brion(a)svn.wikimedia.org wrote:
Revision: 35451
Author: brion
Date: 2008-05-27 23:46:55 +0000 (Tue, 27 May 2008)
Log Message:
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Add $wgCentralAuthCreateOnView config var to control the autocreation on page view for
global sessions.
It's a bit annoying at the moment; clogging logs and freaking people out as they gain
accounts without realizing they're visiting various sites, such as CSS and JS pulled
from shared sites.
Would strongly prefer to reduce this to active behaviors at this time (edit, login,
etc).
If it "clogs logs", then fix the logs. I don't buy these hand-wavy
arguments about it being "scary" or "active" or whatever.
You're introducing a concept of local account creation to the user which
I'd like to hide as much as possible. This is meant to be a central
account system. The idea of logging in once causing you to be logged in
everywhere is a simple one from the user perspective, but has been made
technically complex by the choice of architecture in CentralAuth.
Because of this architecture, we need to create a local user_id for each
user in order for them to appear to be logged in on a wiki. This is not
necessary in other implementations.
The reason the action is logged is because creation of a local user ID
has been conflated with access control and trusted user verification in
the MediaWiki core. But we don't have to expose this architectural
tragedy to everyone who logs in to the site, we only need to expose it
to people who are blocked from account creation, and to people
interested in creating blocks.
I think the user absolutely should be logged in on page view. When they
have a global account, they should see their name in the header wherever
they go. Their preferences, such as interface language, should be
immediately respected. They'll be freaked out because it'll be so great
and they won't believe we could make a login system that works so well.
-- Tim Starling