[Wikimedia-l] Single User Login finalisation: some accounts will be renamed

[Chris McKenna]

On Sat, 3 Aug 2013, MZMcBride wrote:
>
> It needs to be made explicit here and now that this change needs to be
> managed _incredibly carefully_ or it will result in very negative
> consequences for Wikimedia.
[...]
> The process outlined at <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/SUL_finalisation>
> is currently unacceptable and needs to be rewritten. We must not have a
> repeat of the recent VisualEditor deployment fiasco in which arbitrary
> deadlines and requirements lead to thousands of Wikimedians being angry.

I completely agree with this. Regardless of whether any of the same people 
are involved, the VE deployment has used up all (and more) of the well of 
good feeling about the WMF. With a full compliment of good will you 
/might/ be able to get away with that timetable resulting in only a small 
number of unforgiving users and minor bad press. With the negative amounts 
of this resource the WMF has it would be an unmitigated disaster. The 
forced renaming needs to happen no earlier than the later of August 2014 
or one year after individual notification. The individual notfications 
MUST include encouragemnt to voluntary renaming and should be sent at 1 
year, 6 months, 3 months, 1 month, 2 weeks, 10 days, 5 days, 2 days and 1 
day in advance of the renaming, and that is at a minimum.

Remember that this is affecting real people, many of whom will already be 
pissed off at the Foundation for VE and this will affect them directly and 
individually. Forcibly changing someone's identity is about the most major 
thing you could possibly do.

----
Chris McKenna

cmckenna at sucs.org
www.sucs.org/~cmckenna


The essential things in life are seen not with the eyes,
but with the heart

Antoine de Saint Exupery