[Foundation-l] Single login - decision 2004

Fri Nov 19 02:26:10 UTC 2004

The key point of proposal 3 is that names are not automatically blocked in all other projects. That way someone using a name in one or five projects doesn't prevent ten other people from using their first choice of name in the other 500+ (561 total databases at the moment, not all in use yet likely to be thousands within a few years). There are some 133,000 accounts on en, about ten percent of which have uploaded an image.

The key differences between the proposals:

1. Major pain and lots of inaccurate data in talk pages and so on, where names become wrong to at least some degree, or old records need to be changed. Many people forced to change name in one proposed version (the one I first wrote), in another (the one JeLuF replied with) everyone with a conflicting name forced to change name so existing records remain accurate and conversion is fast. Acceptability to the community is likely to be low - all those people forced to change names. Personally, I'd say this is by far the worst of the options.

2. (me misunderstanding what zwitter had in mind and partially inaccurately describing the results of a discussion between us) Don't force changes, link via global ID (GUID). One person signing up a name in any wiki blocks all others from using that in any other wikis in the future. All existing data remains accurate and "conversion" is a non-event. Most people don't understand many languages or participate in many projects, so names are reserved in a vast number of places where they won't ever be used by the first registrant.

3. (me finally understanding zwitter) Same as 2 except don't lock a name in all wikis. Don't force any name changes. All existing data remains accurate and "conversion" is a non-event. Login is to a single login database with GUID (log in to any project with any ID gets the global ID equivalent as the behind the scenes login). More people get their first choice of name than with 2. Anyone can reserve their name either by visiting any project with it if nobody else is using the name. Or a variation where you don't reserve until you try to edit, to let you read without unnecessarily reserving the name. A default name in the global profile which is used automatically in the new project if it's available; if it's in use, get a form to select another, leave default blank if you always want to choose. Can make it easy to register in many projects for anyone who cares about it. Options for that include check boxes either with all projects or with same-language projects and telling people whether the name they are after is already in use somewhere. Should provide a report to show the user in other projects and resolve trolling problems. zwitter has already implemented a simple version of this, which uses the email address as the link - the real solution would use the GUID.

Effectively, the three proposals reflect the evolution of my thoughts on this as I considered more and more aspects of the problem. What prompted me to go the way of 3 was considering the AOL namespace problem: every good name you want is already taken by someone you don't know, who has no involvement with anything you do. 3 tries to reduce that problem by requiring names to be unique at the finest grained practical level - the individual project.

It's easy for me to register my name in all projects. I haven't bothered to do it: I know I won't ever participate significantly in them because I don't understand the language. So, no pioint in me stopping someone else from using the name.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" <jwales at wikia.com>
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 14:00:46 -0800
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Single login - decision 2004

Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Option 3 looks best to me. The trolling issue would be no worse than
> it is now.  One way to *improve* that potential issue would be to
> grandfather-in currently conflicting names as proposed in option 3
> but lock user names from now on.

Yes.  What I would say is that we should go with option 3, and that we
should prevent any *future* conflicts by making it simple for people
who do not currently have a name conflict to reserve their username
globally if they like (this should be the default for new accounts).

For people with name conflicts, this can be a valuable inducement for
them to eliminate the conflict - as long as you're conflicted, you
have no guarantee on the username in a new wiki.

And finally, I would agree with Angela that this should not be a board
decision at this point, but rather a very widely publicized community
poll.

--Jimbo
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