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

[James Forrester]

All,

As an update, I'm afraid to announce that we will have to delay the process
for some time.

As my previous e-mail states, we had intended to start the final renaming
process in the week commencing 27 May. However, given the scale of the
task, it now is clear that this would interfere with the community
elections for the Wikimedia Foundation's Board, FDC and FDC Ombudsperson,
which start on 1 June.

Voters' accounts would get renamed (and then possibly renamed further at
their request), which would mean that the eligible-voter list would be
out-of-date and need a huge amount of manual work by the Election
Committee. As I'm sure you're all aware, the existing duties of the
Committee are already taxing; adding this to their workload at the last
minute would be highly unfair to them, and to the community who will wish
to vote.

Although the finalisation of the Single User Login system is
important, I cannot
let it disrupt the community's voting. Because of this, I have decided to
delay the renaming and the finalisation of SUL. This will not have an
impact on existing features, though it will mean that non-global users may
be unable to use new tools developed between now and finalisations.

Unfortunately, by the time the election is over, I will be focussed
entirely on the wider roll-out of VisualEditor, which will continue for
some time. I therefore intend to re-start the process in August, following
Wikimania. I will let people know the updated schedule closer to the time.

Sorry for the disruption to everyone's plans. If you have any questions,
please do ask.

​J.
-- 
James D. Forrester
Product Manager, VisualEditor
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

jforrester at wikimedia.org | @jdforrester