User talk:Keegan (WMF)/SUL archive 5

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Me again[edit]

Hi Keegan,

me again! I now have your message warning me of the imminent change of name of my French Wikipedia account which is named 'Sedgefoot'. I expect I will also get one for my Italian account 'Sedgefoot'. As I seem to be fortunate enough to be retaining and globalizing my primary English and Latin accounts Username 'User:Eebahgum' - which I definitely hope to keep as my global name - I would be quite glad to change the names of these two (French and Italian accounts) and to draw them into my 'Eebahgum' identity, together with their edit histories. Could you please advise a wiki illiterate (and non-administrateur) as to how to do that? I have got a couple of other little subsidiary accounts from long ago, mostly not now used, which will no doubt show up in due course, and it might be as well to merge these into 'Eebahgum' as well - such as my German Wikipedia account for instance, which I have forgotten the name of (so long since I used it). General guidance would be much appreciated. Cheers, Eebahgum (talk) 03:14, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Done, I have moved the it and fr accounts to Eebahgum. Please access it:Special:MergeAccount and fr:Special:MergeAccount while logged in to add those accounts to your global account. Check Special:CentralAuth/Eebahgum for the result. We will also be able to merge other accounts, so if you recall other accounts, please file a request on Steward requests/Username changes. Savhñ 16:07, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Even worse problem now....[edit]

Extremely kind of you, BUT ALAS!! although it has worked for the french wikipedia name it has locked me out of my Italian account entirely, as I had forgotten the password for it and was intending to get it before any action was taken. Now I cannot access my Italian account at all. PLEASE ADVISE how I can get a password so as to complete the unification. This process is basically simple, but very cumbersome to understand for people who are not tech like you folks... Thankyou. Eebahgum (talk) 00:24, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with the Italian account still remains, but is really unimportant to me. I will forget that my Italian account 'Sedgefoot' existed - it never had many edits anyway - and if I ever feel like editing in WP:it again I shall do so using my new global Eebahgum account de novo as if I were a beginner there. Not a problem. Write this one down to experience... But please keep me informed about any further proposed changes to my accounts. Regards and good wishes Eebahgum (talk) 23:10, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Forced renaming[edit]

Welcoming you. Renaming account ethical problems, until the probability of leaving the participant with Russian Wikipedia> 2500 articles. If you were someone could translate this ru:Википедия:Форум/Новости#Принудительное переименование пользователей heated debate, you would immediately understand the essence of this particular problem. Epistle compiled with the help of Google translator. Thanks in advance. --Хайзенберг (talk) 09:40, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There wasn't really anything for me to participate in there, unfortunately. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 02:00, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

WhoisWhoME[edit]

He Keegan, + − Please give me to name "WhoisWhoME" like my German accout is and that I can use my German password. My old name was Whoiswohme Thanks.--WhoisWhoME (talk) 09:44, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@WhoisWhoME: I cannot perform renames myself, you can file a request for a rename. Thanks. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 20:11, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Renamed account - the account name had been given to a banned user[edit]

Hi Keegan, I am user Sergey on English Wikipedia since 2004. I discovered that my name has been taken away in favor (if I understand correctly) of a user on de.wikipedia.org, whose account was created two years later than mine and is marked as "banned indefinitely" Special:CentralAuth/Sergey. I'd appreciate if that would be reversed in my favor. Thank you in advance!

Billinghurst has deleted the global account. Please visit en:Special:MergeAccount and the global account will be yours. Glaisher (talk) 12:57, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Glaisher:Thanks for the quick response. However, when I go to the Merge Account page and enter my password, I get "The home wiki for this account (listed below) has a different password to the one you entered. Please enter the password for the home wiki. The password and email address set at this wiki will be used for your unified account. de.wikipedia.org (home wiki)" (the account at de.wikipedia.org is the banned user's account). Sergey
I have already discussed this with Keegan, but nothing can be done until we have a policy for usurpation of such names. I have suggested an amendment allowing to usurp accounts of such banned users here: Talk:Global rename_policy#Amendment to usurpation policy, but you have to wait until the community approves this change — NickK (talk) 16:10, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks @NickK:. One comment, though: I don't think the global account should have been attached to that user to begin with. Not sure what the policy is - I'd think the oldest account should be given a priority; I don't know for sure if my account is older than the banned one, although it looks like so (no need to reply to this comment - just something that might be useful to consider for the future changes). Sergey
The question I still have is: if the de:User:Sergey can be attached to to the global account, why cannot be mine? I don't really want to usurp that account - can the change that was done to my account (i.e. using Sergey~enwiki as the new name be applied to the banned de:User:Sergey) ? Thanks Sergey
My idea was that banned users should be renamed (either to Sergey~dewiki or even to something random like Vandal1234 if this is a clearly disruptive user whose name does not matter), and in this case you will get the global account (as you are second most active user with username Sergey). However, current rules do not allow to usurp such accounts yet, so if rules do not change before 15 April, you will be renamed to Sergey~enwiki and banned de:User:Sergey will keep his name — NickK (talk) 23:52, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Sergey: You can't create a global account because this option is reserved to the user with the highest edit count. You have made 49 edits but the vandal has made 77. If you make at least 29 edits to English Wikipedia whilst logged in, you will have the highest edit count and you will then be able to globalise your account at w:Special:MergeAccount. --Stefan2 (talk) 18:07, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Global accounts cannot be overtaken in that manner, by passing them in the number of edits. Sergey, your option is to file a usurpation request for stewards to review. I'm not familiar with local usurpation practices on the German Wikipedia so I can't speculate on the results. I'm sorry for all the trouble this is causing you. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 20:11, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'd think that a natural way to award global accounts would be on the "registered first" basis, which I assume is not an option at this time. Thanks for your suggestion, I'll submit an usurpation request. Sergey

Merging usernames[edit]

I have accounts on Wikipedia/books/news/media using the same username. I will be able to merge them all into the same one, right? Fephisto (talk) 07:56, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Already merged, see Special:CentralAuth/Fephisto. So you don't need to do anything anymore :) --Stryn (talk) 08:10, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

User:helix84[edit]

Hi, I don't understand this. I get all this when I log in using the same account name: http://imgur.com/YgQTRHq http://imgur.com/IWL2YzC http://imgur.com/d7RFl4D Why does it refer to me sometimes as "helix" and sometimes as "helix84"? I'd like to keep helix84 - the same login I use for all WikiMedia projects and I already unified it a long time ago. Thanks. ~~helix84 08:20, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You are Helix84 in all projects and you don't need to change your username. There you see "Helix" if you go to mw:User talk:Helix. Maybe it has the same email in settinga if you got a message from it to your email. Anyway, you don't need to do anything. --Stryn (talk) 08:29, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for clearing that up. ~~helix84 14:26, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

One more question[edit]

Hi Keegan, prevously I asked some questions about the renaming of my account on Commons [1]. The reply that was given to me explained, that the message was not for the account Aiko on Commons but for the account .Aiko (dotAiko) that redirects to Aiko. But if I read the message well[2], it is not about .Aiko (dotAiko) at all, it is about Aiko (without the dot). So I compared this to another redirected message here, and you can see that the message there is unmistakenly about the redirected page. After this discovery I am not reassured anymore there will be no problem, after the renaming is over. I hope I am clear enough with my explanation and hope you can explain why the account name of the redirected page is not there in the message as it is expected to be. I also hope I will not lose my account on Commons. - Aiko (talk) 10:56, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Aiko: the script was originally using the {{PAGENAME}} magic word to make usernames substitute on a page. So when the bot followed .Aiko to your talk page, it left {{PAGENAME}} which became your name. The script, when stopped and fixed to skip redirects, was also fixed to put in the actual account name that was going to be renamed and stopped using {{PAGENAME}} because of this confusion. You can check all of your attached accounts at Special:CentralAuth/Aiko to verify. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 19:36, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well, but this is not about all of the attached accounts of user Aiko, this is about Commons. If the script has changed to skip redirects, then what is going to happen to the accounts involved on Commons? All the dotAiko accounts were made by me, also the one on Commons [3]. The only reason the dotAiko account on Commons got this message is because it was blocked after renaming. I don't know why it wasn't attached on 16 March 2015. If redirects are skipped now, then why are the messages made with the previous script not removed, or changed? So after your answer I know a little bit more, but some questions still remain, like:
What will happen to the account user:.Aiko on Commons?
What will happen to the account user:Aiko on Commons?
Thanks for your time, - Aiko (talk) 07:40, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Aiko: In reverse order that you asked:
  1. The Aiko accounts that you own that share a password or email with are attached to you, Aiko, and will not be renamed. If those other accounts at the bottom of Special:CentralAuth/Aiko are yours but use a different password, visit Special:MergeAccount and enter their passwords at the bottom to attach them. If they are not yours, they will be renamed. After they are renamed, you are Aiko on all the open, public Wikimedia projects.
  2. The .Aiko account on Commons needs attached to avoid renaming, or just let commons:User:.Aiko be renamed and then you own the name .Aiko on Commons again anyway, because you own the global account. In other words, no matter what, you're globally User:.Aiko. Renaming the Commons account will not change that, the new .Aiko on Commons is you as well.
  3. I've prepared text that is being translated over the weekend to send out to the likely affected users at the start of next week.
I hope this addresses your concerns. I truly appreciate your patience and questions, they're good ones. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 03:05, 28 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much for your answers Keegan, I do also appreciate your patience and your answers and the effort you put in preparing new text. Succes with the renaming project. Aiko (talk) 12:00, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

DieBuche will be renamed but why?[edit]

According to c:Special:CentralAuth/DieBuche, there is no other account with the same name? The commons account is attached to the global account since 01:30, 11 December 2008. So please pay attention not to unintentionally split an account. -- Rillke (talk) 15:10, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Rillke: the user likely got the notice due to an old name redirecting to the name now. This bug was short lived but it hit Commons pretty hard. I left a note on the Village Pump when it occurred, but it's still a work-in-progress to message all the users affected. Pathoschild gathered up the list of accounts, I have to put the text together. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 20:21, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

account renaming[edit]

It looks like my case is similar to many cluttering your talk page, but my user name has been Esprqii for years, not Sprkee, from which I changed it. Sprkee is apparently a conflict; but I don't think Esprqii is. Can you confirm that I don't have to change Esprqii? Thanks. --21:37, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

You will keep your current username, Esprqii. You can ignore the message, it was sent because commons:User talk:Sprkee is a redirect to Commons:User talk:Esprqii. And massmessage (the tool to send notification to users) follows redirects. --Stryn (talk) 21:41, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, that's what it looked like but wanted to check. --Esprqii (talk) 22:29, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Unite several accounts[edit]

Hi Keegan, thank you for your message (to rename my account). My name on Wikimedia is "Nastasia". You told me to rename it. I have several accounts on Wikipedia (German, French, Cree, English), all with the same name: Kiackw. I would like to unite these accounts and rename my Wikimedia account to "Kiackw" as well. How can it be made possible? Nastasia 15:21, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I believe I answered you by email as well but I could be mistaken, so the reply is that shortly after this process is complete the stewards will have a tool that will let them merge separately-named accounts. Once available you can file a request. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 18:38, 6 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Who will I send the request? Kiackw 08:49, 23 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Mr Keegan (WMF)!

We Requested for Balochi language Wikipedia in WIKIEDIA, now our project is active and we have active users who working for this project and we have more 1000 artecles in BALOCHI LANGUAGE WIKIPEDIA , just we need to support our project --Ibrahim khashrowdi (talk) 18:35, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This is for the Language committee. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 06:49, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

About the renaming of my account[edit]

Good evening, Mr. Keegan.

Recently you have left a message on the Discussion of my user page, mentioning that my account will be renamed due to some name conflict throughout the total of Wiki Projects. The account name you mention is Nikolakis. However, that is my old username. I have requested the change of my username to "Stam.nikos" exactly because I wanted to have it unified. In the meantime, I alse visited the page Special:MergeAccount to make it unified. I'm not sure if I have made all the steps correct, but I hope now that there will be no further problem with my account. If it is convenient to you, please let me know that everything is alright with my current account name (Stam.nikos).

Thank you.

Stam.nikos (talk) 20:22, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Stam.nikos: your accounts are all unified, they will not be renamed. The warning was following a redirect from your previous name. i apologize for the the confusion. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 06:56, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Merge local account with different name into global one[edit]

Hi. After I recently got the notice that my accounts would be renamed (from "Auno") I changed the name on my en.wikipedia account to "Mikael Auno". With this change "Mikael Auno" was also created as a global account. I still have an account named "Auno" on sv.wikipedia though, could that also be merged in to the global account named "Mikael Auno"? -- Mikael Auno (talk) 09:18, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, it's possible. Please confirm it on your Swedish WP talk page Stryn (talk) 10:33, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Confirmed. -- Mikael Auno (talk) 12:29, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Please go to Special:MergeAccount to merge this account with your global account. --Stryn (talk) 14:19, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the help! Much appreciated. -- Mikael Auno (talk) 15:27, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Who will own my account if I will be renamed?[edit]

Hi! I received a message, that my account is conflicting with some other accounts. I don't understand, what should I do if I don't own conflicting accounts or if I don't sure I do? Will I be renamed by force then? And who will be owning my current username "Dims" then? Thanks. Dims (talk) 14:41, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Dims, you will not be renamed as you already own the global account (see Special:CentralAuth/Dims). Accounts using the same username on eswiki, bgwiki, dawiki, elwiki, idwiki and mswiki will be renamed, but they most likely are not yours (or if they are, you can go to Special:MergeAccount for attaching them to your global account), so you don't need to worry about them. --Stryn (talk) 14:45, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

User: Theosch[edit]

Dear Keegan,

I got a message from you on my German user page suggesting renaming my user name to something like Theosch~de.wiki because somebody else is using Theosch on the Netherlands Wikipedia. I would like to request that you do not rename my account, but rather the Dutch one, as this appears to be a new user with at most three edits, whereas I have a total of 858 edits on the English and German Wikipedias and Wikimedia Commons.

Is that OK? Regards, Theosch (talk) 17:27, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Theosch: short story: good news, your account(s) are not going to be renamed :) long story: your accounts were not all attached together. Last week we globalized account names, and yours on the English Wikipedia was set as the global account holder. When you logged in today to check your German account, your other accounts attached (ref Special:CentralAuth/Theosch). The Dutch account has already been notified about renaming. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 19:52, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Keegan! Theosch (talk) 09:35, 27 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Spike again[edit]

Hi, it's en:User:Spike again from User_talk:Keegan_(WMF)/SUL_archive_4#Inactive_user_has_been_given_global_account. I have followed a suggestion by en:User:Soap on my talk page and have mailed pl:User:Grzegorz "Spike" Rendchen. And he has graciously agreed to give up his account pl:User:Spike and the global account Special:CentralAuth/Spike. The question now is, how can that be done? Is it ok if he logs in as pl:User:Spike and leaves a message on his talk page with something like "I would like to transfer my account pl:User:Spike and the global account Special:CentralAuth/Spike to en:User:Spike." and I link to that diff on my SRUC request? And will it be ensured that all the contributions of pl:User:Spike will be transferred to pl:User:Grzegorz "Spike" Rendchen? User Spike (talk) 23:57, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@User Spike: I think that should be enough. After he is renamed I believe you'll just need to log in your Spike account on en.wiki and go to en:Special:MergeAccount. That should assign you the global name. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 21:08, 27 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, he'll need pl:Spike to be renamed to something different than Grzegorz "Spike" Rendchen for now, the stewards will be able to merge his accounts in the near future. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 21:11, 27 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Still more about renaming.[edit]

As it seems, a lot of other users here are upset about being robbed of their identities, so the risk is I'll drown in the flood. Anyway, I'd like to present my tale:

I started as a wikipedian in 2006, and chose the name Islander, since I live in an island. Beginning on the Swedish Wikipedia, I soon spread out to Finnish, Norwegian and Danish wikipedia, plus Commons. In the English and German Wikipedias, there were already users using Islander (though seemingly dormant), and I hastily chose Islander(Scandinavia) as username on those, in the process missing the space between the words. :-)

By 2008, I had done over thousand edits and uploaded hundreds of images. All of a sudden, I was told by another user (who had been mostly busy discussing politics on wikimedia) that he had claimed the identity Islander internationally, and that I would shortly be stripped of it. We had a rather heated discussion about it, as I felt betrayed, as he had been shorter time using the nick, doing less edits and uploads, and behind my back had manipulated to take over the dormant Islanders in Germany and England. As a middleman, user:Bastique came in, and I wrote a mail to him, suggesting that I could keep the name as satus quo, in the Wikipedias where the other wasn't very likely to appear, that is, mostly in Scandinavia, and he could keep it in England. I never really got any answer to that, but have since then been able to continue in Scandinavia as plain 'Islander'.

To be honest, I haven't been extremely active on Wikipedia lately, as I have had a lot of other matters to tend to, but my intention is to speed up again, as the most urgent things are out of the way. The othere Islander seems to have been even less active, so may I suggest that the name Islander could be granted for me internationally, and he could be TheIslander, as he's been before?

If not, (as he seems to be more skilled in coding and politics...) could you see to that all my accounts could be gathered under the international identity Islander(Scandinavia), instead of a lot of different odd identities in different countries, as it seems to be developing now? Islander(Scandinavia) (talk) 01:25, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Islander(Scandinavia): that's quite unfortunate :( Just keep editing now under this account, and once finalization is complete stewards will be able to merge your old accounts into this one. I hope that helps. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 22:03, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Since that, I have received the message also on Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian wp. I don't quite understand what you mean; You don't answer my question, can i get the name Islander back internationally? Islander(Scandinavia) (talk) 23:11, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I moved this message out of User talk:Keegan (WMF)/SUL archive 1 since it has a fresh comment. For reference this was also discussed at User talk:Bastique#Identity theft. —Pathoschild 04:28, 27 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You can't get username "Islander" as it's already a global account (and enwiki sysop). Since you have 2 different usernames we can merge them in the future (the tool is not yet available). I hope this answers on your questions. Regards, --Stryn (talk) 08:11, 27 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, been busy with other things again. (You may know that in my age, you are only able to handle one serious matter at the time, which means really, daily... :-) ) I have put some thought into this now, and come to the conclusion that, since it seems impossible to obtain my original identity back, I could go in for to globally use the nick "Real Islander" and settle this once and for all. I have posted the same comment on User:Bastique's discussion page, and hope there will be served suitable advice on how to proceed. Thank you for your patience. Islander(Scandinavia) (talk) 23:15, 14 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Bambifan101[edit]

Not that he's in dire need of his accounts, but I'm pretty sure everything on Special:CentralAuth/Bambifan101 belongs to him, so I don't think renaming them is a good idea. Ekips39 (talk) 05:27, 27 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Good call, thanks. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 20:10, 27 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The urgent translation reg renaming[edit]

Swedish already completed, I think I was the first! :) Dan Koehl (talk) 22:44, 27 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

:) much appreciated. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 23:01, 27 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Dan Koehl: I've updated the content slightly, if you don't mind taking a look. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 02:53, 28 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
OK, Ill take a look Dan Koehl (talk) 03:03, 28 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Done, translation completed. Dan Koehl (talk) 03:25, 28 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Xandi[edit]

Please, look [4] global rename request and Usurp [5]. ><((*> --Xandi (talk) 00:20, 28 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Grateful Deadhead[edit]

I used to go by the username: Grateful Deadhead and I only needed four tilde's to sign with that username and time-stamp but it doesn't work anymore--please help because it used to. ```` ?

@Greatful Deadhead: try ~~~~ instead of ````. That should work. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 02:06, 28 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Grateful Deadhead (talk) 06:52, 28 March 2015 (UTC) Yep worked ty but with this new keyboard needed to use Shift on old ones it was different and didn't need Shift been 10+ years[reply]

re: Thanks! and update[edit]

You're welcome. You can settle such matters by writing to me on irc (I'm easily available on several global channels), especially if it's minor or urgent, unless you're sending more identical messages ;) Tar Lócesilion|queta! 02:55, 28 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Good to know, thank you! Keegan (WMF) (talk) 03:08, 28 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Other secondary local accounts[edit]

It is possible for some people to have multiple local accounts on the same Wikimedia project, whose talk page also redirect to the same target user talk page. The corrective message that will soon be sent only speaks about secondary bot accounts, but for some projects, people have specific accounts or multiple bot accounts opwned by the same user, but performing different actions, whose talk pages are all redirected to the same target talk page; these multiple accounts are used as well by WMF users when they perform activities in Wikiemdia project on behalf of their responsability or privileges (e.g. some people have distinct local accounts for admins, moderators, ambassadors on each project; generally these multiple local accounts are suffixed after the normal individual user account from which they gained their responsability... but this is not always the case for some highly privileged accounts using other "neutral" pseudonyms, whose ownership may also be transfered to someone else later, who will replace the talk page redirect if needed).

All these multiple local accounts are in fact distinct identities with their own privileges, preferences, edit histories, they are compleletey separate even if their talk page page are currently redirected to another personal local account. When such redirects are present in user talk pages, the user page should present this fact and explain who currently controls it and why all discussions are currently redirected to another user.

Multiple local accounts for the same actual user ("faux nez" in French) is generally not accepted in Wikimedia projects, except when explicitly requested and granted for specific projects and responsabilities with specific privileges granted to these alternate accounts only (but not for the standard user account). It is effectively required by policies to use separate accounts for bots, but it is also required for users acting on behalf of the WMF, or on behalf of an organisation or people they represent (in this case they are assumed to have the opinion of the people or organisation or people they represent, and may tell things or perform edits according to their mandate, even if this is not THEIR own opinion or would have telled things differently, for example they may have just sent a carbon copy of what they were instructed to tell even if they are personnaly opposed to their content).

Some wikis also have different local policies about which kind of secondary accounts (for the same actual user) they ban/reject/refuse, or tolerate/accept, or recommend, or require (for example, not all of them require using a separate account for bots, but most wikis in large projects such as Wikipedia, Wiktionnary or Commons require this secondary account, and all wikis in Wikimedia accept/tolerate secondary accounts for WMF users... except on the internal Wikimedia projects, normally not concerned by the global account unification, and most public Wikimedia projects are banning the creation of secondary accounts for users whose account have been locally blocked, but not nececessarily for those whose global account has been blocked: the secondary account may still continue with its own locally distinct identity and its own local privileges, each local wiki has its own local policy and can vote within their own local community to maintain these alternate accounts, and in that case these alternate accounts should completely avoid redirecting their local talk page to another local account that is possibly blocked by a global policy, even if their user page are still presenting who actually controls these alternate accounts).

So the confusion may concern these multiple local accounts as well, and not just "bot account" owners.

We should suggest them to never hard-redirect their talk page (with #REDIRECT [[Talk:Someone else]]) , but instead insert a "soft redirect" at top of their talk page (using the "soft-redirect" templates commonly used locally on that wiki, exactly like when they "soft-redirect" to some talk page on another wiki).

-- verdy_p (talk) 03:09, 28 March 2015 (UTC) [reply]

Moved from User talk:Pathoschild/2015 sul rename confusion. —Pathoschild 03:21, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

The message says "The message was intended for an old username previously used by your account, an alternate account of yours, or a bot account that you own.." so it's not just for bot owners. Some of the dopplegänger accounts, as we say in English on loan from German, might have to actually be renamed due to same-named account on another wiki owning the global name, and thus now the local name. It is an inherent problem to the migration system that is just going to end up with renames occurring. I myself do not own the global account for my old username Teke, the Spanish Wikipedian will get it and my redirect will be moved and I do not get to keep that redirect in place. I do not want to encourage anyone to redirect talk pages in any manner to an account affected by SUL finalization, because that will add to the problem post-finalization. I hope all that makes sense :) Keegan (WMF) (talk) 03:32, 28 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Then the talk pages of users that were renamed should contain a top notice (not stored in the talk page itself by displayed automatically) stating that the account was previously used by another user before the listed date and time of renaming: that message should contain a link to the new account.

Otherwise the new local account owner may receive unexpected messages about actions performed by the older user before his account was renamed.

In fact, **all** talk pages should contain an information notice at top showing when it was created or attributed to a new user and showing the list of previous owners, ordered chronologically. This top notice may be extremely short, with a link to its history page of creation or successive renamings and the link to the new target user at that date of creation or renaming. The text of the top notice could be "This local user account has been created on (date)" or "This local user account has been renamed on (date)" optionally followed by "and now belongs to another user" (it it was then given to him for his global account unification), both of them being followed by a "details" button or link.

-- verdy_p (talk) 00:44, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think it takes even less work than that. Since all contributions move along with renames, the only remaining big issue is old talk page links. I asked about creating a tool to let users bot replace their old signatures with their new username. You can see how that thread went, though. People still think it's not needed. Perhaps this will change once the need is actually seen. Or the right person reads this thread. Whichever may come first :) I think I still need to file a task for that on Phabricator. I'll get to that later. Most of the other issues (like sock puppet investigation archives, etc.) are edge cases in the overall scheme of things. Fixing signatures should be, IMHO, a high priority for community development. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 14:27, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think that it would be a problem if, post-finalisation, links to de:bd:Stefan2 sometimes refer to me, sometimes to a completely different person who has been forcibly renamed. There is already the problem that de:Special:Contributions/Stefan2 contains a mixture of contributions made by me (imported to dewiki from elsewhere, usually from enwiki) and contributions made by a different user, and it might be getting even more confusing if user and talk page links become messed up too. --Stefan2 (talk) 14:53, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

User:vikizh[edit]

Hi, I'm the owner of following users:

I plan to merge them all to "vikizh". First I tried to merge/rename the user "viki" in Chinese wiki to "vikizh", but it reports that the user name is already used. And there is no way to delete zh:vikizh first. Could you please help? Thanks.

Vikizh (talk) 16:50, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. Your primary account zh:User:Viki will be renamed to Viki~zhwiki as it's not part of the "Viki" global account. However, Vikizh on all the wikis belongs to you so none of them will be renamed. Once user merging is possible, you could request that Viki~zhwiki be merged with your current unified Vikizh global account. User merging will be available soon. Glaisher (talk) 11:40, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Renaming my account[edit]

You left me a message on my Commons talk page on 17 March 2015 saying that my account would be renamed. I replied with my objections and asked for clarification - that was 2 weeks ago and you still have not responded. As I stated in my response, I hold two logins for English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, both named Cnbrb - they are both me. The stated aim in the announcement is that "users must have the same account name everywhere", which is fine, as I already have the same account name. According to Special:MergeAccount, "The accounts named "Cnbrb" on each of the following sites have been automatically attached to the unified account. So why are you forcing me to have my account renamed. None of this makes sense. I do not want my user name to be changed - please confirm that this will not happen. Cnbrb 86.179.182.41 10:48, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! As you can see Special:CentralAuth/Cnbrb, the account on English Wikipedia and Commons holds the global account so those accounts won't be renamed. The renamed accounts will be the accounts where you see "not attached" in CentralAuth. Regards, Glaisher (talk) 11:22, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hello. Thank you for clarifying this Glaisher. Except - why did I receive a message telling me that my account would be renamed, and why has Keegan not had the courtesy, two weeks after dropping this mysterious bombshell at me, to reply? I would like this matter clarified please.86.179.182.41 00:40, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, my apologies for not replying to you on Commons. I agree that there was an error in the "would" part, once we started receiving feedback about it I paused the messaging modified the message for clarity that you should check to see if you own the other account, got translations, and then resumed. Again, I agree with that point and I'm sorry about that. I had not seen your message on Commons, just about all of my waking time since messaging has been overwhelmed by responding to emails and reviewing and replying or clarifying, where needed, to threads here, amongst other things to keep up with. Fortunately I have good users to like Glaisher here to help answer your question, though late as it is. If you consider this unacceptable, I understand, though. This is a serious topic. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 21:36, 4 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
OK, well I'm sorry to hear you're struggling to keep up with commitment to Wikipedia. Maybe you're taking on too much? If you can find time to leave messages of this nature on individual pages, you or you co-editors really should make the time to deal with replies on the page where you left them, otherwise don't send them! I've been sitting here waiting for someone to come along and rename my account against my wishes and having all my requests for explanation ignored on Commons!86.179.182.41 14:01, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Another renaming question...[edit]

Hello. Originally I had en.wiki and Commons accounts under the name Struway. About 8 years ago, I lost the password for the en.wiki account, so had to set up a new account which I called Struway2. When that account was globalised, the next time I visited Commons when logged in to that global account, it took me to a new Commons account called Struway2 without me initially realising. So I've used both Struway and Struway2 at Commons (and can log in to both) but have no access to the old Struway account at en.wiki. I'd prefer to keep the global account Struway2 at Commons, and have the Struway account merged into it, or attached to it, or whatever the system does. If you/someone could tell me what I need to do, I'd be grateful. thanks, Struway2 (talk) 09:39, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Struway2: once all accounts are migrated to global and the loose ends are tied up, the stewards will have a tool that will allow merging of global accounts. Once it is out you can file a request and your accounts, if qualified, can all be put into one (contributions as well, of course). Keegan (WMF) (talk) 21:26, 4 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

user 24pm merge[edit]

I've received your letter in mediawiki.org about renaming my account 24pm since there is another one in different wiki project (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User_talk:24pm) I think that it is most likely that another login is also mine, since I have the same login 24pm in ru.wikipedia.org. Is it possible to merge them? How can I prove that I'm the owner of both?

Hi 24Pm, It is already merged, per Special:CentralAuth/24pm you are the owner of the global account. There are two unattached accounts (en wiki, ca wiki), if they are yours please visit special:mergeaccount to merge them else you don't need to do anything, those accounts will be renamed--Shanmugamp7 (talk) 04:55, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Email[edit]

I just sent an email regarding my account. DivineAlpha (talk) 06:50, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Not Resolved[edit]

I wrote around the 21st because I was told my name was to be changed. You marked the item as resolved, but your response that you're very sad but can't help it is not satisfactory.

My first Wikipedia edit was on August 4, 2003.

I have been contributing financially to Wikipedia for years

This other person hasn't been part of wikipedia nearly as long as I have.

I do not want my name changed, I don't care how many posts that other person has made. Has this other person contributed more money than I have? This is extremely disrespectful to a long-time supporter.

Edit: I have sent you an email with an attached PDF named "paypal_donation_history.pdf showing my full donation history and will give my details so that you may confirm this privately.

I got your email, I will be in touch with you. I completely respect you position with regards to your account age as well as only silightly less edits (only 27 edits difference) than the other account. Considering that donations do things like pay for my employment, I also respect this position. However, not everyone in the world is capable of contributing monetary resources to the Wikimedia Foundation and the movement it aims to support, monetary donations simply cannot be a criterion for relevance of having a registered account. Of all the unfair factors deciding who owns a global account, that is the least fair of all. Financial contributions should be to support the mission, not to establish standing.
As I said at the start, this should be consideration about account age and your continuous contributions as an editor throughout the last twelve years, I think that is significantly important. The rename rationale does leave room for community members to overturn my decision on which account is to be renamed. I'll initiate a discussion about it within the next week. I'm offline and then traveling through the weekend, you will hear from me by email next week. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 07:28, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Re:Account merge[edit]

Hi Keegan,

I can confirm that my username on the following accounts were created by me:

However I had used a different password and I cannot remember what they were. Could you help me merge those accounts into my main unified account as well?

The only account which I am unsure of is the one on es.wikibooks.org because I do not ever recall creating an account there.

Thanks. --Jose77 (talk) 01:01, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

HI Jose77. If you set an email for those accounts, you can request a new password using Special:PasswordReset on each project. If you do not have email set and since you cannot remember the password, these accounts will remain unattached and will be renamed. Passwords are encrypted and salted uniquely, they cannot be recovered.
While these accounts will be renamed for now, you will be able to get them back. The stewards will have a tool to merge global accounts soon after finalization, which will allow them to move your accounts back into their proper place. In the mean time, after finalization, you will still be able to use Jose77 on those wikis just now with the password you already use, or you can simply click over to it and automatically attach. So sit tight, you get to be Jose77 no matter what. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 21:24, 4 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

User talk:Ancheta[edit]

I left my reply at on your www.mediawiki.org, not meta, which I just learned about. regards, --Ancheta Wis (talk) 12:12, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

the Global Account name had been given to a banned user[edit]

Hi Keegan,

I am user Galaxy on zh-classical wikipedia. I discovered that my name has been taken away in favor (if I understand correctly) of a user on it.wikipedia.org, whose account has been marked as "blocked indefinitely" as shown at Special:CentralAuth:Galaxy. I'd appreciate if that would be reversed in my favor.

Thank you in advance! --Galaxy (talk) 13:50, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Galaxy, thanks for coming and asking. First, allow me to explain why that user is set with the global account, so that then we can go from there.
The way the decision tree is set up, blocks are not taken into account. There are several reasons for this, for a example if an account, well established and general respected, happened to be blocked for an hour at the time the script hit them and then suddenly they are renamed to an unqualified account. Another might be that a user is self-blocked, or asked to be blocked by others, to enforce a wikibreak. There are more possible scenarios that would result in more harm that good in the renaming selection. And since block rationale, time setting, and all other factors around blocks are decided mostly by local policy, the script cannot interpret that. So this is why your account is selected to be renamed and will be so through the process as it is right now.
For a human solution, which should be and is the best rationale when it comes to this judgement, you can ask for usurpation of that account now and stewards will review the request and process it if it's appropriate with local community policies. There is a global discussion started about allowing usurpation of indefinitely blocked editors who were basically vandal-only accounts, I highly encourage you (and everyone else reading!!) to participate in that discussion so the community can have a set usurpation policy if it choses.
If all else fails, you can ask for a new name now that you select for yourself instead of Galaxy~zhwiki, and ask for a rename to Galaxy if global usurpation becomes available in the near future. I know these options are not fair, and I'm very sorry about all of this. Once you do have a set name after all of this, it will be yours on all 900+ Wikimedia projects. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 21:15, 4 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Request for help with translation gadget or template in the Norwegian Wiktionary project[edit]

Hi Keegan,

I am an administrator on the Norwegian Wiktionary project. I would like to get help from the Wikimedia Foundation with improving the translation template we use. I have seen that the projects in English, French, German, Swedish - and possibly many others languages too - employ a gadget or template which doesn't require much coding skills on the part of the user. There is a dialogue box whereby the user is prompted to enter the word, gender and other information, plus adding a t-balance instruction to the set of translations. I have seen on these other projects how this new gadget speeds up the process and also reduces the participation barrier.

Before I make a formal request I would like to point out that I created a vote here. If there is consensus, where do I make such a request? Thanks in advance for your assistance
- Teodor (dc) 17:21, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Teodor605: so, if I'm hearing your right, ultimately you're looking for help making a template similar to ones already being used on other projects? My suggestion would be to email wikitech-l with your request first. There you can get assistance from a variety of experience, from the volunteer developer communities as well as the Wikimedia Foundation ones. You'll likely get the fastest technical result there. You can post to the list without subscribing, as well. If the issue is more complicated or you don't get much help there, head over to the IdeaLab and start sharing your idea. I hope this helps. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 21:50, 4 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your suggestions. I shall have to look through these to see if I get any clues from there. Actually what I was talking about was a script. I have now modified a script from swewikt which in its turn was copied/modifed from en:wikt:User:Conrad.Irwin/editor.js. My modified script is no:wikt:Bruker:Teodor605/editor.js. I am not a programmer so I will need to ask somebody to look at it to help me understand what I need to fix to make it run.
- Teodor (dc) 21:20, 5 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Renaming question[edit]

Hello Keegan, you left some days ago a message on my page on it.wiki [6], in the message you refer to my username as being "Krdan Ielalir" and the need to be changed. You can check, but it's been years since i don't use that username anymore, now it's simply "Krdan", i don't remember when i did the merge, but i should be already enabled to SUL, would you mind checking it for me? The other user you are referring to could be an user i created some time ago, do you mind tell me in which project could it be found? Thank. --Krdan (talk) 16:34, 4 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Krdan: yes, there was a problem with the renaming notice script following the redirect from your old, unattached username to the new one. The script was stopped and fixed, but some accounts were still notified about it in error. I'm in the process of contacting those notified in error with clarification, so you're likely to hear this all again locally. Sorry for the troubles, your account is fine and will not be renamed. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 21:41, 4 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]