Problem: Admins, patrollers, and other editors often find useful to find out whether someone has been blocked elsewhere, or which other wikis they're active in. However, there are no easy links to Special:CentralAuth in the interface.
Who would benefit: Admins, patrollers, translators, community event organizers, and anyone who needs to find someone who is familiar with a different language or different wiki. (Also, in a more light-hearted way, it will be convenient for anyone who wants to check their own edit count total across all the wikis. This is not an important use, but sometimes it's fun to discover that you've passed a milestone number.)
If you're asking for enwiki, there's a link at the bottom of a user's contributions page – link "accounts", here en:MediaWiki:Sp-contributions-footer. If it's for some other wiki, any sysop can edit the MediaWiki message. If you still want it on the top, I'm not sure if there would be enough space for the link in that one line. But I agree, it helps to have the CentralAuth link handy. ponor (talk) 01:13, 25 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'm asking for this to be present at all the wikis, not just the biggest, and especially including the many wikis that don't have any admins who feel comfortable editing the interface. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:28, 1 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Sure, there are scripts that I already use, but this should be available to everyone, not just to the highly experienced editors who know where to ask or how to find the magical scripts. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:29, 1 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Many projects already include this somewhere on that page, typically in the footer. Not sure the mediawiki software should be changed just for this. — xaosfluxTalk 14:59, 26 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
This does seem like something the software can be expected to offer, and should be trivial to add. Also, on a very technical level, it's not guaranteed that Special:CentralAuth/Foo will be the same user (although the only SUL stragglers are now ancient bots and users with weird one-off migration bugs) so it's better done by the software. Tgr (talk) 02:01, 1 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
They are already included at the end of the contribution page, but not all wikis show these links. Thingofme (talk) 03:11, 28 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The link at the bottom (in some wikis) is pretty inconvenient. I think CentralAuth does belong to the top links. It is probably useful to even a bigger audience than, let's say, abuse logs. MarioGom (talk) 17:38, 28 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Note that the Sp-contributions-footer links are unreliable: apart from the fact that every community has to set them up on their own, if you read English Wikipedia with a non-English interface language you probably won't see them (due to T57473). I would actually go the opposite direction and add the widely-used, well-maintained tools from the footer via the ContributionsToolLinks hook. --Tgr (talk) 05:27, 1 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
That sounds much more complicated, so I'd rather leave it for another time. Among the complications, I believe that Toolforge has rules against having anything in MediaWiki depend on its tools, and the non-WMF-hosted tools have privacy challenges. For example, if you click a link on the English Wikipedia to geolocate an IP address at a third-party website, you are inadvertently telling that third-party that someone at the English Wikipedia is interested in that IP. This might not be very valuable information (I hope), but it's not really living up to our ideals about privacy, either. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:34, 1 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Differentiating between what can be linked from the footer vs. what can be linked from the header just because they happen to be generated via different means doesn't seem useful to me. Tgr (talk) 07:27, 1 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I've been poking at this problem for years. Main notes are in phab:T140585 and details at mw:Notes for potentially moving some mediawiki system messages into wikimediamessages (and linked subpages one and two) (and older notes in my old comment that was forked into phab:T67446). I believe the solution is to (1) research the most-used links, and their ordering, in the wikis which currently use these systems, (2) use Extension:WikimediaMessages to make a new 'default'. -- I've been blocked on 2, as it needs dev-confirmation that this is the best route forward. But I'd also welcome the CommTech team taking on the research and outreach aspects. Quiddity (talk) 20:32, 6 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
This indeed should be visible on all wikis. Taylor 49 (talk) 10:14, 5 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Maybe the contribution footer with CentralAuth and editcount link should be the default on all Wikimedia wikis, no matter how big or how small. Thingofme (talk) 14:43, 6 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Strongly support this. If a certain project doesn't want it or wants a different set/sequence of links at the footer, they are always free to edit the relevant MediaWiki page. —CX Zoom (A/अ/অ) (let's talk|contribs) 19:44, 17 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Question: I've picked this up (T331743 / patch) as a quick little task to do, and a question of user experience has been raised. So rather than us guess what y'all want, I thought it was best to just ask: when you click on this new CentralAuth link in the ContributionsToolLinks, would you want that to go to the local Special:CentralAuth (i.e., if you were on the English Wikipedia, the link would go to en:Special:CentralAuth) or always come to Special:CentralAuth here on Meta? — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 22:57, 10 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
As there's no difference in the results shown, I don't care which wiki it's displayed on. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:22, 11 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I always go to Meta, so that what is essentially the same page has only one entry in my browser history and is in the language I'm familiar with (also "Previous global account changes" only seems to appear on Meta). I get sending the user to another site could be contra expectation though (if so I'll keep on using my MoreMenu custom link). Nardog (talk) 19:46, 11 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Local CA page is useless for stewards, I never use it. If it links to a local CA page at least a local CA page should include a link to CA on Meta. Stryn (talk) 07:13, 12 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support I'm doing cross-wiki anti-spam investigations, and not having this link easily accessible on every wiki is a pain. — Jules*talk 18:34, 10 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support As someone whose UI language is not English, it's hit-or-miss whether a link to CentralAuth shows up. A solution in software would eliminate that issue, and make support by skins easier. It'd be really neat if this could be part of the group: User page, Talk Page, Contributions page. —Mainframe98talk 19:04, 10 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support I will start to use it. Taivo (talk) 19:51, 10 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support This is a no-brainer, IMO. Much easier than typing "Special:CentralAuth/USERNAME" or scrolling down to the bottom. SHB2000 (talk | contribs) 22:12, 10 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support Contribution footer should be added automatically with fixed links to CentralAuth, XTools editcount and other useful things like articles created, external tools ... Thingofme (talk) 13:30, 11 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support This is already available via a script, but this function would be handy as part as of the standard software. Daniuu (talk) 19:18, 12 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Support It would be good if the link takes user directly to Meta. This will also help stewards in dealing with various LTA's as the global lock tool is available in CentralAuth on Meta. ❄Mykola❄ 13:26, 13 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Question: I've picked this up (T331743 / patch) as a quick little task to do, and a question of user experience has been raised. So rather than us guess what y'all want, I thought it was best to just ask: when you click on this new CentralAuth link in the ContributionsToolLinks, would you want that to go to the local Special:CentralAuth (i.e., if you were on the English Wikipedia, the link would go to en:Special:CentralAuth) or always come to Special:CentralAuth here on Meta? — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 22:57, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
Support V0lkanic (talk) 18:28, 10 February 2023 (UTC)