[Foundation-l] On hard-to-read usernames

[Titoxd@Wikimedia]

There's also the other proposal I made, and which no one has objected to
[yet]:

In diff pages and histories, perhaps instead of having

* Titoxd (John Doe | Talk | contribs | block) m (reverted edits by Titoxd
(talk) to last version by Brion VIBBER)

Have something similar to
* Titoxd (en_wikipedia | Talk | contribs | block) m (reverted edits by
Titoxd (talk) to last version by Brion VIBBER)

With the en_wikipedia pointing to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Titoxd,
Special:Listusers, or perhaps even a combination report of the block log and
the Listusers display (to show whether a user is a sysop, or if he has been
blocked in his home wiki).

This could be coupled with an option to declare a home wiki somewhere (e.g.
so Anthere can put her home wiki as [[:foundation:]] if she desires), but
that could be optional. The reason I say it would be a good idea is that the
data is going to be collected anyways during the migration, and instead of
it being thrown out after SUL work is done, it could be put into some use by
perhaps adding a line of code or two. ;)

Titoxd. 

-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Brion Vibber
Sent: Sunday, December 24, 2006 1:10 PM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] On hard-to-read usernames

Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> An implementation of this via some means other than linked accounts
> would might also be beneficial  because it would allow for the setting
> of a non-unique preferred name.
> 
> (cur) (last) 10:09, 24 December 2006
>   SuperNinja92349 (John Doe | Talk | contribs | block) (word to the wise)
> 
> There are a number of users that I interact with whom login using
> pseudonyms for reasons of account uniqueness but actually prefer to be
> addressed by their real names.
> 
> They often express this by customizing their signature, but since this
> preference is only displayed in their signature it often creates
> confusion. For example, they'll mention edit of theirs on a talk page
> and you'll waste a long time scanning the history for the wrong name.
> 
> Actual implementation would be a little ..fun, at least if it were to
> support at will changes to preferred name.

Shouldn't be that hard, actually; mainly we'd need to add a field to the 
user table and do appropriate joins for queries that make lists of users.

There is actually a "real name" field, which we have disabled on our own 
wikis... not sure if it would be wise to use that or add another 
'nickname' field.

Generally though it gives me warm fuzzy feelings to have easily-settable 
nicks that aren't as dispruptive as administrative name changes.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l