Is there a way to link up the username IDs which are included in the output with the actual usernames?
Thank you so much!
Is there a way to link up the username IDs which are included in the output with the actual usernames?
Not at the moment. We have both in our database and could display either one. Or we could display the user Id on the /cohort#YourCohort page, alongside the name. Or both. These changes would be easy to make, just let us know how you'd like it and give us some time to make sure it's ok with everyone else.
On Tue, Oct 15, 2013 at 11:10 AM, Jessie Wild jwild@wikimedia.org wrote:
Is there a way to link up the username IDs which are included in the output with the actual usernames?
Thank you so much!
If you need to quickly look up a username associated with an id, Special:Redirect exists on all wikis.
If you need to quickly look up a username associated with an
id, Special:Redirect exists on all wikis.
Cool! In case people don't know what Steven's talking about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Redirect
Sweet! thanks for the lookup tool
The chapter leaders at Iberoconf told me that they would prefer to just see the usernames as the default. I suppose we could have the actual usernames be an "opt-in," and the user_id to be the default? (I actually can't remember the rationale behind user_ids in the first place, so if someone has specific points around this, please share!)
On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 12:53 PM, Dan Andreescu dandreescu@wikimedia.orgwrote:
If you need to quickly look up a username associated with an
id, Special:Redirect exists on all wikis.
Cool! In case people don't know what Steven's talking about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Redirect
Analytics mailing list Analytics@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
UserMetrics used to return user IDs (the rationale is that in Product we may use the output of a request for further analysis, and that's what user IDs are good for) and Wikimetrics just followed the same implementation.
The existing metric cards in Mingle have "username" as a requirement for the individual output on top of user ID (see [1]). I think this should be captured as a separate card that would apply to all metrics: I agree it would be useful to have the username added by default (no need to make it opt in or opt out as it's strictly equivalent to a user ID).
Dario
[1] https://mingle.corp.wikimedia.org/projects/analytics/cards/701
On Oct 16, 2013, at 11:36 AM, Jessie Wild jwild@wikimedia.org wrote:
Sweet! thanks for the lookup tool
The chapter leaders at Iberoconf told me that they would prefer to just see the usernames as the default. I suppose we could have the actual usernames be an "opt-in," and the user_id to be the default? (I actually can't remember the rationale behind user_ids in the first place, so if someone has specific points around this, please share!)
On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 12:53 PM, Dan Andreescu dandreescu@wikimedia.org wrote: If you need to quickly look up a username associated with an id, Special:Redirect exists on all wikis.
Cool! In case people don't know what Steven's talking about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Redirect
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Now I remember. I was using username in the first prototype and Jaime identified that as a problem. I can't remember if it was for privacy or legal reasons, but I've cc-ed her personally so she can chime in.
On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 2:58 PM, Dario Taraborelli < dtaraborelli@wikimedia.org> wrote:
UserMetrics used to return user IDs (the rationale is that in Product we may use the output of a request for further analysis, and that's what user IDs are good for) and Wikimetrics just followed the same implementation.
The existing metric cards in Mingle have "username" as a requirement for the individual output on top of user ID (see [1]). I think this should be captured as a separate card that would apply to all metrics: I agree it would be useful to have the username added by default (no need to make it opt in or opt out as it's strictly equivalent to a user ID).
Dario
[1] https://mingle.corp.wikimedia.org/projects/analytics/cards/701
On Oct 16, 2013, at 11:36 AM, Jessie Wild jwild@wikimedia.org wrote:
Sweet! thanks for the lookup tool
The chapter leaders at Iberoconf told me that they would prefer to just see the usernames as the default. I suppose we could have the actual usernames be an "opt-in," and the user_id to be the default? (I actually can't remember the rationale behind user_ids in the first place, so if someone has specific points around this, please share!)
On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 12:53 PM, Dan Andreescu dandreescu@wikimedia.orgwrote:
If you need to quickly look up a username associated with an
id, Special:Redirect exists on all wikis.
Cool! In case people don't know what Steven's talking about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Redirect
Analytics mailing list Analytics@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
-- *Jessie Wild Grantmaking Learning & Evaluation * *Wikimedia Foundation*
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! Donate to Wikimedia https://donate.wikimedia.org/ _______________________________________________ Analytics mailing list Analytics@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
Analytics mailing list Analytics@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
It was actually legal that identified it as a problem, but I think that is being handled by good faith in people not releasing/pubishing cohort membership of any individual level data with identifiers. Many program leaders will be able to match different data points by user name also whereas most do not know what to do with the IDs (which made the IDs a bit more private) - Jaime.
On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 1:59 PM, Jaime Anstee janstee@wikimedia.org wrote:
It was actually legal that identified it as a problem, but I think that is being handled by good faith in people not releasing/pubishing cohort membership of any individual level data with identifiers. Many program leaders will be able to match different data points by user name also whereas most do not know what to do with the IDs (which made the IDs a bit more private) - Jaime.
If any person has access to user ids you should assume they also have access to usernames. Both are public information. Assuming numeric ids are more private is security through obscurity.
On Oct 16, 2013 11:23 PM, "Steven Walling" swalling@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 1:59 PM, Jaime Anstee janstee@wikimedia.org
wrote:
It was actually legal that identified it as a problem, but I think that
is being handled by good faith in people not releasing/pubishing cohort membership of any individual level data with identifiers. Many program leaders will be able to match different data points by user name also whereas most do not know what to do with the IDs (which made the IDs a bit more private) - Jaime.
If any person has access to user ids you should assume they also have
access to usernames. Both are public information. Assuming numeric ids are more private is security through obscurity.
I agree. And in this case the obscurity is really weak, we even provide the lookup tool.
/Jan
-- Steven Walling, Product Manager https://wikimediafoundation.org/
Analytics mailing list Analytics@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
I fully agree with this reasoning and I believe that was my initial response as well. Legal, as far as I know, favored the tiny amount of security through obscurity. As I said, with an ok from legal, I would be happy to allow either output style.
On Wednesday, October 16, 2013, Jan Ainali wrote:
On Oct 16, 2013 11:23 PM, "Steven Walling" <swalling@wikimedia.org<javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'swalling@wikimedia.org');>> wrote:
On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 1:59 PM, Jaime Anstee <janstee@wikimedia.org<javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'janstee@wikimedia.org');>>
wrote:
It was actually legal that identified it as a problem, but I think that
is being handled by good faith in people not releasing/pubishing cohort membership of any individual level data with identifiers. Many program leaders will be able to match different data points by user name also whereas most do not know what to do with the IDs (which made the IDs a bit more private) - Jaime.
If any person has access to user ids you should assume they also have
access to usernames. Both are public information. Assuming numeric ids are more private is security through obscurity.
I agree. And in this case the obscurity is really weak, we even provide the lookup tool.
/Jan
-- Steven Walling, Product Manager https://wikimediafoundation.org/
Analytics mailing list Analytics@lists.wikimedia.org <javascript:_e({}, 'cvml',
'Analytics@lists.wikimedia.org');>
On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 8:37 PM, Dan Andreescu dandreescu@wikimedia.orgwrote:
Legal, as far as I know, favored the tiny amount of security through obscurity.
I think that's a bit of a misrepresentation of our position, but I don't really have time to respond in depth right now.
Luis
On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 10:13 PM, Luis Villa lvilla@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 8:37 PM, Dan Andreescu dandreescu@wikimedia.orgwrote:
Legal, as far as I know, favored the tiny amount of security through obscurity.
I think that's a bit of a misrepresentation of our position, but I don't really have time to respond in depth right now.
After reading through the thread, I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt and say simply that there was a misunderstanding here. There are a lot of deeply problematic issues with wikimetrics, but the idea that we'd try to stop this "feature" is nuts - pretending that it solves anything would be a distraction from the actual, more serious problems that legal has identified. There are enough things to blame us for already; please don't add more we're not responsible for. :)
Thanks- Luis
On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 10:20 PM, Luis Villa lvilla@wikimedia.org wrote:
After reading through the thread, I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt and say simply that there was a misunderstanding here. There are a lot of deeply problematic issues with wikimetrics, but the idea that we'd try to stop this "feature" is nuts - pretending that it solves anything would be a distraction from the actual, more serious problems that legal has identified. There are enough things to blame us for already; please don't add more we're not responsible for. :)
I think that's entirely fair.
It's a complicated situation, because we made this tool originally for users who had mostly signed contracts or employment agreements, who are legally bound to not only not reveal private data they have access to, and who are usually diligent about not being creepy with public data. Giving access to such a tool to the public is harder, and has the same potential pitfalls as basically all of Labs.
After reading through the thread, I'm going to give the benefit of the
doubt and say simply that there was a misunderstanding here. There are a lot of deeply problematic issues with wikimetrics, but the idea that we'd try to stop this "feature" is nuts - pretending that it solves anything would be a distraction from the actual, more serious problems that legal has identified. There are enough things to blame us for already; please don't add more we're not responsible for. :)
I sincerely apologize if what I said sounded like blame. I did not intend to blame anyone, but I was careless with my language and lack of research into past notes and discussions. What I should have said is:
If this is not a concern for legal or anyone else, I can easily show usernames instead of user ids. Just let me know and it'll be done in a few minutes.
Please accept my apologies Luis, I personally do not find legal issues an inconvenience by any stretch of imagination. This is why it's troubling to hear you say "There are a lot of deeply problematic issues with wikimetrics". I was under a completely different impression so I'd like to resolve any issues with top priority. If you've already communicated these to Diederik and/or Toby, I'll find out from them. Otherwise, please let us know as soon as you can.
Dan
On Thu, Oct 17, 2013 at 11:46 AM, Dan Andreescu dandreescu@wikimedia.orgwrote:
After reading through the thread, I'm going to give the benefit of the
doubt and say simply that there was a misunderstanding here. There are a lot of deeply problematic issues with wikimetrics, but the idea that we'd try to stop this "feature" is nuts - pretending that it solves anything would be a distraction from the actual, more serious problems that legal has identified. There are enough things to blame us for already; please don't add more we're not responsible for. :)
I sincerely apologize if what I said sounded like blame. I did not intend to blame anyone, but I was careless with my language and lack of research into past notes and discussions. What I should have said is:
If this is not a concern for legal or anyone else, I can easily show usernames instead of user ids. Just let me know and it'll be done in a few minutes.
Please accept my apologies Luis, I personally do not find legal issues an inconvenience by any stretch of imagination. This is why it's troubling to hear you say "There are a lot of deeply problematic issues with wikimetrics". I was under a completely different impression so I'd like to resolve any issues with top priority. If you've already communicated these to Diederik and/or Toby, I'll find out from them. Otherwise, please let us know as soon as you can.
No apology necessary, Dan; if anything, I should be apologizing to you for being quick on the trigger last night. I do appreciate the effort everyone has been making to make User Metrics as privacy-sensitive as possible, given difficult design constraints and feature requests :)
Definitely think it is fine to add this feature.
Luis
On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 10:20 PM, Luis Villa lvilla@wikimedia.org wrote:
pretending that it solves anything would be a distraction from the actual, more serious problems that legal has identified.
Hey, folks, since this was sort of tossed off quickly, and several people have asked me about this statement off-list, let me clarify:
There is no legal problem with Wikimetrics, the tool.
There are *potential* problems with usage of Wikimetrics to create and monitor cohorts that reflect real-world data; i.e., that such and such a person attended a specific event at a specific time, or that such and such a person is of a specific political or sexual orientation (e.g., they attended an LGBT editathon), or so on and so forth. Using that sort of data to create cohorts can accidentally expose data that wasn't previously collected/made public, and is potentially problematic. (There may also be other potentially oddball uses, especially when the cohort size is very small, but that's the easiest-to-grasp example.)
The solution there isn't to condemn the tool, and that wasn't my intent; the solution is simply for all of us to be careful about what information we're collecting and feeding to it, especially if that information isn't passing through our normal checks and balances.
Hope that helps clarify- Luis
On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 9:22 PM, Steven Walling swalling@wikimedia.org wrote:
If any person has access to user ids you should assume they also have access to usernames. Both are public information. Assuming numeric ids are more private is security through obscurity.
+1
-Jeremy