Help talk:Unified login

Archived discussion

1. Talk:Single signon transition
2. Talk:Single login
3. Talk:Single login poll
4. Talk:Single login specifications

External discussion

1. [Wikitech-l] Single user login status --Brion Vibber
   1. http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/htdig/wikitech-l/2006-November/thread.html#27726
2. [Wikitech-l] Primary account for single user login --Ans 11:00, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
   1. http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/htdig/wikitech-l/2007-October/thread.html#34137
   2. http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/htdig/wikitech-l/2007-October/thread.html#34172
   3. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2008-April/037286.html

User preferences remain local

Hello,

Will there be a possibility to make one's preferences uniform on all projects or to change one preference on all projects simultaneously ?

Grasyop ^✉ 09:24, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Read the page : User preferences are local, although the email address only needs to be set and confirmed in one place. You can continue to have different preferences on different sites.. le Korrigan →bla 09:27, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I did read that sentence. But I'd like to make and keep my preferences uniform without changing them manually on each project. Grasyop ^✉ 09:33, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Alternatively, it would be convenient if one could specify a personal default set of preferences, with the possibility to deviate from that on a specific project. Most of the work related to creating an account is setting the preferences.--Patrick 10:04, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I think the home wiki preferences should apply, unless a particular preference is changed on another wiki. In other words, the other wiki's preferences would shadow the main preferences. Superm401 | Talk 08:39, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Feedback

• I saw that feedback would be appreciated, so here goes. I was able to succesfully log into testwiki: with my username from en-wiki even though I have never been there, nevermind register. So, I guess it's working! -Royalguard11(Talk·@en) 23:55, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
• It successfully changed my password :) Same username and email on both wikis --Werdan7^{T @} 23:28, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
• I have the same user name and password in Commons and Wikipedia in English and Spanish. Now I also created an account here, but the account in test was not automatically created. --Alpertron 18:33, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

  Meta accounts are not unified with the test wiki yet, since the system hasn't been implemented on Meta. The accounts on the test wiki were all automatically migrated at one time. —{admin} Pathoschild 00:20, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

  I created the user account on Meta to post feedback. I have the other accounts (Commons, es:wikipedia and en:wikipedia) for about a year. --Alpertron 17:41, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

  Unified login is not yet active. There was a one-time test migration on 04 December 2006; all accounts created before that date should be able to log into the Test wiki. Any accounts created after that date cannot log into the Test wiki, since they were not migrated. When unified login is implemented (but not now), all new accounts will be automatically migrated to all projects. —{admin} Pathoschild 00:58, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

  The three accounts cited above have the same user name (alpertron) and password and they were active the last year (you can check my first contributions on the different projects here, here and here). It appears that the test didn't work for me. Best regards,--Alpertron 15:42, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

What's new

about unified login ? Does that work anywhere ? Arno Lagrange ✉ 11:58, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

It only currently works on testwiki:, not on any real "project" wiki. -Royalguard11(Talk·@en) 22:44, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Misleading name and no consensus

The names "single login" and "unified login" (I see both used in page titles about it) are misleading. They get people behind this overcomplicated proposal because they hallucinate that once it's implemented, they'll be able to log in once and edit any Wikimedia wiki, or maybe look at a watchlist that spans several wikis. If it provided useful features like that, it would be worth it. But it doesn't.

All the proposal provides is a single username. Shouldn't it be renamed to that?

Also, has this proposal gone through the proposal process and earned a consensus on any major wiki?

Rspeer 00:55, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

WTF? This has the consensus of virtually every editor that has registered on more than one wiki. The only people who have opposed it are monoglot English-speakers who don't need an account on more than one project. For people like me, and virtually everyone that has even a second language, this will be extremely valuable. And who says the proposal won't include a global watchlist? Sure, it won't in the beginning, but I'm positive that there will be one in the near future. Jon Harald Søby 09:16, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I see a vague consensus for a single login -- something that would make it easier to move between different wikis -- but not for a single username, a messy process without real benefits. In fact, I see good arguments against a single username by people who edit in multiple languages: they want to be able to write their name in different character sets. (See people's comments on Talk:Single login specifications.) I don't think this "consensus of virtually every editor..." exists: you'll have to show me. Be sure you're not sampling the self-selecting group of people who bothers to read Meta.

Regarding a global watchlist: I think that's one of the things that people really want, and the developers could easily work on that instead of single usernames. There could be a procedure to link watchlists between accounts you control, and then we'd have better collaboration between projects without having to wait for a 21-step username shuffle to be completed. Rspeer 18:43, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

You're wrong. Unified login will NOT restrict users to one account, it will just make each account work across all Wikimedia projects. --Rory096 19:45, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

You misunderstood me. I wasn't saying that anything in the proposal would stop people from having multiple independent usernames, like they can on any project right now. Just that the system won't consider you the same person unless you have the same username on different languages. If, in fact, later features actually do build on linking watchlists or something between wikis, people who already edit under different usernames in different character sets are going to be left out. Rspeer 23:46, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

No, you misunderstand him. There's nothing preventing you from creating an account with a Hebrew name on he: and then manually merging it with your Latin script account on en: -- the only difference is that the system tries to match accounts with the same name automatically, and that you have to manually merge others. There's *NOTHING*, I repeat: NOTHING preventing you from having accounts with different names and a single log-in with global preferences (and later a global watchlist) to all of them. At least that's how I understood it. —Nightstallion (?) 08:20, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I quote from the implementation notes: "Are not trying to achieve ever: Different usernames on each wiki." Rspeer 22:23, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Interesting, because that's obviously possible if I manually merge an account named αβγ on el: and one called abg on la:... —Nightstallion (?) 18:04, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Where is this "manual merging" process described? One of the problems with single login is that everyone's talking about a different version of it, and what's on the Wiki apparently doesn't correspond at all to what developers are actually advocating. This makes it hard to discuss. Rspeer 22:02, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree there is no consensus for this. Why are the details so obscure? How will it be determined who gets a username? The old proposal page at least said outright that you would have to "compete" for it. This detail which will affect a lot of users is not mentioned directly here. Where is the proper support procedure for this? Biophase 00:19, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Confused

Well, my username (Thunderhead) is registered on every project except Wikipedia, because someone took it before I could get to it. Would that user be renamed, and the account I use (Thunderhead1) renamed to Thunderhead? Thunderhead 19:58, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

See Help:Unified login#Conflict resolution and the implementation notes. —{admin} Pathoschild 00:47, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Dates

Notification
Excerpt from Article page
Notification when you receive a new message is still local; you will only see the "new messages" box for the site you're looking at. This may change in the future.
Can we get a rough idea about the future date.

Log in
Excerpt from Article page
Log in although registering an account does so globally, it is still necessary to log in on each site separately (with the global username and password). Future development may allow users to log in globally as well.
Can we get a rough idea about the future date.

Watch List
The feature of showing recent changes to multiple watch lists at a single place, will this be part of Unified login feature. If yes, great else can we get a rough idea about the future date. —unsigned by 59.94.240.224 00:16, 28 December 2006.

Nope. There is no set schedule; development time depends on how much free time the developer has, what difficulties arise, and how many other projects the developer works on. As a pure guess, those features might be ready between 2008 and 2010. —{admin} Pathoschild 00:52, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

May be in this large time frame of 2-4 years, you can mentor me to contribute to Wikipedia/Wikimedia as a developer so that timeframe for such important features can be shortened :-) Wikipedia user name Vjdchauhan. —unsigned by 203.200.99.67 10:10, 29 December 2006.

I'm not a developer. The developers are probably too busy to mentor users, but you can learn for yourself. If you already know programming (particularly PHP and MySQL), a good introduction to MediaWiki is the administrator's guide. —{admin} Pathoschild 04:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Is Unified login working now

I tried to logon to meta.wikimedia.org and it gave error, seems this feature is still not up. When will this feature be available. Also will it also allow usage of same user name in several Wikia websites.

Regards, Vjdchauhan (my Wikipedia user name) . 203.200.99.67 11:07, 15 February 2007 (UTC).

Hello. Unified login is a frequently delayed feature and is not yet available; nor can we accurately guess when it will be ready. In the current version, different usernames are possible but will not be unified. —{admin} Pathoschild 05:18, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

What does it do?

What, exactly, is the proposal variously referred to as "single login" and "unified login" supposed to provide?

• Apparently, it's not "single cookie", which is what I would assume most people imagine when they think of "unified login". You won't be able to log in on en: and then edit jp:. I understand that there are good reasons why this is not the goal (it would require ugly cookie spoofing across domains, for instance).
• It's also apparently not a single watchlist, userpage, user contributions list, or anything else that tends to be associated with a user, except possibly a "new messages" notification, eventually.
• If the implementation notes reflect reality, it may be a "single username": if you are registered on one Wiki, you are automatically registered with the same username on all other Wikis. I haven't seen many multilingual editors who want this, though -- they tend to prefer usernames that are localized to the alphabet of the Wiki they're on -- and commenters above such as Nightstallion don't seem to believe that "single username" is the goal.
• But what's left? "Single password"? That's hardly something new and different to get excited over.

Some speculation:

• The current version of the page implies that a "single username namespace" will be involved -- that is, a username will only refer to one person over all wikis. This is not itself a goal, though. Brion Vibber is probably not saying "I want to create 100,000 username conflicts and change nothing else". If this is involved, it is presumably a means to some other, unstated end.
• The goal could be to create linked accounts, on top of which features like unified messages and watchlists could eventually be built. That would be a nice feature, I think. But linked accounts can be implemented without a single namespace, which would allow multilingual usernames and avoid the Username Battle Royale.

Can someone who knows what's going on behind the scenes explain what "unified login" is actually intended to do, and what benefits it will have?

Rspeer 22:23, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Initially it will only be what you described, I believe. One username database = one username and password per user that works on all wikis. No more, no less. It's also actually extremely easy to set up on a new wiki farm, the huge difficulty for Wikimedia is, I guess, the existence of several million accounts which have to be merged/reconciled. That's why it's taking so long I imagine, not that some awesome features are coming with it. --Kingboyk 20:38, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I am wondering, though, if Rspeer's statement below is correct about this being a possible underlying goal:

"The goal could be to create linked accounts, on top of which features like unified messages and watchlists could eventually be built. That would be a nice feature, I think. But linked accounts can be implemented without a single namespace, which would allow multilingual usernames and avoid the Username Battle Royale."

Anything that unifies watchlists will quickly add many more users to the Wikipedia/wikimedia offshoots (such as Wikibooks Wikispecies Commons Wikiquote Wiktionary Wikisource Wikinews Wikiversity). Whether it is one username database or linked accounts making it possible, there have to eventually be unified watchlists to really make a difference in the offshoots being worked on by more editors.--Timeshifter 19:41, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Funding for more developers to work on unified watchlists

I read in a previous section of this talk page that unified watchlist development could take years due to the lack of developers to work on it.

Is it possible to create a dedicated donation account strictly for funding of the development of unified watchlists? I would like to contact large and small donors for this. I know some. I also suggest optional ads as a means for such funding. See: Category:Wikipedians for optional advertisements

Will a unified watchlist require a single domain?

It is difficult for me when I have too many watchlists. I already have several different watchlists for wikipedia and its offshoots (such as Wikibooks Wikispecies Wikipedia Commons Wikiquote Wiktionary Wikisource Wikinews Wikiversity). It discourages me from participating in more offshoots because of the burden of checking up on the many different watchlists.

A common watchlist for wikipedia and all its offshoots would greatly encourage me to participate in more of the offshoots. Pages can't be protected from vandals unless there are enough people watchlisting them. Also, pages are difficult to edit collaboratively if one is not watchlisting in order to review the latest edits.

The offshoots do not have the number of editors needed for them to grow faster. There are many pages on wikipedia that could be moved to the offshoots, but aren't due to the lack of editors on the offshoots. List and table pages, for example:

Comparison of text editors

Comparison of layout engines (HTML)

Comparison of layout engines (graphics)

Comparison of layout engines (XML)

Comparison of web browsers

Collaborative editor# List of current editors

Comparison of raster graphics editors

Comparison of wiki software

List of wikis

List of collaborative software

Comparison of wiki farms

They require many editors dropping in from time to time because of the large variety of data on the page that needs regular updating. Many of these pages could be moved to wikibooks if wikibooks had as many editors as wikipedia. We may get the editors due to the unified login. But that would not help much if we don't also get a unified watchlist. --Timeshifter 18:11, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I love the idea of a unified watchlist. Until it has been implimented, I recomend the Update Scanner Firefox addon. --81.15.51.66 23:16, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Ridiculous amount of time

Why is this taking so long? The code is done, patches for MediaWiki are already available. Some wikies are already using this. It's been test run on the Wikipedias already. And here we have admins telling us to expect it before 2010? So, I apologize for my ignorance and bluntness, but where the bloody hell is this? +Hexagon1 ^(t) 09:44, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

It's much easier to have unified login from the beginning or implement it when the number of sites (and number of accounts is small); comparing WMF's implementation of this feature to other wikis is severely flawed. If you want to see some crunched numbers, check out Table of Wikimedia Projects by Size (if you just want to see a brief overview of everything, check out Special:SiteMatrix and/or Complete list of Wikimedia projects). There are 722 different projects, with a total of 9 million users (en.wiki alone has 5 million) that have made roughly 370 million edits. Not very small.
(yes, I realize I'm responding several months after the question was asked, but it's a valid question that others might have, and this is a pretty definitive answer). EVula // talk // 15:08, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Usernames

I first posted this question on mediawiki.org, but realized that this is probably the right wiki for this question.

I dont know if this is the right place for this question (if not, please move tihs post to the correct location). I am sv:User:Micke and commons:User:Micke and my username seems to be taken both here, on enwiki and other wikimmedia-wikis as well. But the accounts (registered in my username ;-) have no contributions and seem to have done nothing except beeing registered. My question is, does this have something to do with the unified log-in that i said to come soon. Or has somebody realy registered this name on alot of wikis, but haven't stared to use the account? Any way, is there a way for me to have the username I am used to, here, on enwiki and so on even though my username is taken by an inactive account? --MiCkE^d_b 10:41, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

You can take over unused usernames, depending on local policy. On the en-Wikipedia, for example, see Wikipedia:Changing username/Usurpations. When If unified login is implemented, you will automatically take over the unused accounts; see Help:Unified login#Conflict_resolution. —{admin} Pathoschild 23:13:42, 06 May 2007 (UTC)

OK! Thank you very much, I have done the specified procedure for enwiki but I wonder how I would go about doing the same thing here on meta?--MiCkE^d_b 08:32, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Try asking at Meta:Requests for help from a sysop or bureaucrat‎. —{admin} Pathoschild 02:48:55, 08 May 2007 (UTC)

Great! Will do! Thanks! --MiCkE^d_b 04:48, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

When?

I'm the second (that I can see) asking here. Is this going to be implemented anytime soon? Is there some problem? Is there a chance it never happens? NikoSilver 00:05, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Please see bugzilla:57 for more information and progress, best regards --birdy geimfyglið _{(:> )=|} 13:36, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, It looks like it's going forward from moment to moment. Are there any side-discussions that might indicate it may be canceled? We're having a proposed change at en:WT:U#Non-latin usernames, revisited which largely depends on it. NikoSilver 16:45, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Usernames

There's a potentially big problem with this scheme that has apparently been overlooked: that allowing a single username for all Wikipedias has the potential to create confusion. Currently, usernames with non-latin characters are (sort of) allowed on the English Wikipedia. (The policy is somewhat contradictory, stating both that non-latin characters are allowed and that usernames must not be confusing). However, several recent events, plus past experience, show that non-latin characters are a hinderance to editing. This is not a problem limited to monoglots: we can't expect every single user to have every available character set installed on his/her machine. Even if we did expect that, many people edit using public machines that allow only a single character set, or a restricted number. For me, some usernames and non-latin characters display as a series of squares; it's easy to see how several users with non-latin usernames editing the same talk page could create total confusion. Even requiring a latin signature with a redirect wouldn't solve this problem. Usernames and signatures are supposed to make everyone's life here easier; to encourage cooperative spirit; to facilitate communication; and to make it easier for admins to track and prevent vandalism. Allowing usernames in all character sets potentially makes everyone's life a little more difficult; hinders communication; and makes it harder to track and prevent vandalism.

This problem is not limited to the English Wikipedia either, although there's probably a greater expectation that other language users should be able to read latin characters. 64.180.86.225 16:41, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps an option to show usernames and [tilde*]-signatures as images: for non-Latin-based usernames on Latin-based wiki -- and vice-versa. It could reuse the current CAPTCHA text-to-image functions (with obscure turned off), which already create a rather small file, (only 18K for 10 letters; and that's for ~270x75, which is MUCH larger than needed), and it could embed a link to download a suitably matching font if needed for copying, editing, or use with a slow connection. Also, if the wiki-server were fast enough, the option could be extended to include *ALL* non-native characters and symbols, ridding us of those annoying little squares forever! (: Wikicat 23:52, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

*wiki tilde-signatures, not forum-style signatures. Wikicat 08:55, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I had a problem when doing a global find-and-replace of some image code used in multiple places on an English wikipedia article talk page. I had to use a text editor to do it. It left a question mark in place of one non-Latin character used in a time-stamp signature. Here is the message I left at w:User talk:TheFEARgod

Hi. At w:Talk:Iraq_War I did a global replace of the image code, Image:Iraqwarimage.jpg, with the commons image code for the same image. But my text editor removed a character from your time stamp code. I don't know how to replace it without reverting since my text editors (Notepad2 and NoteTab Light) both do not recognize the character in your time stamp. Here is the diff. -- Timeshifter 08:53, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

See here. Wikicat 08:55, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe numbers can be used as the base for usernames, and then an unobscured CAPTCHA-like image, or local transliteration used on the local wikiproject. Just throwing out ideas.-- Timeshifter 08:53, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

One of the arguments against using images in signatures over at en.wiki is that it would be a massive drain on the server, and would grossly increase the loading time for each page.
On the flip side, how many people whith extremely complex non-latin usernames edit in places where latin-only usernames are the norm? I can't see someone with 20k edits on the Arabic, Urdu, or Hebrew projects (for example) suddenly putting in similar amounts of time on the German, English, and French projects (again, for example). It's quite possible that we're worrying about a relatively non-issue. EVula // talk // 14:56, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

RE: "One of the arguments against using images in signatures...".

Not in signatures (like those big banners in forums), but rather to display (tilde) signatures, and usernames.

RE: "It's quite possible that we're worrying about a relatively non-issue"

Perhaps it's just a good solution for a bad non-problem (but see here). So then, to make it even better, note that username text-images would be about the complexity of the >1K Wikimedia Project icon at page-bottom left, but monochrome, so they would be even smaller files. For example, a talk-page with 9 editors, several edits each, might have DB-access and browser-load times similar to the news-page here.

Wikicat 08:55, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if monochrome images would be a burden or not overall on the wikimedia servers. I guess it depends how often they are used in signatures. I read some of the discussion on some of the pages you linked to.

Would not putting a number in every signature solve a lot of problems? In addition to whatever username or monochrome image they use, ... in whatever character set they use. With the numbered signatures people could recognize posters even if they don't have all the many different-language character sets installed. Even with the character sets installed people will oftentimes have difficulty distinguishing between some people on a talk page, or on watchlists, etc.. --Timeshifter 12:54, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Multiple Username

I have slightly different usernames on the different projects (Meta:Skunkmaster II, Wikisource: Skunkmaster IV, etc. If you do a unified login, will that merge them or will Wikisource, wikipedia, etc. all have new accounts under each name (e.g.: Wikipedia would now have accounts under the name Skunkmater, Skunkmater II, Skunkmaster III, etc.)?

(If you could respond on my talk page, that would be helpful)

Skunkmaster II 02:47, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Don't like this

moved from Talk:Single_login_specifications#Don't like this

Put frankly, what on earth are you going to do about en:User:Daniel [admin; 30,000 edits] (and associated accounts en:wn:User:Daniel [admin; 1000 edits], m:User:Daniel) and de:User:Daniel [admin; 210,000 edits] (and associated accounts commons:User:Daniel)?

Personally, I (en:Daniel)'d be happy to take w:User:Daniel Bryant, and was happy to when I first registered, but it had made and edit ans was blocked. Put simply, I find it distinctly unfair that I'll inherit a block log from someone else (unless block logs are moving, which in my opinion they must if SL will result in the least amount of disruption possible).

Furthermore, I have established myself with 30,000 edits, current Chair of the Mediation Committee and a bunch of other stuff under the name "Daniel". Presuming that I "lose" and de:Daniel gets "Daniel" SL, all these discussions etc. will then refer to the wrong place, wrong links, wrong everything.

Then I'll have to fix transclusions and links in my userspace (presuming that the current de:Daniel won't want my redirects hanging around his userspace), go around and fix up only the most important discussions (see above, many other discussions will be left in disarray and out of context), and also there'll be massive problems with the likes of the Sydney Morning Herald and other external people who contact me on Wikipedia via the link that I gave them - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Daniel>.

New users will rock up at en:User:Daniel thinking the person that occupied that account notably for over six months is an inactive German user who doesn't leave de: and commons: (doesn't even have an account on en:, as far as I am aware). This is the farcical bit, that all this disruption is caused for (at least in my case) absolutely no gain. Will people who have taken control of an extremely established account on a certain Wikipedia be required to have a note pertaining to this fact placed notably on their userpage/will a message be built in to this effect?

As I said, I'm happy to move to en:User:Daniel Bryant on the proviso that the block log of the account I take is moved with it and/or expunged. But, still, I have some other worries about this which will affect other users, and pretty seriously and with great detriment to the project, if they aren't remedied. Daniel 11:32, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

de:Daniel isn't sysop, so en:Daniel will get "Daniel" on every project. De:Daniel also has only ~700 edits, not 210 000. MF-Warburg(de) 11:41, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Still, hypothetically... BD2412 T 19:23, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually (come to think of it) why deal in hypotheticals at all? Can't we run some diagnostic right now to determine exactly how many names are used by different authors across the projects, and how many of those present a real conflict (e.g., for the sake of argument, multiple authors have at least a thousand edits, or are sysops, or the like)? The information is out there and would surely help inform the procedure.

Also (separate question) can we immediately put a wiki-wide block on registration of new accounts on other wikis under a name in use on any wiki (except by the owner of the existing account)? Cheers! BD2412 T 19:27, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

It will also prevent people to register a new profile with their usual username .. I created a new profile only yesterday. GerardM 12:49, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

BD2412's suggestion was to prevent anyone registering a new account under a username that is already being used elsewhere, unless it is the same person that is already using it. This would be achievable by checking whether the new e-mail address matches the e-mail address of the previously registered account.

It would have to account for duplicated usernames that have already been registered, for example en:User:MTC (me) and de:Spezial:Beiträge/MTC are different people and have different e-mail addresses, but that shouldn't prevent me from registering a new User:MTC on another language with the same e-mail address as my English account. - M132T003C 14:15, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Suppose we were to start with names for which only one account exists, or for which only one email is associated? And, as I asked in my first question, can we run the numbers now and see what they actually are? BD2412 T 21:51, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

That's the problem in picking common names. I, for one, couldn't register at the English one with this name, and Commons was taken before. I don't even know if I can keep this account – en Casssandra has a few edits, but no email address, while commons Cassandra does have email set but not edits. Cassandra 23:49, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Check for, say, 100 edits, not 1000. If you think you have to have made one thousand edits to be relevant, you've been on en:wp too long. I think there will be a lot of real conflicts, and I urge the developers to start thinking of a solution involving namespaces. Rspeer 18:41, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

This is completely unacceptable

moved from Talk:Single_login_specifications#This is completely unacceptable

This will not even remotely have the effect that is hoped for. People can't "compete" for a username. First off this will only encourage trolling to rack up more "edits" and how will you determine which edits are more valid? Someone who has 100 mainspace edits or someone who has 500 edits but only 50 mainspace edits? Secondly this will only cause resentment for users who lose an account and rightfully encourage vandalistic behaviour. And lets face it, most of the useful edits come from the users with the fewest edits, the ones who would lose.

For all of this the payoff is what exactly? Not even a single login system but only a few users who share a common username across all wikis they don't even edit? It's just not worth it and if ever implemented you can just shut down the server as well while you're at it and save a lot of hard in the process that will simply go to waste. Biophase 17:28, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

You are late and you are wrong. GerardM 21:32, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

On a proposal with as much potential for creating widespread confusion and disruption as Unified Login, it would be nice if you would try to respond to concerns instead of dismissing them out of hand. Although I would not state it as strongly as Biophase, I also believe that edit count does not measure your worth as an editor, or whether you deserve to keep your account. Rspeer 18:44, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Nothing "rightfully encourages vandalistic behavior", and while edit count isn't the ideal measure you haven't suggested a better solution. Superm401 | Talk 08:14, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

When will it be available the earliest?

Can anyone tell when will this Unified Login be available the earliest? Because now I intend to change my name again, but I'm registered in several wikis! I have to settle this to get ready for the Unified login. Thanks! --Edmund the King of the Woods! 01:03, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Easier unified login and watchlist. Via subdomains

I copied some of the following from this discussion:

Talk:Philip_Greenspun_illustration_project/Requests#FLOSS_Manuals

The problem with w:WikiBooks, and some of the other English-language w:Wikimedia projects, is the lack of a unified user login and unified watchlist. See Help:Unified login. If this existed, then there would instantly be millions of registered users available to work on Wikibooks. One may ask why has the w:wikimedia commons grown so big without a unified user login and unified watchlist.

That is because the commons is so integral and necessary to wikipedias in all languages. There is such a large pool of users from many languages needing images from the commons that they will edit at the commons even if they are unregistered. Wikibooks is not so urgently needed by such a large pool of users. The hope for Wikibooks lies in the addition of millions of driveby registered users each adding a few sentences here and there at Wikibooks.

I have asked (here: [1], and elsewhere) why subdomains can not be used for all the English wikimedia projects. I have never gotten a reply from anybody with knowledge of the technical side. With unified login we could use our existing registered usernames without having to sign in at each project. I think subdomains would even allow a unified watchlist to exist without much problem.

The various wikimedia project pages could all be redirected to URLs that are subdomains of wikimedia or wikipedia:

commons.wikimedia.org 
wikipedia.wikimedia.org
wikibooks.wikimedia.org
wikinews.wikimedia.org
wikiquote.wikimedia.org
wikisource.wikimedia.org
wikispecies.wikimedia.org
wikitravel.wikimedia.org
wikiversity.wikimedia.org
wiktionary.wikimedia.org

or

commons.wikipedia.org
wikipedia.org
wikibooks.wikipedia.org
wikinews.wikipedia.org
wikiquote.wikipedia.org
wikisource.wikipedia.org
wikispecies.wikipedia.org
wikitravel.wikipedia.org
wikiversity.wikipedia.org
wiktionary.wikipedia.org

Users with the same name (and different email addresses) could be differentiated by a number being automatically added to the end of the duplicate name used outside wikipedia. Timeshifter, Timeshifter2, Timeshifter3, etc.. The wikipedia name would be unaltered. I am registered at nearly all the wikimedia projects, and with the same email address. So I wouldn't need the number added at the end of the Timeshifter name used on any of the wikimedia projects.--Timeshifter 03:32, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Approximate wait

It's been a long time since I read about the Unified login. I also heard that it will be running in test mode in December, but there was no notice of it. I wanted to know when, approximately, will the trial period start? Thanks for responses in advance! Artyom 14:39, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Next April 1st the UL will be up and running. Best regards, Alpertron 22:29, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

The test mode does actually work: it's available at http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MergeAccount if you have an account on the testwiki. It doesn't actually do anything to your account, yet, though; it gets as far as calculating what it would do if it were running, but won't actually do it. Ais523 17:55, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

April 1st?

Users have concerns over the date that Alpertron mentioned above, suggesting it'd be pushed back a day or two. You may read them at w:en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions#Unified Login. - Mtmelendez ^(Talk) 13:05, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

sorry just talked with Tim on IRC and he says that its a hoax and anyways, there is a good chance that SUL will be available sooner than you think and most probably before April..I hope Brion remembers to do so :P ..--Cometstyles 13:22, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Given the number of questions of the date when UL will be deployed, since we are no futurologists, I've given that date. It appears that only a few people knew that April 1st is the fool's day. Best regards, Alpertron 14:11, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I can't quite tell what you're saying, or if this is all still a joke... but the idea of non-namespaced unified login should be seen as a joke. If someone proposed on a non-buried policy page to arbitrarily rename tens of thousands of accounts, particularly those of people who didn't inflate their edit count enough, I'm sure it would meet with an appropriate amount of hilarity, no matter whether it's April 1st or not. Rspeer 05:25, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Using LDAP?

Can't this be implemented just using Extension:LDAP_Authentication and use the same LDAP for all your wiki's? Or am I missing the point. Vic 23:26, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

How can you tell?

Hey guys, I'm M Johnson from Wikipedia. I'm just wondering, is there a way of telling if people have registered identically named accounts on other wikis, which share your account name? Eg. a tool of some sort where you enter an account name, and it comes up with every wiki where that account is registered?--121.221.228.148 07:29, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, there is. Global user contributions for M Johnson on tools.wikimedia.de - M132T003C 10:54, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your help.--121.221.97.52 05:55, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I had forgotten where all I had set up accounts apparently. Laura Scudder | Talk 19:36, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I use Find me! It's a nifty tool. It's also common for users to track their accounts in a matrix. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:37, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Unified Login is working now !!

It seems SUL is working now and you can see how it works by clicking on Special:MergeAccount.--Cometstyles 13:37, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

There's no such special page. It only exists on the Test Wiki, where it is in testing and does not actually implement the merge. —{admin} Pathoschild 15:59:59, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Cometstyles isn't crazy; I know for a fact that I saw that page on the 13th over on en.wp, Commons, Meta, Wikispecies, and some non-English edition of Wikipedia. EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:23, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I saw it too; it ran checks on accounts but did not actually do the merge. Random832 19:09, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm a sysop on en wiki, and it's actually working there (en:Special:MergeAccount). I was able to unify all my Wikimedia accounts to my home account on en wiki, despite only being a sysop on en wiki. So if you're a sysop somewhere, you should be able to do unification now. For regular users, it says, "Sorry, you don't have permission to access this page." I assume it will be opened to everyone soon. Superm401 | Talk 08:33, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I can confirm this as well, I just unified my accounts. --Winhunter 12:04, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Potential problem

If I was a less honest Wikimedian, could I potentially make an account on a obscure language Wikipedia with the same name as a respected admin on the English Wikipedia, edit my userpage until I had more edits then them, and steal their account when the merge happened? --Arctic.gnome 16:59, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Possibly. And you would be busted for it. And the admin would get his name back. Deliberately trying to take over some established user’s name would not be worth it, at all, in terms of the effort you would have to put into it. Jon Harald Søby 09:13, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

In this case, you would have a different password and authenticated email address from the admin, so if I understand right an automatic merge won't happen. Since you have more edits, you will become the primary account. The admin still won't be merged into your account unless they confirm. Instead, they have a fixed period of time to rename their account or have a bureaucrat forcibly rename your account.

However, on the other hand, if the admin has more edits (likely), they will be the primary account. You could then log on on another wiki and confirm that your account belongs to the admin. However, I think all that would do is lock you out. You wouldn't know the admin's password, so you wouldn't be able to log in as them, and since you claimed to be then, your old account is now gone.

So the only real way to steal A's account is if A has fewer edits, ignores the ongoing merge until too late, and then their account is automatically merged into yours. This is unlikely to work for an admin since we tend to pay attention at least occasionally.

As noted, bureaucrats can always intervene manually, and will probably have to do in a few cases. Superm401 | Talk 08:25, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

What will I be able to do when this test starts?

When the test for admins starts and I set it up through my admin account, will I be able to sign in to any project without making an account there first or is it just merging existing accounts? --130.15.164.77 01:54, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm an admin at en wiki, and I ran the unification there. I'm now able to log in anywhere, including cbk-zam.wikipedia.org, which I never even read before. Superm401 | Talk 08:36, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Tool to list the username in all wikis

I have registered on many Wikimedia wikis over the years, mostly to add pictures from commons or to place interwiki links. The problem is I do not remember where exactly I registered my username. I thought it might be useful for me (and for others) if there were a software tool which lists all the wikis where a certain username is registered, like the tool on Commons which makes a list on which wikis a certain image is used (in the header of each picture file in Commons). Perhaps a helpful soul could create something like that. Then it would be much easier to check if all the email addresses in the accounts are properly set, or all use the same password. Thanks, Longbow4u 11:08, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

http://tools.wikimedia.de/~vvv/sulutil.php --Ptr ru 12:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Another tool would be FindMe. Once you find out what all the accounts are, I suggest saving them in a wikimatrix. EVula // talk // ☯ // 13:49, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Ptr ru's tool worked for me. Longbow4u 16:50, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Usurp not possible when unification has started?

I just experienced the following: I started the unification process on my home wiki. I then saw that my username was taken on spanish wikipedia, but the account had zero edits. I created a new account on spanish wikipedia named "Kju (de)" and then asked a bureaucrat of them to usurp this to "Kju". This however proved to be impossible because the system prohibited renaming "Kju (de)" into "Kju" because "Kju" is blocked by the already started unification process. The bureaucrat then just renamed the "wrong" Kju into some other username which freed Kju for me, but my new Account "Kju (de)" remains.

This is not a problem in this case, but it will become a problem regarding a usurp request i made on english wikipedia. I am also "Kju (de)" there, because "Kju" is also taken by another user with zero edits there. However because of the problem described above, it will not be possible to rename "Kju (de)" to "Kju", therefore my account on en wikipedia (with edits!) can not be unified with my other accounts. I believe this is a bug or at least a serious shortcoming. Burocreauts should probably be able to override the unification lock on a rename for situations like this. -- Kju 16:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I also came across that problem at three projects where the ursupation was done after I activated SUL. It was not possible to merge my old account with my global account anymore. In those project it didn't matter much because it were about no more than 30 edits each, but there are still three other accounts (where I haven't asked for ursup yet since I still have no answer from the owners) where I have partly several hundreds of edits. -- Cecil 16:58, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

See Bug 13507. --MiCkE^d_b 17:41, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Clarification

Any documentation on this so far is either vague or case-specific, and I have been unable to find anything similar to my situation regarding different names on multiple wikis. Given that it appears this will be enabled for all users in the near future, I'd like to know what will happen to my accounts when I want to merge them.

My situation is:

• My main account is en:User:MTC.
• I also have accounts named "MTC" on the es, fo, fr, is, it, nl, pt, sv and tr Wikipedias, and on the English Wiktionary and Wikiquote.
• Accounts named "MTC" are also registered on the German and Polish Wikipedias and on Commons, but they are not mine. The Polish and Commons accounts appear to be the same person.
• I have accounts named "МТК" (Cyrillic characters) on be-x-old, ru, sr and uk Wikipedias.
• I have accounts named "M132T003C" here and on the German Wikipedia.
• I also have ja:利用者:マシュー・カトラー, sk:Redaktor:MTK and el:Χρήστης:ΜΤΚ (Greek characters).
• I have a second account on the Greek (el) Wikipedia named "MTC", created to claim back edits from an article imported from the English Wikipedia.
• All my accounts have the same email address and password. (Even the two Greek accounts, I previously thought it was impossible to have the same email address on two accounts in the same wiki…)

I would like all my accounts to be unified into a global account named "MTC". It will obviously be simple enough to unify the accounts currently named "MTC", but that's where it gets tricky, so here are my questions:

1. Will all my accounts that aren't named "MTC" have to be renamed in order to be unified?
2. If so, will they need to be renamed before I create a global account? (Will creating a global "MTC" account prevent an admin/bureaucrat/steward from renaming any one of my other accounts to "MTC"?)
3. Do global accounts have to have unique email addresses? For example, if I were to run the merge on the English Wikipedia to create a global account named "MTC", and then try to run a merge here on meta to create a global account named "M132T003C", would it fail because they have the same email address?
4. Can global accounts be merged with other global accounts? For example, if I can make global accounts named "MTC" and "M132T003C", can I then merge them into one global account named MTC?
5. (Not specific to unified login) Can local accounts be merged with other local accounts? For example, can el:Χρήστης:ΜΤΚ be merged with el:Χρήστης:MTC, considering both have contributions? If not, then why hasn't this been implemented?
6. What will happen if Polish/Commons MTC (or even German MTC) tries to create a global account before I do? (Considering I have far more contributions on the English Wikipedia than he does in total).

I await the answers with interest, hopefully they will come before unified login is enabled for all users. - M132T003C 20:39, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I have two answers for you, perhaps someone else will provide the rest:

1. Yes, I think so
2. They should be renamed prior to the unification, or else renameing is prevented (see Bug 13507 for more info).
3. No answer I'm afraid (but I don't think so)
4. No answer I'm afraid
5. No answer I'm afraid (but I think that "first come, first served" is the way this works).
6. No answer I'm afraid

--MiCkE^d_b 20:53, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with MiCkE regarding answers to questions 1-3, and will try to provide answers for the remaining questions:

4. Probably not.
5. I found an archive of an interesting feature that was being implemented on English Wikipedia a couple of years ago, see Wikipedia:Changing attribution for an edit. So I guess it is technically possible. You might want to ask a developer to do it for you, probably a developer on the local wiki.
6. Although the H:UL article used to say that the user with the most contributions will get the global username, I think you would be better off if you try to unify your accounts before someone else with a username identical to yours does it on other wikis. But I'm almost sure that if you ask a steward (or whoever will have the right to do so) to give you the global username and offer a new one to the user with fewer edits than you, it won't be a big deal.

Cheers, Artyom 22:25, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks both of you for answering, I've now requested a username change on all wikis where I didn't have MTC. - M132T003C 06:17, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Will it be possible to tell which users are unified?

Will it be possible to tell which users are unified? For example, if I encounter user JohnSmith on fr, can I verify that he is the same person as JohnSmith on en? Will I be able to tell which Wiki is his home wiki? Or will this all be private information? Bovlb 23:03, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

You can't at this point. It's not private information since everything is still local to the different wikiws except the login. --Winhunter 16:41, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, check out http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/ca.php 207.145.133.34 22:10, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Grammar issue

When account unification is complete from the English Wikipedia, I get the following message: 'The account named "Graham87" on each the following sites have been automatically attached".... This should be changed to 'The account named "Graham87" on each of the following sites has been automatically attached". Thanks, Graham87 23:42, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

What happens to users who do not unify their accounts?

What will happen to users that do not unify their accounts? Or to usernames that are registered on just a few wikis, all with 0 edits? Will they be unified automatically if they have the same email/password? For example, if username WhateverUser123 is registered on enwikipedia, commons, ruwikibooks and frwikiversity, but none of these accounts have edits, can another user register the global username (in 2 months from now, let's say) WhateverUser123, or will the system tell that the username cannot be registered because accounts already exist on several projects? Artyom 23:43, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Anyone? Artyom 14:10, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Different passwords

Hello, I'm an admin at the nl-wiki and some time ago I made my password on the nl-wiki a little longer to make it more difficult to guess (the old one wasn't easy to guess but still better safe than sorry; especially if you're an admin). On the other about 40 Wikipedia's and related projects I kept using the old one. For unified login it seems they all have to be the same so I temporarily changed my password on the nl-wiki back to the old one and merging went OK.

My main question is can I easily change the passwords on all the projects by doing it at a central page? If so, how can I do that? If not, can I change some passwords locally and in the future do the rest or do they have to be identical?

Best Regards, Robotje 12:43, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you need to have the same password to unify accounts. I am an administrator at en.wp and I've done something similar to you - a longer/complex password here and simpler ones elsewhere. Special:MergeAccount still lists all my accounts even though the password may be different. I think the check is done both through passwords and email addresses. All accounts with the same password or the same email address are returned. But this is just my guess, you'll have to get this confirmed by someone knowing about SUL. - 59.95.231.199 15:38, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know how Special:MergeAccount lists the accounts, however, I'm quite sure the password is a global setting in SUL - i.e. if you change the password on any project using the global username, it will change the passwords on every other project as well. — Timichal 15:42, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I think Robtje meant changing password before merging. I would say just try to run Special:MergeAccount first, it also prompts you to enter the different password in case it cannot merge automatically. --Winhunter 16:40, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

In my case the merge wasn't possible until after I changed the password at nl-wiki to the same one as on all the other 40+ projects. Now I want to restore the previous password on nl-wiki. If that would mean it changes automatically on all the projects, that's good. On the other hand if it can only be changed locally (i.e. changing needs to be done 40+ times on all projects I made an account for in the past) is something I hope to avoid. If really needed, that's OK with me too. If there is a special page to change it in one go, it would be great to know. I will you posted when I find out more. - Robotje 17:15, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

It turns out that if I change the password on one project, the password is changed on all the projects. The only strange thing is, if I try to change it on the nl-wiki where I'm an admin, I get the question if I want to change it for user "<>" of for user "Robotje". Maybe some more translation is needed. Anyway, it now works fine, on all the projects I now have the password that is a little harder to guess. Thanks for all replies/advice/help. - Robotje 17:32, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

When I merged, it prompted me to enter the passwords for accounts where the password was different. However, after the merge all my passwords were the same as the initial one I used to merge the accounts. --EncycloPetey 20:36, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Changing passwords

Is it possible to change my password once my accounts are merged? Will this change the password for just the one account, or for all accounts at once? --EncycloPetey 20:34, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

If it's handled like it is at Wikia, your account is just that, a single account, which works across all projects. You'd only need to change it at one place. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:37, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Once your accounts are merged, changing the password anywhere will change it everywhere. I've just tested this with my own unified account, and I understand this is one of the main effects of the current unification code. Superm401 | Talk 01:35, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. --71.202.255.136 18:46, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Problem password in french WP

All of the accounts that I've registered for came up correctly during the preprocessing for unification, except my account in the French wikipedia[2]. For some reason, it doesn't seem to use the same password as my other accounts, and I'm tried every combination I can think of. I asked it to mail me a new one, but apparently for some odd reason I didn't give it an email address when I created an account there--which seems strange, I'm pretty sure I did so in all my other accounts.

I double-checked my contribution list there[3]; all I did was a bunch of dog-related edits, as my French isn't that great and I was working heavily in the english dog articles during that time. So--has someone else doing unification somehow preempted that account? (If so, they haven't made any edits since then.) There are a lot of User:Elfs in other languages that aren't me. How do I find out whether someone else has taken over my account? Or how else do I get my password reset? I don't understand French well enough to be able to navigate there and get assistance on that wiki. Anyone? Elf 20:18, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Since the userpage links to Your en.wiki account and this link was added by the fr.wiki Elf, it should be no problem to have the account merged to Yours as soon as the merging is opened again. Best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| ∇ 18:59, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Question

Is it working now? Zlllll 23:53, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes for all sysop. --Winhunter 12:38, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Special:MergeAccount missed one

Because I had forgotten most of my passwords, I spent some time over the last couple of days getting new passwords for all of my various accounts and changing them to match my primary (en) account.

Then I went to Special:MergeAccount on en, and it worked alright, except that it missed my account on lmo.wikipedia.org.

Is there a better place to report this? Do I need to get a bugzilla account? [Apparently bugzilla is not included in my new SUL, although meta is]

Thanks. ~ BigrTex 00:56, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Bugzilla is not a wiki, so that should not be included. As for a missing account, that should perhaps be asked about in #wikimedia-tech, or reported to bugzilla if you're sure that the account should have been merged (ie was the same username, same email and whatever other criteria there are). – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 01:47, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

It will only automatically merge accounts with edits, and lmo:Utente:BigrTex has no edits. Up until yesterday, cases like this were being handled at Steward requests/Usurpation, but that appears to have been stopped for the moment. - MTC 06:16, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. According to sulutil, I had 27 edits on lmo. After further review, it looks like those 27 edits were to pages that have since been deleted. I made some edits to my userpage at lmo, and now it appears on my Special:MergeAccount page - I'm not sure if it was the edits or something else that caused it, since I didn't check until after I made the edits. I didn't really expect to get a bugzilla account with my unified account, but I've never really wanted a bugzilla account either. Now to get back to work... ~ BigrTex 00:52, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Howto

The page should have a howto: i.e. how to actually go about unifying your accounts. I'll start a section for this. Superm401 | Talk 07:20, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Rename blocked user

Let me know if this is already solved or asked matter. I'm a bureaucrat on ja.wikt and ja.books. After you rename User:A, a blocked account, to User:B, A is still displayed in Special:IPBlockList but B isn't. Even though A has not been blocked and B has probably. To solve this matter we have to unblock once and reblock, but it's complicated. IMO, current IPBlockList specification should be fixed. Thanks, e-Goat 15:42, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

bugzilla:13555 — VasilievVV 16:48, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

What's the significance of the home wiki?

I contribute mainly on en:Wikipedia but since I pushed for the creation of tl:Wikipedia in 2004, I was made a bureaucrat/sysop there. I could try merging my accounts from tl:Wikipedia but I read that that would become my home wiki, but I prefer my home wiki to be en:Wikipedia. Is there any significance for the home wiki? Can the home wiki be changed later? --seav 01:29, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it is changeable later. Mønobi 02:13, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. What about the significance? Is there anything special about a user's home wiki when he's logged in it that's not present in other wikis? --seav 05:26, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

As far as I see, the settings of the gobal username itself in your preferences. Bináris 12:47, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

No I think that has to do with wether or not you are an admin or not. I can see the global username settings on both wikis where I am an admin, not just the home wiki. The significans of the home wiki has to do with the merge process it self, as far as I can tell. The password and e-mail settings of your home wiki becomes your global settings once you have merged your accounts. --MiCkE^d_b 14:00, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

You can only merge your account from your home wiki. I've tried merging my account from another wiki where I'm a sysop and was told that wasn't possible, because that wasn't my home wiki. --Erwin(85) 10:46, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I just wonder how to change my home wiki if I would like to.--Jusjih 04:20, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

You can’t do that yet. Jon Harald Søby 06:35, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I merged my accounts on English Wikiquote, where I am an admin with some other user rights, but the system said meta was my home. Another admin of us who is however no English Wikipedia admin said he was indicated English Wikipedia as his home (see q:WQ:AN). There may be no substantial harm but looks a bit twisted. --Aphaia 07:32, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Home wiki home page usurping others

There are several things I do not understand in the documentation. (Since I'm not an administrator, I don't have to worry personnally for some time, but anyhow I'd like to get this right.) I have a number of accounts in different languages, with identical user names, confirmed e-mail addresses, and passwords; but different user pages. It should be great to merge the accounts in several ways; but I really, really want to retain a user page in German on dewiki, one in Swedish on svwiki, and a Latin one in lawiki. Now, the documentation on this page doesn't seem to say that i couldn't do this; but one of the bug reports quoted the following system message at merging time:

The password and e-mail address set at this wiki will be used for your unified account, and your user page here will be automatically linked to from other wikis. You will be able to change which is your home wiki later.

Does this mean that all my user pages but one will be replaced by redirects???-JoergenB 21:07, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

No, your user accounts will be linked to the global account. I will change this for clarity. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 22:30, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, things feel better now:-)-JoergenB 13:40, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

The page now makes no mention of 'user pages'. I guess user pages should be listed among the things which are not affected (?) -- Harry Wood 14:46, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Unified watchlist

It would be nice to have one page where one could see all his/her watchlist. --Steinninn 11:49, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

See Bug 3525. Titoxd^(?!?) 08:32, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Availability for non-Admin Users

when will this become available for all users?--Pewwer42  Talk  16:12, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes please! I'm a regular contributor to both commons and en.wikipedia, and an occasional contributor elsewhere and would love to get a unified account - assuming I don't collide with someone else. Is there any timeframe for potentially making it available to regular users? Karora 02:49, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

SUL will be available for all users, but AFAIK there's no timeframe. --Erwin(85) 07:54, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Some questions

I've read through all the pages about unified login, but I still have some unanswered questions:

I am User:Sam on Enlish Wikipedia (admin), commons, wikimedia and mediawiki. I've unified these accounts. I usurped "Sam" at Wiktionary. I have an account on German Wikipedia, with a different name, someone else registered as "Sam", but there are no edits. I could usurp, but I don't speak German well enough to figure out how to find where to ask. There are OVER SIXTY other projects that have a User:Sam who is not me. I don't mind, because I have no intention of editing on those projects just now. But what should I do if I change my mind, and there is an active user on the other project? Down the road will we get to a point when there cannot be more than one user with the same name? Will those 60 users have to be renamed?

The biggest question I have is about transparancy. If eventually, all the other Sams out there have to be renamed, how will those users be distinguished from me? If they get renamed, will User:Sam on their project be a redirect to their new name? What If I want to start editing on that project? Should I warn some of these users of the problems ahead of time so they can establish a new identity soon? For now, I will just edit anonymously on projects that I cannot log into using "Sam", but I'm still wondering what will be happening down the road. Any clarification and advice would be appreciated. Sam 06:43, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

From what I understand, at some future point in time (after numerous opportunities for renames and warnings have passed) there will be a scripted unification. One of the Sams will "win" the name (likely you), and the others will be force-renamed by the software if they still haven't been renamed by then. It's likely that a large number of emails will be sent notifying users that this process is about to occur. As none of this is set into stone yet, many things about this may change. I'd suggest just watching this page for details. ~Kylu (u|t) 06:59, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

At the German wikipedia, the place to ask for a zero-edits account to be renamed is [4]. 1= username to be usurped, 2= your current username, 3= reasons and diff-links if necessary.--UV 13:02, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Would it make sense to have some multi-language templates to use to help this process along? Does anyone have an idea how many users will be in the same situation that I describe above? With a template I could post a standard warning readable in many languages, warning the users that their username is likely to be lost due to SUL, and they would probably benefit by renaming. The template could be copied to every project, so someone like me could easily post the warning on the 62 user-pages that share my name. Then the person would know what is coming, and they could talk to me, or request a rename. Is this worth doing, or are cases like mine fairly rare? -- Sam 11:13, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

As a start, we should focus on translating Help:Unified login and linking to it. I requested at Talk:Communications_subcommittees/Trans#Help:Unified_login that this be made a high-priority translation. Superm401 | Talk 02:42, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment

I just added links to a Commons page on many different languages. It was easy to log in to each language's Wikipedia (some for the first time), but my favorite part was being able to change the preferences so I could see most of the menus in English. I love not having to guess which button to hit by location! Royalbroil 13:54, 5 April 2008 (UTC) (English admin)

I don't want to decrease your happiness, but this was the case earlier, too. I was able to change the language in my preferences before SUL, and I had to guess only once which was the tab of the preferences, but that could be seen at the bottom of the screen while moving the mouse. :-) Bináris 14:17, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

You can change it without even having to log in. Try appending ?uselang=en (or &uselang=en for pages that have index.php in their URL) and you'll see the same effect. Titoxd^(?!?) 08:34, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Changing e-mail after unifying accounts

I have a global account and would like to change my e-mail address associated with my accounts. When I change and confirm the new e-mail, I can see it reflected in my preferences on that site, but when I log out and log back in, it reverts to the address listed when I created the global account. Does this happen to anyone else? Is there a trick to this that I don't yet know? WODUP 16:10, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Have you changed your address on your home wiki? If not, please try so. Bináris 16:44, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I have. WODUP 19:24, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Just a quick note to note that this has now been resolved. :) WODUP 07:50, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Deselect account

It may has some accounts of the same username that are not owned by the same person, but accidentally have the same password. For these accounts which have same password, but particular user does not own all of them, and don't want to merge all, is there the mechanism for this user to deselect those accounts during the unifying process? --Ans 14:14, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Extremely good question! :-) IMHO this should not be the responsibility of the user that he doesn't steal other users' account. The good solution is if the system does not accept passwords that are too simple or too similar to the username. Bináris 04:33, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Finding foreign language bureaucrats

I want to usurp my username on some foreign language wikipedias. Shouldn't be too hard, as on several they have no edits/are indef blocked etc.

Trouble is my Russian/Italian/Spanish etc isn't so hot (!). Is there an easy way to find bureaucrats in those languages who'll speak my language, or am I better off finding a Wikimedia steward who can do the lot for me? --Dweller 11:55, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, normally it is no problem to find out a users language because lots of people use bable templates, if not, try a shot in the blue with English, use a simple language so that they could make use of babelfish-like services to understand what You wrote. If You have sul already activated but want to have some userpages renamed to the global name You will have to ask for deleting Your global account first because of a bug. If the accounts just have to be moved out of the way it is no problem.

I would also suggest to write the burocrat You want to contact via Special:Emailuser because in my experience this is much faster.

Hope that helped, best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| ∇ 13:20, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Not sure I understood all of that. How do I find bureaucrats in other language Wikipedias? I cannot navigate the Wikipedias because I don't understand them. --Dweller 13:35, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

You just find them with xx:Special:Listusers/bureaucrat, replace xx with the correct language code or paste Special:Listusers/bureaucrat in the searchfield of the wiki in question, best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| ∇ 13:38, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

It is alwaays a good idea to login to the wiki in question. The login/account creation pages allow you to switch to a language you understand and after login this language is used as your navigation language permanently. --I 15:26, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. I'm making (slow) progress. --Dweller 09:27, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I could help you with Russian. Drop a message at my English Wikipedia talk page if you need help :) Artyom 15:24, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

SUL for bots in the second step

I suggest registered bots beeing the second group who can unify their accounts before SUL opens for every editor, because

• many of the bots really do need to be able to edit in many projects
• this solution could make possible an extended test for SUL/usurpation/bcrats with new testers before the whole population appears ante portas :-)
• editors who maintain a bot are more educated in technical processes and more familiar with Wikimedia than the avarage of people, which was also a reason to select admins in the first step
• local admins and bcrats could find the owners of the bots in an easier way if they forget to give their data on a certain wiki.

And a question on the last item: is there any possibility to determine the home wiki of an editor? -- Bináris 12:31, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

You can check the home wiki of an editor by running sulutil. If you run it, it will display the home wiki at the bottom of the list. I guess by default a user's home wiki is the wiki where the user has the most edits (or had at the time of unification). Artyom 12:00, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! Bináris 13:26, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

SUL pilot over?

It appears SUL is no longer up, have mergers been removed, or is the interface just down? xaosflux ^Talk 04:25, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to Tim Starling for restoring this (was inadvertently disabled on some servers). xaosflux ^Talk 11:52, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Bug, or misunderstanding?

I'm an admin on en.wiki. I set up my global account several weeks ago. Today, out of curiousity, I logged out, deleted all my cookies, cleared my cache, etc, and tried to set up the account "Barneca" on it.wiki, with a completely different password, mostly to see what the error message looked like. To my surprise, it.wiki allowed me to create the account. I did it again on no.wiki, just to be sure. I thought one of the advantages of a global account was to call "dibs" on that name on all the remaining wiki's (unless someone already had that name somewhere already), to help prevent impersonations on other wikis. Why wasn't I prevented from creating a new "Barneca" account unless I used my global password (so it would know it was me)?

• Did I misunderstand, and my global account does not prevent someone else from creating an account with my en.wiki name on other wikis?
• Or did the software know that I was making the request from the same IP I usually edit from on en.wiki, so it allowed it?
• Or is it a bug?

Thanks. --Barneca 18:49, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Do the projects show up when you (logged-in) check w:en:Special:MergeAccount? (fastest way is to load the page and then use your browser's Find feature to look for "it." and "no." EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:17, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, they showed up as "unmerged" or something similar, and it was seamless to incorporate them into my Global account; I just had to give the password. But my point is, I didn't think it was possible to create them at all, unless I used my global password. (and I don't have to search that many; I'm no EVula. I've only got 11 accounts, and there's only a realistic chance I'll edit 5-6 of those.) --Barneca 22:21, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Er, yeah, as soon as I posted that, I realized that you probably wouldn't have as many accounts to sift through that I do, what with you being a sensible human being and all...
I'm guessing that the password is what allowed you to bypass the username filter. What about registering somewhere with a totally different password? I'd try it myself, but it'd take me too long to find a site I'm not already registered at. ;) EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:27, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't explain well. Let's say (don't panic, I'm not an idiot) that my global password was "fred". I created barneca on it.wiki with a password of "ralph". It let me do it. I then changed the password to "fred" (because I didn't want to screw anything up and prevent eventual absorption into the Collective), logged into my global account, and the it.wiki account was listed under "not merged". I entered the password "fred" in (because I'd changed it), and it joined the global account.

But this means that anyone could have created the account with "ralph", and started editing independently. --Barneca 22:32, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Must have either been a temporary bug, or a bug that someone fixed (if so, thanks!); it's working the way I expect it to now. I was just prevented from creating "Barneca" on other wiki's unless I used my global account password. All is well. --Barneca 19:03, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

ya that is exactly what I wanted to say ... I have created my global account Chaos ..with some exceptions on some wiki cause of registration .. but I expected that this global account will prevent anybody from registering with the same name ... surprisingly before few days some one register with my username in sl.wp .. I tried to register with different pass in some wiki,s ..and it works .... that should be fixed or i will have to upsurp 20 accounts rather than 10 accounts after few monthes :) --Chaos 18:26, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

apparently u have to login once in some wiki with ur global account to register some login ..that what could prevent another guy from creating an account with ur name ... i hope that sul developed rapidly to check the SUL before it permits some guy from registration --Chaos 19:16, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I did what Barneca explained right now, and it’s true. Someone could steal my name, and with my not having the password, I can’t merge them. And, since the global account is already created, it will require an unmerge to usurp the account! See bugzilla:14248 (forgive me if someone has already mentioned the bug). It’ll be fixed in rev:35340 — H92 (t · c · no) 22:00, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Fixed in rev 35340. en.wikipedia is at rev 35266. Kagee 22:02, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

SUL on other projects than wikipedia

Hi all! I've just completed the procedure for the SUL, and the login works on all the wikipedias, but on other projects (wikisource, meta, etc.) I cannot login anymore neither with the old nor with the unified password. And yes, the SUL process was completed on all my logins and no conflicts showed up. The problem appears to be shared by other users having it.wiki as the main login --212.50.147.101 20:30, 27 May 2008 (UTC) (AKA User:Rutja76, who cannot login here anymore due to the above)

Update: now it allows the login, although it's not automatic --Rutja76 10:01, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

It's designed that way since each wiki is still a seperate wiki, SUL allows you to use a common username/password but you still need to login to each individually. --Winhunter 12:03, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Yesterday evening (EET) I was automatically logged on all the wikipedias I tried (non just the ones I was already registered in), but on the other side I could not log on in other wikipedia projects, not even here on meta. Today I can login everywhere, but only manually --Rutja76 15:00, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

That is because the configuration was changed for a while. AFAIK, it is now set so you will be logged in wherever you go (except fishbowl/private wikis and the wikimedia.org domain, where you will have to log in explicitly).  – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 22:43, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Home wiki changing

How can I change my home wiki? ro:User:Remigiu

That's not possible currently. And it isn't really important – it only has a function in the database, not for anything else. Jon Harald Søby 20:44, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Example: My 'home wiki', for some obscure reason, is the one where I don't participate. Any logic out there? commons:User:NVO / en:User:NVO / ru:User:NVO. 91.78.103.81 20:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Unified login

For some reason I thought that by logging in at one place, I would be logged in everywhere I have an account. Will this be implemented in the future? Also, if they will be implemented, how long till we get a unified watchlist, userpage, talkpage? Jkasd 05:07, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

This is already the case. There's a shared cookie. So logging in at one place will automatically log you in at another wiki assuming you have a global account. You might have to log out and log in again to create the shared cookie though. I don't know about the watchlist etc. --Erwin(85) 06:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Seems to be working now. Jkasd 14:57, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

searching for conflicts

Is there a way for users to easily search for conflicts? This may involve Special:CentralAuth, which non-stewards may not access. Thanks. ∴ here…♠ 12:37, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

You can use Special:MergeAccount or get a list of wiki's with a certain user name with SUL util. --Erwin(85) 15:09, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

SUL attempt conflict

The tools available to me indicate that I registered this username earliest on both the English Wikipedia (User ID 27731, which I registered sometime in 2003 or 2004, I believe) and the English Wikiquote, have more edits (593 on my Wikiquote account, 24 on Wikipedia, plus a few edits on 8 other English Wikimedia wikis), and yet after several attempts beginning within an hour or two after the SUL became generally available I was not permitted to create the SUL because it was declaring a more recently created account than mine on the Turkish Wikipedia with only 527 edits was being considered as the Home account. Even before some recent activity in the last day my count was well above the Turkish one, at about 572, and though the Turkish account is an active one which I have no desire to usurp, there is no indication that this account has even been used this week, and I am assuming that no effort to consolidate the accounts was made by this account. I don't know what policies exist or are being devised about such conflicts, but I do wish to register the situation that exists and, if it is still possible, to claim the SUL rights. ~ Silver Surfer 17:58, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I checked into this wiki yesterday hoping to find some info as to how I might proceed, and if it was still possible for me to claim the SUL, but didn't know where to post the situation, and decided I would just go on editing. Today I noticed my preferences on a site indicated I was an "autoconfirmed" user, and I knew I had not succeeded in doing any Unification. Just for additional info: I registered Silver Surfer at the English WIkipedia in 2003 or 2004, at English Wikiquote in February 2007, and on the other English Wikis in June 2007, and have been editing on them since before the Turkish account was ever even created (in July 2007). ~ Silver Surfer 18:14, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

If you check [5] you will find that the Turkish account has the greatest number of edits, so that user can actually ask for the SUL and usurp your accounts. Best regards, Alpertron 19:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that info. It seems the tool I was using to monitor the situation was deficient and had given me a false sense of security, and left me perplexed when I initially failed at getting the SUL. The situation is now resolved to my satisfaction. ~ Silver Surfer 00:22, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Someone's using the same name as me

I've just unified my account on the English wikipedia and the commons to discover that somebody on the German wikipedia is using my name [6] who is most definately not me. As I don't speak German, I don't know whether this person has chosen this name independently, unaware of my existence, or is trying to impersonate me. What should be done in this situation. I don't mind as such, as long as no-one gets the impression that we are the same people. G-Man 22:20, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

You should request that the username be usurped for you, probably.  – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 22:44, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Future features

Are there plans for the inclusion of a feature, in the future, that will make it possible to add accounts to the global account that were not renamed prior to merging? Unfortunately, I forgot to have one of my usernames renamed prior to merging. Kal ^(talk) 05:53, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

You can have your global account deleted temporarily, have that account renamed, and then re-merge the account. See Steward requests/SUL requests. Cheers, Daniel (talk) 05:55, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Which wiki is home?

How is the home wiki assigned? My understanding was that it is the wiki where you initiate unification. However, the page currently says it is the wiki where you have the most edits. Superm401 | Talk 20:32, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I also think and have been told that is it the wiki where you initiate unification. Addshore 07:29, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Different names, no name conflicts

Hi, Some confusion remains about a simple question. Suppose I participate on two projects with two usernames, and noone else has those names anywhere. To be concrete, suppose I'm Izzy53 on en:wp and Izzy54 on es:wp; and suppose that I have more edits on en, so that will be considered my home wiki. Is it expected that going through the SUL merging process would begin with a request to a bureaucrat on es to change my username there from Izzy54 to Izzy53? Thanks, Jeremy Tobacman 11:52, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

It would begin

• either with a request to a bureaucrat on es to change your username there from Izzy54 to Izzy53
• or with a request to a bureaucrat on en to change your username there from Izzy53 to Izzy54
• or, if you wish to take the trouble, with a request to bureaucrats on both projects to change your username from Izzy53 or Izzy54 to IzzyTheGreatAndWonderful [supposing that SULutil tells you that IzzyTheGreatAndWonderful is not yet taken on any project]. --UV 19:33, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Help with SUL

I have merged most of my accounts under the name de:User:Esmerálda, but forgot to rename my account nl:Gebruiker:Esmeralda first (there it doesn't have the acute accent!). Can I unmerge my accounts again so I can rename my account on nlwiki and than remerge all the accounts? I'd also like to know how my chances are to take over other "Esmeralda" accounts if they have 0 edits in almost all wikipedias. Your help is much appreciated. Esmerálda 20:20, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Can someone clarify this usurpation stuff?

I always understood that the SUL woul imply that when more than one people registered with a name, there would be a procedure determining who is entitled to the name. This principle is reminded for instance in the section "SUL attempt conflict" above, but it seems to be just that: a principle with no implication.

My SUL failed for a good deal because of a massive identity theft that happened 2 years ago, linked to Vandalism reports/BogaertB. See this explanation on a WP:en buraucrat talk page for more details (further to that message, I could usurp on WP:en).

With the passing of time, I could usurp the most used of these accounts, and I left the rest to the SUL. Now the SUL is here, and I see that the issue is not solved. There are still some 40 fake Bradipus users out there, some without edition, some with 2 or 3 quick ones made in a couple of minutes (generally on December 4, 2006).

I went to Steward requests/SUL requests, where I was told I had to go on each Wiki with bureaucrats. In other words, I am told that I should loose my time and, more important, the time of dozens of bureaucrats all over the WP galaxy to sort out the mess created by the worst vandal WP:fr ever had!

Worse, although I recently could usurp 2 more accounts on french wikis, the usurpation was refused on the german WP because the vandal made 2 edits in december 2006! They put the request in some page for "possible future solution".

As far as I am concerned, while I was already reluctant to do a lot of work to solve an issue created by a vandal, I just do not see a solution any more.

Redux made a clever suggestion on Steward requests/SUL requests:

As part of the SUL initiative, we might consider a joint effort with all the local Bureaucrats, so that we can get a special dispensation to process such cases, where it is clearly identity theft performed in multiple projects, without the need of having the good-faith user contact God-knows-how-many local Bureaucrats and deal with the problem on a one-by-one basis.

We might create a SUL subpage and invite all the local Bureaucrats to present any opposition to this being allowed for SUL purposes only, and see if we can work something out. The interested party (the victim) would still have to present the evidence that the accounts are numerous (very important, otherwise the user can simply ask 1 or 2 local Bureaucrats and have it taken care of) and were all created as part of a vandal attack (identity theft), showing, for instance, that all of the accounts are inactive, or were used only a few times (usually for vandalism).

After all, if the process is made impossibly difficult due to vandalistic actions from the past, then the vandals eventually win out and, for the victims, it is as good as not having SUL at all.

But there was no reaction to that suggestion.

So, what about that suggestion? Or what about the proverbial easy usurpation based on the number of edits? Or what about having a policy that will make sure bureaucrats work the same all over wikis? How can I solve that german issue or any future issue? Honestly, I am getting tired of this, and knowing that the vandal, who is still active and still stalking me (he created en:Mlle Vincent Bradipus dévergondée a couple of days ago), is out there laughing because he does control my user name on 40 wikis is part of my bad mood (my contributions slowed down terribly these last months, because of this harrassment and of the lack of support I perceive). Bradipus 10:36, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

A bit confused

I'm a bit confused about this, can someone please clarify?

Say I have two accounts on two projects: user:Emu54 on en-wiki and user:Ostrich76 on fr-wiki. But I would like to have Emu54 as my username for everything else; keeping Ostrich76 for fr-wiki only. Could I have Emu54 as my SUL, but use Ostrich76 only for fr-wiki? Would this mean I have to log in and out each time I visit fr-wiki? 203.122.102.163 12:15, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Question

I recently set up my account for unified login, with the exception that there were already accounts using the same username as me on de: and zh:, but in reviewing the edits on de:Benutzer:Bearcat I've confirmed that while there are a few talk page edits in German that I definitely didn't make, almost everything else under that user name is an edit in English that I did make on en:. It's not overly important to me that I get control of that account, since I'm not a German speaker and would never have opportunity to use it, but I am curious to know how this kind of thing happens since it doesn't seem to have happened anywhere else. (I don't understand enough Chinese to even guess at what the deal is with zh:User:Bearcat, which doesn't actually seem to have any edit history at all from what I can tell.) Bearcat 16:58, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

The de: edits from your en: account are the result of a page being transwikied. I've had that happen to me twice. - MTC 18:55, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Minor bug unified login

I noticed that when I log in at Wikipedia it logs me into all my other accounts except for Wikispecies (http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jeepday). If I log in at Wikispecies it logs me in to Wikipedia and all the others. Jeepday 20:03, 31 May 2008 (UTC)