read the Single User Login finalisation announcement/Personal announcement. :-) Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 22:51, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Available period of the local renameuser.

Resolved.

When remove a renameuser ability from local bureaucrats? We need know it because we needed closure of the renameuser requesting page, and a change of local policies. Thanks.--Hosiryuhosi (talk) 18:47, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

On 27 May. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 19:35, 3 May 2013 (UTC) Some time in August. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 22:56, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

sysadmins will change an available period by this notice?--Hosiryuhosi (talk) 22:54, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, good spot. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 22:56, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

What about global groups, settings and bans?

Why don't you do it right and unify the whole user database, including settings, bans and groups? I would like to be able to change my settings globaly. Admin or banned accounts should be populated across all wikis. --Bachsau (talk) 15:58, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that this would create other problems. For example, it looks confusing if the Mediawiki interface uses one language whereas the pages on the project use another language, but not all Mediawiki projects use the same language, so it needs to remain possible to set the interface language to different values on different projects. --Stefan2 (talk) 19:04, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

That makes sense, but if I don't speak a language good enough to contribute but do some maintenance work, I don't want the whole interface to be in that language. On most projects I prefer my native language setting. But language setting may be a bad example. What about sex? I can't / shouldn't be male on one and female on another project. I don't want to disable the "users can send me email setting on every wiki I log into. I also want to use my local timezone on every project. --Bachsau (talk) 18:37, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Just because someone is blocked (or "banned") or is an admin on one wiki doesn't mean they should be on all others. There are lots of users who are blocked on one wiki but contribute constructively to others. In cases of continued abuse to multiple projects, global locks (for accounts) and global blocks (for IPs) should be applied. The WMF also made a policy about global bans, but I don't think there are actually (m)any examples of this yet. Stewards (and, to a much lesser extent, on only some wikis, global sysops) are trusted like global admins, although they only act in certain cases where local users cannot. There are actually users who are admins on some projects but are banned on others. PiRSquared17 (talk) 20:21, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

If someone behaved that bad he was blocked from a project, it is in question if he deserves the trust of being admin somewhere else or if the block is justified. --Bachsau (talk) 18:37, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

This work is a necessary pre-condition for global settings to work for everyone (indeed, it's one of the things we want to do that we're waiting on this for). Global and local bans are already handled using the partial system, as noted, though this will assist in some ways. There is lots of scope for better global usability once this is done, I agree. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 23:14, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Two SUL accounts

Will it possible to merge two SUL accounts after finalization? --DixonD (talk) 08:17, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

It will be possible to move a local account from one SUL account to another, but it will be tedious. We might provide a tool to let stewards merge SUL accounts in longer time. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 23:01, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

SUL usurpation?

I have a rather practical question: is it possible now to usurp an inactive SUL and will it be possible later? Real situation: user A requests to rename his active local account to A2013, however, there is an auto-created SUL with only one account and 0 edits under the name Z2013. Will the renamed user A be able to usurp this SUL, or he will be renamed to A2013~zzwiki and an inactive SUL owner will keep his SUL? — NickK (talk) 00:19, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

To achieve this, you will have to ask the stewards to delete their SUL account, move their local accounts, and move yours over them. This is an unusual request, but not unheard of. See Steward requests/Username changes. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 23:02, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Multiple Accounts Colliding?

My local Commons account (a different name from my SUL account) seems to have recently become a global account. This is causing conflicts with logins: logging in to Commons causes my English Wikipedia login to take the same name as Commons, even though it's not a real account (or wasn't before). Conversely, logging in to enwiki logs me out of Commons. Interestingly, it doesn't happen if I use different web browsers, I'm guessing because of cookies. I've had separate usernames because a Commons user took my username first, though he has only a single major contribution back in 2007. Is this going to work itself out somehow? Will I be able to usurp the Commons user with my SUL username? Sorry if this is repetitive with other people's questions. Still trying to make sense of it. Fletcher (talk) 02:00, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, if you log in to one project with a global account, you automatically get logged in on (nearly) every project you visit. However because the "Fletcher" account on Commons is not attached to the global account, you get logged out on Commons when logged in to that global account. See commons:COM:USURP for their usurpation policy & request page; you can try to already get the account usurped. If you don't get that now, the SUL finalization (in August or so) will rename the unattached account on Commons by force, so that you can then log in there with your global account. --MF-W 02:41, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

If you can't usurp the Commons account, then you could also try disabling third-party cookies in your browser. That way, you won't be logged in automatically to projects under a different domain name. If you log in at a wikipedia.org project, then you will only be logged in at wikipedia.org projects but not at wikimedia.org projects, and vice versa. This also allows you to be logged in under one name for wikipedia.org projects and under another name for wikimedia.org projects. --Stefan2 (talk) 12:01, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Actually, with the way most browsers' blocking of third-party cookies works, the cookie would be allowed since Fletcher has visited commons.wikimedia.org before. And we're currently working on changes to work around the third-party cookie situation in general (e.g. if you visit a WMF wiki while logged out, a CORS request to a new "central login wiki" will attempt to fetch the information necessary to automatically log you in). See mw:Auth systems/SUL2 for details. BJorsch (WMF) (talk) 13:27, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Hm, mw:Auth systems/SUL2 looks a bit problematic. Currently, I've set my web browsers to block third-party cookies completely (not only for sites I've not visited but also for sites I've previously visited) so that I can be logged in under one user name on Commons and under another user name on Wikipedia, but it seems that mw:Auth systems/SUL2 is going to prevent that. --Stefan2 (talk) 13:50, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Better NAMES - give the poor bastards a break!

If you're doing this thing, can you please consider not exiling people to crappy names like Refugee~enwiki? I mean, it's hard to type, it's ugly to read through - it seems chosen as a means of not so gently forcing the user to rename himself, yet from what I see he won't be allowed to, at least not right away. How about Refugee1, if it's not taken, or Refugee2 if it is? Or at least Refugee-en, without the hard-to-type tilde in it, which is a punishment not just to the user but to everybody typing his name on a discussion page.

I get that you want to have a different suffix for each of 900 different wikis, because you apparently don't have any way set up for people without SULs due to conflict to at least tie their accounts to one another before this happens. (If they had long enough the local Wiki admins could direct each and every one to rename their accounts to a unique global identifier before the merge, and nothing would happen that day) Still, the common accounts, i.e. Wikipedias, should get short suffixes, like -en, -ru and so forth. And any idiot ought to be able to come up with a way to use 26x26x26=17576 possibilities among three letters to encode 900 wikis, so -ens, -enw, -enm, -enc etc. should suffice for Source, Wiktionary, Meta, Commons and so forth. I know the difference between -en and ~enwiki doesn't sound like much, but once you're looking at a big discussion page full of usernames with that in blue at the end which all seem to run together it's going to seem like a big deal. Wnt (talk) 16:31, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

That would be giving Wikipedias an advantage over other projects. Why should Meta be -enm or Commons -enc? They're multilingual. PiRSquared17 (talk) 19:28, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Duh, yeah, you're right! Just -m and -c would work for those! Wnt (talk) 22:43, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Translation of email confirmation request

Pgehres let us know that global accounts with clashing local accounts with get emails to let them merge all they can, to reduce the number of users to be renamed. There aren't many translations though[4]; you can translate the two messages on translatewiki.net. --Nemo 23:11, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Centralauth-finishglobaliseemail subject should probably also be translated. --Stefan2 (talk) 00:29, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

It's what I linked. :) --Nemo 19:28, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

No. You linked to the body whereas I linked to the subject. --Stefan2 (talk) 07:54, 2 June 2013 (UTC)