== Negotiation for consent == Would it be possible to let the conflicting users to resolve the conflict by themselves, not by the decision of the automatic system using edit-count? The renaming of username will be made on their consent.
Example,
1. user123@fr.wikipedia and user123@ja.wikipedia is owned by different person, Mr. A and Mr. B. 2. user123@fr.wikipedia and user123@ja.wikipedia will talk together to make the final agreement that who will own the user name user123, and who will be renamed. 3. If the final agreement is that Mr. A will own user123, then Mr. B will, by himself, rename all of user123 username that he currently possess.
4. If they can't find any final agreement, then user123 will never be merged forever, or until they can make the agreement in anytime later. The conflicting status will be held until they can make the agreement.
5. In the case that Mr. B is an inactive user that Mr. A can't even contact to discuss for the agreement, there will be some expire time (may be one year) that, if Mr. B not response before this expire time, user123 of Mr. B will be forced to be renamed. 5.1 There will be some mechanism to let Mr. B to leave a message that he agree for his user to be renamed or not. 5.2 If Mr. B leave the message "not agree", he must talk to Mr. A until they meet the same agreement. 5.3 If Mr. B not leave the message before the expire time, Mr. A can force renaming of Mr. B account.
== Unify by language == Apart from the above solution, I would like to purpose the less conflict solution. To merge the user accounts by language.
Example,
* user123 on fr.wikipedia.org, fr.wiktionary.org, fr.wikibooks.org, fr.wik*.org will be merged * user123 on ja.wikipedia.org, ja.wiktionary.org, ja.wikibooks.org, ja.wik*.org will be merged * user123 on fr.wikipedia.org and ja.wikipedia.org won't be merged, so that user123@fr.* and user123@ja.* will be separated.
1. This will make much less conflict than unifying all language. 1.1 Most conflicts in non-english wiki is the conflicting of user between diffenrent language. 1.2 Even on the first-come-first-serve (FCFS) basis, this still result in few conflict. While it look very unreasonable when the first registered user will suddenly gain control for wikis on all languages, it is more reansonble when FCFS is used only among the same language, since it cover not too much wiki websites.
2. Most users will not be likely to actively edit non-trivial contents in more than one or two languages. And it does not take too much energy for one person to maintain their user account/preference/watchlist in only two or three languages. 3. Most users will tend to agree to loss their username (if conflict with others) on their non-primary language that they not actively edit or contribute only trivial contents.
4. Even the new registered user (after this unify) will only get the accounts of the same username on wikis of the same language. They will not get accounts on all languages. Why let FCFS users to reserve the control on wikis of hundred languages that most of them are unlikely to edit or taking any attention? Unifying all languages is an overuse.
=== Account in wiki commons === The only problem is that, wiki commons will be merged with which language? * commons --> en.*, fr.*, ja.* ? * Let the person who own user account on commons to choose the language that will be merged with commons? * Or the person on the language with most edit-count will get username on commons? * Or let the users to negotiage for the agreement by themselves?
== Public hearing == However, until now, why not have any poll, or any public hearing, about this topic, from wikipedia community?
Message: 2 Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 09:17:00 -0400 From: "Jay R. Ashworth" jra@baylink.com Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Primary account for single user login To: wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 20071015131700.GB21934@cgi.jachomes.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
On Sun, Oct 14, 2007 at 10:54:36PM +0100, Thomas Dalton wrote:
How about we do away with usernames altogether and just give everyone numbers? Works for the Borg...
Could I have 7 of 9?
Cheers,
-- jra
Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com '87 e24 St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274
Message: 3 Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 12:37:01 -0400 From: Anthony wikimail@inbox.org Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Primary account for single user login To: "Wikimedia developers" wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 71cd4dd90710150937m133e45e0hea9828d8f7ff08cc@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
On 10/12/07, Rob Church robchur@gmail.com wrote:
I have noticed a worrying trend where members of the community are leaping up and saying, "well, it should be done like this, not like that", which is a discussion that should have been held several years ago.
The thing is, the discussion *was* had several years ago. See the thread entitled "Single login - decision 2004" on foundation-l. And it seems that most people discussing it there, including Erik, Jimbo, Jamesday, Kate, and Daniel Mayer, said that they'd prefer not to rename any accounts.
Angela and Ant commented that they'd like for there to be a poll. AFAIK there never was such a poll.
Message: 4 Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 18:39:05 +0100 From: "Thomas Dalton" thomas.dalton@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Primary account for single user login To: "Wikimedia developers" wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: a4359dff0710151039k67013bd2yb12de9ecc5e3c817@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
The thing is, the discussion *was* had several years ago. See the thread entitled "Single login - decision 2004" on foundation-l. And it seems that most people discussing it there, including Erik, Jimbo, Jamesday, Kate, and Daniel Mayer, said that they'd prefer not to rename any accounts.
Angela and Ant commented that they'd like for there to be a poll. AFAIK there never was such a poll.
You can't do it without renaming accounts. It would be pointless. Why have a single account per person if they all have different names? It's not really even a single account, since accounts are pretty much defined by their names (yes, there is a numerical id in the database, but only developers care about it - and I don't think that id would be the same anyway).
You can only have a poll if there are multiple options. Edit counts is the only option I've seen anyone propose that stands a chance of working.
Message: 5 Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 13:07:01 -0600 From: Daniel Cannon cannon.danielc@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Primary account for single user login To: Wikimedia developers wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 4713BA55.3030407@gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
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Anon Sricharoenchai wrote:
According to the conflict resolution process, that the account with most edits is selected as a primary account for that username, this may sound reasonable for the username that is owned by the same person on all wikimedia sites.
But the problem will come when the same username on those wikimedia sites is owned by different person and they are actively in used.
One point worth considering: Active users will, in the vast majority of cases, specify an e-mail address for their account. If these are two different, yet equivocally active users, even with the same username, they will most likely specify unique e-mail addresses. As such, and correct me if this has changed, the accounts will not be merged and treated as the same account, at least not without contacting both users first to find a resolution. If they have not specified an e-mail address, then either the accounts will not be merged or, if the accounts are eventually merged, the users will be more than capable of contacting Brion or another member of Wikimedia's technical staff to work out a resolution.
The active account that has registered first (seniority rule) should rather be considered the primary account. Since, I think the person who register first should own that username on the unified wikimedia sites.
This approach seems even more arbitrary than the edit-count approach. Consider that almost every Wikimedia project has a User:I They are most likely *all* different individuals. Why should the first registered User:I suddenly contain control and attribution for all of the other User:I's out there?
Naturally, the editcount approach does not present a much better solution to this problem, but since almost User:I's except for the one on enwiki have been virtually deceased, it seems appropriate for enwiki's User:I to be User:I on all projects. The conflict practically fails to exist if the other User:I's have specified e-mail addresses, as they can then be contacted to work out a resolution.
Imagine, what if the wikimedia sites have been unified ever since the sites are first established long time ago (that their accounts have never been separated), the person who register first will own that username on all of the wikimedia sites.
Idealism is a nice world to live in. Unfortunately nothing about SUL is ideal. It's taking nearly a decade worth of history on hundreds (if not now thousands) of sites, containing an uncountable number of conflicts and questions about who is who and what is what, and attempting to glue them together in to one unified Wikimedia. Regardless of what approach is taken, this is going to be messy and cause a lot of headaches. Thus, the approach that is the most likely to minimize these headaches and this mess, namely the editcount-based solution, has been chosen.
The person who come after will be unable to use the registered username, and have to choose their alternate username. This logic should also apply on current wikimedia sites, after it have been unified.
And the detriment of a quite inactive user who did not even feel the need to specify an e-mail address now having to go by a different username is ...? Naturally, accreditation issues can be quite easily resolved by developers, and no user is going to be revoked of his technical rights incorrectly nor is another user going to suddenly obtain ungranted rights on any project. As such, I fail to see what the real concern here is.
Daniel Cannon (AmiDaniel)
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Message: 6 Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 15:45:36 -0400 From: Anthony wikimail@inbox.org Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Primary account for single user login To: "Wikimedia developers" wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 71cd4dd90710151245s386ef599n3c4cab8b81b79797@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
On 10/15/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
The thing is, the discussion *was* had several years ago. See the thread entitled "Single login - decision 2004" on foundation-l. And it seems that most people discussing it there, including Erik, Jimbo, Jamesday, Kate, and Daniel Mayer, said that they'd prefer not to rename any accounts.
Angela and Ant commented that they'd like for there to be a poll. AFAIK there never was such a poll.
You can't do it without renaming accounts.
Depends on what it is you're doing.
It would be pointless. Why have a single account per person if they all have different names?
Presumably at some point (maybe decades from now at the current rate) there are going to be shared preferences, shared watchlists, maybe even single sign on. In fact, until Single User Login was redefined to mean renaming of accounts, the whole point of it was supposed to be to prepare for these sorts of things.
You can only have a poll if there are multiple options. Edit counts is the only option I've seen anyone propose that stands a chance of working.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Single_login_poll
All three options would work.