Brion Vibber, who may be me, wrote:
Before we go tearing our hair out, we should probably actually *check* to see how many duplicate names we've got to deal with.
If the number is quite small, which I expect it is, conflicts could simply be resolved by (consensually) renaming a few accounts.
Okay, I ran a little script to check over the user tables and spit out names that are registered on multiple wikis which don't all match in either e-mail address or password. I haven't yet checked any of the accounts for activity, nor have I visually checked the e-mail addresses for signs of similarity, nor their user pages. Certainly there are plenty on the list that do belong to the same person. :)
False matches (can follow a chain between matching emails and password hashes but the script didn't catch them): [2] Den fjättrade ankan (da,de,sv,en) Luca Masters (da,de,eo,es,fr,nl,pl,sv,en)
Partial matches: [30] A (de,ja,pl) -- match: de,pl -- out: ja Abc (pl,sv,en) -- match: sv,en -- out: pl Alex (de,fr,nl,sv,en) -- match: sv,en -- out: de,fr,nl Alvaro (meta,da,de,es,fr,nl,pl,sv,en) -- match: meta,de,es,sv,en -- match: nl,pl,da -- out: fr Aoineko (meta,es,fr,ja) -- match: es,ja -- match: meta,fr Brion VIBBER (meta,sep11,cs,da,de,eo,es,fr,ja,ko,ms,nl,pl,ru,tr,zh,sv,en,he,hu,hi,sl) -- hehe, i let one or two get out of sync :) Calimero (nl,sv,en) -- match: sv, en -- out: nl Chd (meta,de,eo,es,fr) -- match: meta,eo,es,fr -- out: de Dexter (de,sv,en) -- match: sv,en -- out: de Emma (fr,sv,en) -- match: sv,en -- out: fr Folken (fr,sv,en) -- match: sv,en -- out: fr Fono (de,es,pl) -- match: es,pl -- out: de Hannes (de,sv,en) -- match: sv,en -- out: de Harald (nl,sv,en) -- match: sv,en -- out: nl JohnOwens (meta,de,ru) -- match: de,ru -- out: meta Kils (da,de,es,pl,sv,en) -- match: da,de,pl,sv,en -- out: es Mm (meta,fr,ru) -- match: meta,fr -- out: ru Pelle (de,sv,en) -- match: sv,en -- out: de Sakura (ja,sv,en) -- match: sv,en -- out: ja Samuel (eo,es,fr,ja,zh) -- match: eo,fr,ja,zh -- out: es Stefan (de,sv,en) -- match: sv,en -- out: de Stevertigo (meta,sep11,es,ar) -- match: meta,sep11,es -- out: ar Taw (meta,de,eo,fr,ja,pl) -- match: meta,de,eo,fr,ja -- out: pl TeunSpaans (meta,de,nl) -- match: de,nl -- out: meta Topory (de,es,fr,nl,pl,sv,en) -- match: de,es,fr,nl,sv,en -- out: pl Tor (pl,sv,en) -- match: sv,en -- out: pl Unukorno (de,eo,nl) -- all match Willy (meta,de,es,nl) -- match: meta,es -- out: de,nl WojPob (meta,de,pl) -- match: de,pl -- out: meta Youssefsan (meta,de,eo,es,fr,ja,nl,pl,ru) -- match: meta,de,eo,es,ja,nl,pl,ru -- out: fr
No two can be found to match: [98] AGiss (meta,fr) Aaa (de,pl) Aki (de,ja) Al (de,fr) Alberto (es,fr) Albin (de,fr) Alexx (de,fr) Ana (es,pl) Andres (de,es) Angel (es,zh) Anna (es,pl) Antonio (eo,es) Arno (meta,fr) Axel (da,de) Barbara (es,pl) Baruch (es,nl) Basil (meta,de) Ben (de,fr) Beyer (da,de) Boud (fr,pl) Cezar (eo,pl) Chris (de,fr) Chuck Smith (meta,de) Cicero (de,nl) Cyril (eo,fr) Daniel (de,bs) Dave (de,fr) Dug (de,pl) Eddy (eo,es,nl) Erich Nohe (de,es) Flo (de,fr) Flor (de,es) Frank (de,ja,nl,zh) Fritz (de,nl) General Wesc (meta,es) Geralmor (meta,es) Hannibal (fr,pl) Hans (da,de,es) Iris (de,nl) James (meta,es) Jerry (fr,pl) Jim (meta,de) Jojo (de,nl) Joselo (es,fr) Juan (es,ja) Jul (meta,fr) Julian (de,es) Kale (de,nl) Kid (de,es) Kriss (fr,pl) Laura (es,pl) Leonardo (de,es) Leonidas (de,es) Lila (de,pl) Lucas (es,nl) M (pl,ru) Marc (de,fr,nl) Marian (de,pl) Mario (de,es) Marisa (de,es) Mars (pl,zh) Martin (fr,nl) Max (de,es) Med (meta,fr) Miguel (eo,es) Miroslav Malovec (cs,eo) Mk (de,ja) Mrwojo (meta,eo,fr) Mswake (meta,fr) Murat (de,tr) Nabla (de,pl) Nick (de,nl) Ok (meta,zh) Pablo (es,pl) Paolo (de,es) Paul (eo,zh) Peter (de,nl) Pieter (meta,cs,nl) Qwerty (fr,nl) Rafael (eo,es) Rene (de,es) Seb (meta,fr) Sebastian (de,es,fr) Sergio (de,es) Shark (de,nl) Simon (de,zh) Snow (de,zh) Solar (pl,zh) Spade (da,de) TJ (meta,de) Tadeusz (da,pl) Thomas (de,fr) Toto (de,fr,ja,zh) Victor (es,nl,ru) Vladimir (eo,es) Wolf (de,es) Woody (fr,nl) 1 (ja,zh)
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)