TL;DR see https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T179461 for a proposed naming change.

I proposed in Phabricator a wile ago [0] that we adopt the term "Wikimedia developer account" across our wikis and other documentation for the LDAP-backed user accounts that are created using wikitech.wikimedia.org.

These same sign-on credentials are used for: * wikitech.wikimedia.org * Gerrit * Phabricator (optionally) * toolsadmin.wikimedia.org * horizon.wikimedia.org * ssh-based "shell access" to Toolforge and Cloud VPS servers * a variety of web services providing access to operational and analytics data related to the Wikimedia services

There are plans [1][2] in various stages of progress to change things about how developer accounts are created and managed. Breaking assumptions in our documentation about the back-end storage system (LDAP) and the front-end management interface (wikitech) will help make these changes less disruptive. It also helps remove another lingering "labs" reference that the Cloud Services rebranding efforts have been trying to address.

This change probably has almost no impact on existing technical community members. It is really just targeted at making things a bit less confusing for newcomers.

If you have thoughts or concerns about this proposal, please describe them on the Phabricator task [0]. I'm proposing that on or about March 23rd (4 weeks from the date of this message) the comments on the task will be evaluated for consensus and an approve/deny decision.

[0]: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T179461 [1]: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T161859 [2]: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T179463

Thanks, Bryan