Hello,
I am new at wikitech-l, so I dont know what is said before to the theme "sinle-sign-on" (yes I know I could read the archive and I tried, but it is too long for today :-)...) but here are some thoughts from me...
If I`ve got it, we have 3 main problems:
1. There could exists users on different lang-WPs with the same name. 2. There is no (good) way to find out automatically which accounds with the same name in different lang-WPs belong to different persons and which belong to the one person. 3. We have actually no good solution for the first problem but as long as we wait the problem gets larger.
So we should think first about to solve the third problem. This should be very easy since we just have to create a new account in a new database for each account in the old databases. Each account gets a new ID, the old name, says from which lang-WP it is and which ID belongs to it there (and all the other stuff belonging to the account).
If someone creates a new account, he/she has to take a name which is not used in the new DB. A new account creates a new entry in the new database without pointing to an lang-WP and an ID.
The lang-WPs have to use the new user-DB (and before that should be translated to this, meaning the IDs has to be changed in the right way).
If this is done, the old user-dbs can be thrown away. (But we still need the rows with the pointers to the old lang-WPs and the corresponding ID in the new database as I will explain below.)
Thus we have the following situation: we have one single new user-database, where it is allowed just for old uses to have accounts with the same name like other users (or have more as one account with the same name).
These users have one big problem, they have to use there new ID to log in, so they have a reason to solve there name-conflicts as described below.
Now we have everything we wanted and just the small name-conflict-problem described above.
In the second step we have time to solve the problem with the names.
We could send automatically E-Mails to all accounts which have no unique name (if the adresses are known) telling them which (new) IDs belong to the old accounts (by telling them from which lang-WP there are, we even could tell them there old ID: Ahh, for this we still need the informations!) and invite them to merge the accounts which belongs to them! (Of course this needs a special formular, where you have to enter the new IDs, and the old (and new) password for each ID. Merging accounts could be a new feature of course).
We even could give them (and all others) the possibility to change there name (which also should be a new feature), but of course just to unique names which does not exist. This feature is somehow special, since for several reasons the old name should be save for a longer time, i.e. it should not be allowed for other persons to choose it for this time (but this is another topic).
Thus the new user-database can be cleaned up to a better level. If there would be users which does not want to change there name to solve the name-conflict with other persons they can mark there account(s) as "under conflict". This may will be the hard problems later.
After a while each account, whichs is not marked as "under conflict", but has a name-conflict with an other account is changed automatically to a new name (gets a additional number in the end of it...).
This may solves some "under-conflict"-accounts since may all other accounts with the same name are may changed, cause they was not marked as "under-conflict".
What to do with the rest could be discussed later...
Regards Ivo Köthnig
On Thursday 15 January 2004 16:07, Ivo Köthnig wrote:
If I`ve got it, we have 3 main problems:
- There could exists users on different lang-WPs with the same name.
- There is no (good) way to find out automatically which accounds with the same name in different lang-WPs belong to different persons and which belong to the one person.
- We have actually no good solution for the first problem but as long as
we wait the problem gets larger.
I just want to notice that there is fourth problem which noone realised so far - I have different user names at English and Serbian Wikipedias and they would need to be joined; I guess this could be the case with more users.
Am Freitag, 16. Januar 2004 06:23 schrieb Nikola Smolenski:
On Thursday 15 January 2004 16:07, Ivo Köthnig wrote:
If I`ve got it, we have 3 main problems:
- There could exists users on different lang-WPs with the same name.
- There is no (good) way to find out automatically which accounds with
the same name in different lang-WPs belong to different persons and which belong to the one person. 3. We have actually no good solution for the first problem but as long as we wait the problem gets larger.
I just want to notice that there is fourth problem which noone realised so far - I have different user names at English and Serbian Wikipedias and they would need to be joined; I guess this could be the case with more users. _______________________________________________
Thats not a Problem with the single-sign-on, since you can have two accounts later too and even now in one single lang-WP, but my mail gives the solutation even for that...
Regards Ivo Köthnig
Am Freitag, 16. Januar 2004 06:23 schrieb Nikola Smolenski:
On Thursday 15 January 2004 16:07, Ivo Köthnig wrote:
If I`ve got it, we have 3 main problems:
- There could exists users on different lang-WPs with the same name.
- There is no (good) way to find out automatically which accounds with
the same name in different lang-WPs belong to different persons and which belong to the one person. 3. We have actually no good solution for the first problem but as long as we wait the problem gets larger.
Thats not a Problem with the single-sign-on, since you can have two accounts later too, but my mail gives the solutation even for that...
Regards Ivo Köthnig
On Jan 16, 2004, at 12:23 AM, Nikola Smolenski wrote:
I just want to notice that there is fourth problem which noone realised so far
- I have different user names at English and Serbian Wikipedias and
they would need to be joined; I guess this could be the case with more users.
I've got a germ of an idea that might or might not be useful; I just suggest it as a potential alternative.
What about creating an entirely new pan-Wikipedia user base that will basically "trump" the existing users? I'm not sure if this would be possible (or even simple enough to code in), but what if the users were offered a new single sign-up that everyone can voluntarily transfer to? At the same time, all newly registered users at any wiki would be required to sign up with the new single sign-on membership, but all the wikis would still draw on their old user base.
There'd probably have to be some complicated cross-checking (to avoid duplication of existing names from *any* of the wikis' lists).
Basically, if such a dual-base system is possible, I'm thinking it would help get our foot in the door so to speak; later, it's just a matter of sorting out the users on a case-by-case basis. Difficult, but not impossible.
Maybe it's best to just approach the change in stages?
Dan Carlson
Am Donnerstag, 15. Januar 2004 16:07 schrieb Ivo Köthnig:
Hello,
I am new at wikitech-l, so I dont know what is said before to the theme "sinle-sign-on" (yes I know I could read the archive and I tried, but it is too long for today :-)...) but here are some thoughts from me...
Ahh, this was my first mail :-) right header :-) but wrong adress :-(. May the admin of this list should free the other adress, I think I will forget to enter the right one very often... sorry...
Regards Ivo Köthnig
Ivo Köthnig wrote:
Hello,
I am new at wikitech-l, so I dont know what is said before to the theme "sinle-sign-on" (yes I know I could read the archive and I tried, but it is too long for today :-)...) but here are some thoughts from me...
If I`ve got it, we have 3 main problems:
- There could exists users on different lang-WPs with the same name.
I have a idea to solve this problem.
Create the concept of a "home-wikipedia useraccount".
For my the home-wikipedia is the dutch wikipedia. My username there is "walter" Change it to "walter_(NL)"
When i make edit on my home-wikipedia only the short username is visible. In the recent changes you only see a edit by user "walter". The extended username is hidden on your home Wikipedia.
When i go to the English Wikipedia I am still using the same account "walter_(NL)" but when I make a edit the full username is visible, "walter_(NL)".
So on the English Wikipedia or any other Wikipedia the home-wikipedians of that wikipedia can see I am not there user "walter" but different one.
Whit this system every language can have short an easy usernames and existing problems of the same username by different users is solved.
Walter_(NL)
Walter Vermeir wrote in part:
I have a idea to solve this problem.
When i make edit on my home-wikipedia only the short username is visible. In the recent changes you only see a edit by user "walter". The extended username is hidden on your home Wikipedia. When i go to the English Wikipedia I am still using the same account "walter_(NL)" but when I make a edit the full username is visible, "walter_(NL)".
A lot of people won't like this since they don't have a single "home" wiki. However, it should be useful in a lot of cases -- I know that /I/ want all messages to me to appear on my user talk page on the English Wikipedia, and if I could get a link to that user page by signing "~~~~" anywhere ... that would be great!
It probably won't solve everything (is Anthère's home [[en:]] or [[fr:]]? is mav's home [[w:en:]] or [[wikibooks:]]?), but it may help some of us. (Although I have no /conflicts/ -- I've signed up on every wiki. ^_^)
-- Toby
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org