Evan Prodromou wrote:
Brion said:
/It doesn't solve our specified requirement (single Wikimedia-wide
namespace so a
single username works on all 600+ Wikimedia wikis transparently, no
muss no fuss).
/
Really? I'd think that an Interwiki-namespaced username would solve
that problem nicely, without requiring a big name-clash-fixing step
when the technology rolls out. I think that having a single username
across all wikis would be nice, if you didn't have to do resolve dupes
across the system, but if you do, it's really kind of a hassle.
I'd think that, since single-signon between wikis is a feature useful
only for a minority of registered Wikimedia users (how many actually
log into more than one Wikimedia wiki, ever? 10-20%, maybe? how many
log into more than, say, 5 wikis? Or log into more than one wiki on a
regular basis? 2%? 0.2%?), it'd be a good political idea to minimize
the namespace-sorting hassle. That nameclash-fixing step is gonna
suck, and it's not even helpful most users. It seems to me that a
minor effort on the part of "interwikiists" -- just using a
project+language namespace -- would be painless for them and
unnoticeable for everyone else.
Given that Commons should be the only resource for
pictures, everyone
needs currently at least TWO users. Bringing this as a "political" idea
is horrible certainly when you do not consider that several projects do
not allow upload to the local project any more. It is horrible because
it shows single project/language focus. When you consider the current
interwiki practice, it is horribly broken; I have only on the English
Wiktionary 15306 edits doing interwiki stuff for Februari 2006. I am
certain that I have some 50.000 edits on all Wiktionaries only in
Februari. This idea that projects and its language versions are not
related is wrong.
When we get Wikidata databases that are properly localised, we will be
able to have information about one topic in one database available for
ALL projects, this will be another example where interaction between
projects will become relevant.
I think that if we use Interwiki prefixes on the UI side, OpenID
becomes that much easier. A user could login to French Wikibooks as
/wp:en:User:EvanProdromou/ or whatever, and the UI translates that
into the right OpenID URL
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:EvanProdromou) and goes through the
OpenID two-step to get credentials checked. Under the covers, the
OpenID stuff would get worked out right, but we could use simpler
Interwiki strings for the UI.
OpenID is a great idea, it is included in the YADIS
specification, a
framework where it interacts with more protocols than just OpenID. The
problem is that OpenID on its own will not provide the needs that the
Wikimedia Foundation will have. When we get Wikiversity running for
instance, we will have teachers that need to have access to the process
information of a students training. This is private information and it
requires stronger authentication than the authentication offered by OpenID.
In fact, a drop-down box for project, and another for language, could
also significantly reduce the complexity for users. For example, I
could choose "Wikipedia" out of "Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wiktionary,
..." and "English" out of "English, Français, Esperanto, ..."
and then
my username on that project.
Lastly, I think having a couple of professional developers eagerly
awaiting a chance to get this implemented and who know OpenID and
authentication issues inside and out is a really good thing. We
shouldn't rollout every technology that people volunteer to throw into
the software, but this seems like a pretty good match between
Mediawiki (and Wikimedia) needs and what's being offered.
~Evan
It is great when developers want a chance to implement something good.
But do not approach it with this "all I have is a hammer so all my
problems are nails" idea. OpenID is great, it fits into YADIS,
technically it is possible to make a WMF authentication server BUT this
is not only a technical issue it is indeed an organisational issue.
Think of it, WillieOnWheels has a profile with the WMF, he gets banned
and still authenticates using an OpenID/YADIS profile ...
It is a technical issue if you want to implement YADIS for MediaWiki. It
is however a decision for the board if the WMF would and should turn it on.
Thanks,
GerardM