Recently, I've had a rare need to check interwiki links. I've discovered that many times, the universal login credentials are not working.
For example, after login to english, the french link seems to accept the credentials (most of the time), while the german link *never* accepts the credentials.
Moreover, there is still the problem with secure, in that following interwiki links doesn't stay with secure, so have to re-login for each site. (Also, secure is slower than ever, and edits sometimes log the IP instead of the user name.)
What is your username?
John
On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 11:10 AM, William Allen Simpson < william.allen.simpson@gmail.com> wrote:
Recently, I've had a rare need to check interwiki links. I've discovered that many times, the universal login credentials are not working.
For example, after login to english, the french link seems to accept the credentials (most of the time), while the german link *never* accepts the credentials.
Moreover, there is still the problem with secure, in that following interwiki links doesn't stay with secure, so have to re-login for each site. (Also, secure is slower than ever, and edits sometimes log the IP instead of the user name.)
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Same as everywhere, William Allen Simpson, of course! ;-)
Years ago, some (most?) of us edited via various nicknames. I actually didn't bother to log in, but instead only had an account to "watch" changes.
But circa 2005 -- wikipedia was getting bad press for accuracy at the time -- some of us made a mutual pact to use our real names. We hoped that it helped to have published authors as contributors.
OTOH, I've also helped former college students obscure or remove their real names, as some firms still frown on association with wikipedia.
On 3/10/11 12:18 PM, John wrote:
What is your username?
John
On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 11:10 AM, William Allen Simpson <william.allen.simpson@gmail.com mailto:william.allen.simpson@gmail.com> wrote:
Recently, I've had a rare need to check interwiki links. I've discovered that many times, the universal login credentials are not working. For example, after login to english, the french link seems to accept the credentials (most of the time), while the german link *never* accepts the credentials. Moreover, there is still the problem with secure, in that following interwiki links doesn't stay with secure, so have to re-login for each site. (Also, secure is slower than ever, and edits sometimes log the IP instead of the user name.) _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
To give a little more detail, logged http (not https) into en: on one page, and am showing the "Login successful" page.
Then, bring up a de: page in a second window -- the de: page has Anmelden / Benutzerkonto erstellen
I've made a picture of the cookies. Note that I get cookies for an awful lot of related sites, even though I've started with no cookies, and have not accessed them.
On 3/10/11 10:34 PM, William Allen Simpson wrote:
To give a little more detail, logged http (not https) into en: on one page, and am showing the "Login successful" page.
Then, bring up a de: page in a second window -- the de: page has Anmelden / Benutzerkonto erstellen
I've made a picture of the cookies. Note that I get cookies for an awful lot of related sites, even though I've started with no cookies, and have not accessed them.
To contrast, again I started from no cookies, logged in on en:, loaded a fr: page url, and I'm obviously logged in on fr:, too.
William Allen Simpson wrote:
On 3/10/11 10:34 PM, William Allen Simpson wrote:
To give a little more detail, logged http (not https) into en: on one page, and am showing the "Login successful" page.
Then, bring up a de: page in a second window -- the de: page has Anmelden / Benutzerkonto erstellen
I've made a picture of the cookies. Note that I get cookies for an awful lot of related sites, even though I've started with no cookies, and have not accessed them.
To contrast, again I started from no cookies, logged in on en:, loaded a fr: page url, and I'm obviously logged in on fr:, too.
Those cookies look right. The key ones are the centralauth_* on wikipedia.org, which are used to log you in. At the point you visit fr.wikipedia, those are used to create the frwiki cookies. There's nothing different between frwiki and dewiki for that. Same code and here they are even using the same cookie. I don't know what is going on. Maybe you can get a sysadmin to trace it at the server side. At least it's reproducible
My only ideas are that you have somehow your browser configured not to send any cookie to de.wikipedia (some privacy extension maybe) or that you are proxied when accesing dewiki. Does it also happen if you make up a random page title? Have you tried using a different browser?
2011/3/11 Platonides Platonides@gmail.com:
There's nothing different between frwiki and dewiki for that. Same code and here they are even using the same cookie.
What I did find is that [[User:William Allen Simpson]] has an account on frwiki but not on dewiki. However, automatic account creation doesn't seem to be broken; I just visited a wiki where I didn't have an account (dewikiquote) and it was automatically created.
Roan Kattouw (Catrope)
On 3/11/11 5:53 AM, Roan Kattouw wrote:
2011/3/11 PlatonidesPlatonides@gmail.com:
There's nothing different between frwiki and dewiki for that. Same code and here they are even using the same cookie.
What I did find is that [[User:William Allen Simpson]] has an account on frwiki but not on dewiki. However, automatic account creation doesn't seem to be broken; I just visited a wiki where I didn't have an account (dewikiquote) and it was automatically created.
FireFox with NoScript.
I've now tried de.wikiquote and de.wiktionary, same problem: not logged in, no account creation....
I've turned on "allow 3rd party cookies", but that didn't help.
Looking at the error console, I see dozens and dozens of warnings that don't appear on en.wikipedia.org:
Warning: Expected 'important' but found 'ie'. Source File: http://bits.wikimedia.org/de.wikipedia.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=de&... Line: 1
Warning: Expected 'important' but found 'ie'. Source File: http://bits.wikimedia.org/de.wiktionary.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=de... Line: 1
Warning: Unknown property 'zoom'. Declaration dropped. Source File: http://bits.wikimedia.org/de.wiktionary.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=de... Line: 1
Warning: Expected declaration but found '*'. Skipped to next declaration. Source File: http://bits.wikimedia.org/de.wiktionary.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=de... Line: 1
Warning: Error in parsing value for 'list-style-type'. Declaration dropped. Source File: http://bits.wikimedia.org/de.wiktionary.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=de... Line: 1
Warning: Unknown pseudo-class or pseudo-element '-webkit-input-placeholder'. Ruleset ignored due to bad selector. Source File: http://bits.wikimedia.org/de.wiktionary.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=de... Line: 1
Warning: Error in parsing value for 'font'. Declaration dropped. Source File: http://de.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hauptseite Line: 0
2011/3/11 William Allen Simpson william.allen.simpson@gmail.com:
Looking at the error console, I see dozens and dozens of warnings that don't appear on en.wikipedia.org:
These are unrelated and harmless warnings. The majority of them /should/ in fact appear on en.wikipedia.org unless you're visiting a very old cached page as an anonymous user or something.
Roan Kattouw (Catrope)
On 3/11/11 7:46 AM, Roan Kattouw wrote:
2011/3/11 William Allen Simpsonwilliam.allen.simpson@gmail.com:
Looking at the error console, I see dozens and dozens of warnings that don't appear on en.wikipedia.org:
These are unrelated and harmless warnings. The majority of them /should/ in fact appear on en.wikipedia.org unless you're visiting a very old cached page as an anonymous user or something.
You're correct. They don't show up on the login page, but do for Main page.
Well, I don't know what else to test.... I've tried a bunch of other European language links from the en:Main_Page, and all of them worked other than de.
And now my Special:MergeAccount list is *lot* longer:
* commons.wikimedia.org * cs.wikipedia.org * da.wikipedia.org * en.wikipedia.org * en.wikibooks.org * en.wikinews.org * en.wikiquote.org * en.wikiversity.org * en.wiktionary.org * es.wikipedia.org * fr.wikipedia.org * he.wikipedia.org * it.wikipedia.org * www.mediawiki.org * meta.wikimedia.org * nl.wikipedia.org * pt.wikipedia.org * ru.wikipedia.org * simple.wikipedia.org * wikisource.org * species.wikimedia.org
And just as an aside, I did find out why fr: stopped working for awhile. The message I left on a Talk was about "Fuck You!" (the song), and a censorship bot suspended my login there....
Somebody kindly fixed it. So far, fr: has worked fine since then.
William Allen Simpson wrote:
And just as an aside, I did find out why fr: stopped working for awhile. The message I left on a Talk was about "Fuck You!" (the song), and a censorship bot suspended my login there....
Somebody kindly fixed it. So far, fr: has worked fine since then.
It's funny how misleading your post to Ben76210 was. However, what Orlodrim mentioned is that Salebot undid your edit (and he reverted that). Salebot couldn't have produced the behavior you saw. You are now reporting that "fr: stopped working for awhile" whereas on your previous messages the problem was at de, and fr worked. (Confused when thinking that you found an explanation?)
I have find now another candidate. There's indeed no 'William Allen Simpson' account at dewiki, but you do have contributions there [1]. History of enwiki articles later transwikified. My guess is that the existence of such contributions makes you not eligible for the account (or at least for autocreation).
1- http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:Beitr%C3%A4ge/William_Allen_Simpson
On 3/11/11 6:23 PM, Platonides wrote:
William Allen Simpson wrote:
And just as an aside, I did find out why fr: stopped working for awhile. The message I left on a Talk was about "Fuck You!" (the song), and a censorship bot suspended my login there....
Somebody kindly fixed it. So far, fr: has worked fine since then.
It's funny how misleading your post to Ben76210 was. However, what Orlodrim mentioned is that Salebot undid your edit (and he reverted that). Salebot couldn't have produced the behavior you saw. You are now reporting that "fr: stopped working for awhile" whereas on your previous messages the problem was at de, and fr worked. (Confused when thinking that you found an explanation?)
No idea. What I wrote in the first message was: # For example, after login to english, the french link seems to accept the # credentials (most of the time), while the german link *never* accepts the # credentials.
At that point, I was remembering/thinking that fr: had not worked at least some of the time. But it's been no problem since.
I have find now another candidate. There's indeed no 'William Allen Simpson' account at dewiki, but you do have contributions there [1]. History of enwiki articles later transwikified. My guess is that the existence of such contributions makes you not eligible for the account (or at least for autocreation).
1- http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:Beitr%C3%A4ge/William_Allen_Simpson
I'd no idea that things written on enwiki could be "transwikified". Amazing! Some of those are back in 2006, long time before unification. As I unified pretty early, most of those edits are after unification, but didn't get linked.
How to fix this? The dewiki user page link is black (posting not allowed), while the Talk link looks possible. So, it's some kind of "limbo" user?
http://toolserver.org/~vvv/sulutil.php?user=William+Allen+Simpson
Doesn't show the dewiki edits, and so didn't unify (back in June 2008). It does show the "new" no edit accounts created by visiting their pages this past week.
Database Project Editcount Registration date Flags Blocked SUL status commonswiki (c) commons 15 2009010711230711:23, 07 January 2009 0 No autocreated cswiki (c) wikipedia 0 2011030322492622:49, 03 March 2011 0 No autocreated dawiki (c) wikipedia 0 2011031120221920:22, 11 March 2011 0 No autocreated enwikibooks (c) wikibooks 0 2011030312410912:41, 03 March 2011 0 No autocreated enwikinews (c) wikinews 0 2011030312403912:40, 03 March 2011 0 No autocreated enwiki (c) wikipedia 20292 2005111501061401:06, 15 November 2005 2Reviewer No home wiki enwikiquote (c) wikiquote 0 2011030312401112:40, 03 March 2011 0 No autocreated enwikiversity (c) wikiversity 0 2011030312413012:41, 03 March 2011 0 No autocreated enwiktionary (c) wiktionary 1 2008071813552913:55, 18 July 2008 0 No autocreated eswiki (c) wikipedia 0 2011031120222620:22, 11 March 2011 0 No autocreated frwiki (c) wikipedia 1 2011030322351522:35, 03 March 2011 0 No autocreated hewiki (c) wikipedia 0 2011030322495122:49, 03 March 2011 0 No autocreated itwiki (c) wikipedia 0 2011030322493722:49, 03 March 2011 0 No autocreated metawiki (c) wikimedia 1 2009041413251313:25, 14 April 2009 0 No autocreated nlwiki (c) wikipedia 1 2009061507530907:53, 15 June 2009 0 No autocreated plwiki (c) wikipedia 0 2011031120304820:30, 11 March 2011 0 No autocreated ptwiki (c) wikipedia 0 2011030322501122:50, 03 March 2011 0 No autocreated ruwiki (c) wikipedia 0 2009071517384217:38, 15 July 2009 0 No autocreated simplewiki (c) wikipedia 0 2011031120220820:22, 11 March 2011 0 No autocreated specieswiki (c) wikispecies 0 2011030312403312:40, 03 March 2011 0 No autocreated sourceswiki (c) wikisource 0 2011030312414512:41, 03 March 2011 0 No autocreated mediawikiwiki (c) mediawiki 0 2009071905192205:19, 19 July 2009 0 No autocreated
On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 7:45 AM, William Allen Simpson william.allen.simpson@gmail.com wrote:
How to fix this?
Have you tried http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:Anmelden or http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:Anmelden/signup?
On 3/12/11 9:03 AM, Casey Brown wrote:
On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 7:45 AM, William Allen Simpson william.allen.simpson@gmail.com wrote:
How to fix this?
Have you triedhttp://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:Anmelden or http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:Anmelden/signup?
No, especially as I don't speak German. And I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that any attempt to create a new version of my same name would be rejected as centralauth will find the duplicate original name.
It originally seemed to me this was more of an inter-site data sharing issue. Later information from Platonides leads me to think this is a software issue, that leads to an inconsistent database.
How did transwikified edits not point back to the original site and user?
How is some kind of user set up that isn't unifiable, or even findable with the SUL collision detector and MergeAccount tools?
I'm sure I'm unlikely to be the only such instance?
I'll try not to disturb the de variant data for William Allen Simpson, until some nice developer figures out the issue with the database....
William Allen Simpson wrote:
On 3/12/11 9:03 AM, Casey Brown wrote:
On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 7:45 AM, William Allen Simpson william.allen.simpson@gmail.com wrote:
How to fix this?
Have you triedhttp://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:Anmelden or http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:Anmelden/signup?
No, especially as I don't speak German. And I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that any attempt to create a new version of my same name would be rejected as centralauth will find the duplicate original name.
Still worth trying.
It originally seemed to me this was more of an inter-site data sharing issue. Later information from Platonides leads me to think this is a software issue, that leads to an inconsistent database.
How did transwikified edits not point back to the original site and user?
Because the author field is not prepared for doing so. Thus the transwiking just copies the user name, hoping that it is the same.
How is some kind of user set up that isn't unifiable, or even findable with the SUL collision detector and MergeAccount tools?
Well, it's not an user. The way it is stored, is exactly the same as if it was an anonymous user with the ip 'William Allen Simpson' :)
I'm sure I'm unlikely to be the only such instance?
I'll try not to disturb the de variant data for William Allen Simpson, until some nice developer figures out the issue with the database....
I too have some of those magic editions: http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cantar_de_Mio_Cid&diff=prev&am... Although I already had an account on dewiki when they were copied.
It is a known db state. What may be broken is CentralAuth detection.
On 3/12/11 7:23 PM, Platonides wrote:
William Allen Simpson wrote:
On 3/12/11 9:03 AM, Casey Brown wrote:
On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 7:45 AM, William Allen Simpson william.allen.simpson@gmail.com wrote:
How to fix this?
Have you triedhttp://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:Anmelden or http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:Anmelden/signup?
No, especially as I don't speak German. And I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that any attempt to create a new version of my same name would be rejected as centralauth will find the duplicate original name.
Still worth trying.
Tried a regular login via secure -- it worked, no errors, using: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/w/index.php?title=Spezial:Anmelden...
Looking at the cookies, it automatically logged me into enwiki, too.
And dewiki successfully finds the 27 old transwiki edits in the contributions (Benutzerbeiträge).
Special:MergeAccount now sees dewiki.
But the SUL tool doesn't see the old edits (that first 0 is editcount).
dewiki (c) wikipedia 0 2011031317400117:40, 13 March 2011 0 No autocreated
It originally seemed to me this was more of an inter-site data sharing issue. Later information from Platonides leads me to think this is a software issue, that leads to an inconsistent database.
How did transwikified edits not point back to the original site and user?
Because the author field is not prepared for doing so. Thus the transwiking just copies the user name, hoping that it is the same.
Oh, that sounds ugly! I seem to remember in the back of my mind an old bug report about adding inter-site information, I'll see whether I can find it. I thought that was done *before* unified login.
How is some kind of user set up that isn't unifiable, or even findable with the SUL collision detector and MergeAccount tools?
Well, it's not an user. The way it is stored, is exactly the same as if it was an anonymous user with the ip 'William Allen Simpson' :)
Hmmm, it got us through the first decade.... Kinda reminds me why I stopped emailing as Bill Simpson almost 20 years ago, and went to my full name.
(Worked from 1977 to 1991, much too common after the Internet got bigger. And DayDreamer was not going to work well at all!)
I'm sure I'm unlikely to be the only such instance?
I'll try not to disturb the de variant data for William Allen Simpson, until some nice developer figures out the issue with the database....
I too have some of those magic editions: http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cantar_de_Mio_Cid&diff=prev&am... Although I already had an account on dewiki when they were copied.
It is a known db state. What may be broken is CentralAuth detection.
Yes, to the latter. Also a security hole. I think I could take over some accounts. It simply doesn't keep enough information.
On 3/10/11 11:10 AM, William Allen Simpson wrote:
Moreover, there is still the problem with secure, in that following interwiki links doesn't stay with secure, so have to re-login for each site. (Also, secure is slower than ever, and edits sometimes log the IP instead of the user name.)
While I'm thinking about it: why doesn't universal login work from secure? After all, the centralauth credentials seem to exist, so the various *wiki sites should be able to find them automatically?
For example, I've logged into enwiki via secure, that I get to from the usual insecure login page: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:UserLogin&returnto=Spe...
goes to (sadly dropping the watchlist link) https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Special:UserLogin
But the link from https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Special:MergeAccount
to meta http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Unified_login
doesn't use https and/or show me logged in! :-(
Contrarily, the interwiki links from Main_Page at the bottom work fine, but the language links on the left side do not....
Looking at the source, it seems somebody went through some template hoops to make the secure links. But the <prefix><colon> system should just work!
William Allen Simpson wrote:
While I'm thinking about it: why doesn't universal login work from secure? After all, the centralauth credentials seem to exist, so the various *wiki sites should be able to find them automatically?
(...)
But the link from https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Special:MergeAccount
to meta http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Unified_login
doesn't use https and/or show me logged in! :-(
You would be logged in if you used the secure meta link: http://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/meta/wiki/Help:Unified_login
When you log into secure, you're logged in everywhere, but only on their secure version (that's done on purpose).
Links between wikis taking you out of secure are a known problem (although I think enwiki has some javascript to reduce it).
Contrarily, the interwiki links from Main_Page at the bottom work fine, but the language links on the left side do not....
Looking at the source, it seems somebody went through some template hoops to make the secure links. But the <prefix><colon> system should just work!
Sure they should. It's the open bug https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5440
On 3/12/11 4:25 PM, Platonides wrote:
Sure they should. It's the open bug https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5440
Hey, looks like I knew about that, I'm on the CC list. Wow, that's been open a long time.... Looks like somebody started poking at it this week! Or at least re-arranging the deck chairs.
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