On 3/6/06, Jan Vanoverpelt <jan.vanoverpelt(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Rob Church
<robchur(a)gmail.com>om>:
You can't. Why do you need to hide them? I know the docs say not to,
but it *might* be safe to do so under certain circumstances...
What are these "certain circumstances"? Why is it not safe do delete users
from the database? Certain user-ids are missing then, but in which
situations is this a problem?
Because, as typical for a MySQL targeted application, our database
schema doesn't ask the database to enforce referential integrity.
As a result it is possible, through the deletion of users, that you
can leave the database in what is effectively, from MediaWiki's
perspective at least, a corrupted state: Our behavior is not
(well)-defined for many cases where a user is referenced but does not
exist.
Deletion is possible as long as you understand the schema and
MediaWiki's operation well enough to perform it... but the software
wasn't designed with that in mind, so you have to watch out for
pitfalls.
An easier solution would be to just rename such users with a name that
will end up at the end of the sorted output.
As to why people would want to do this, it's simple: bad intentioned
users have realized that if they spam the userlist on MediaWiki sites
their spamming will likely go unremoved.