UserWiki

Unified login should be expanded by moving all existing user accounts from within wikis to a central UserWiki. It would involve a significant software change but the benefits would be considerable:

• The home wiki userpage would move to become the new single userpage, eliminating the hundreds of redlinked userpages on other wikis. Userpages would no longer be categorised in articlespace categories, removing a common bugbear.
• One talkpage, eliminating the need to check and respond on several talkpages. Active talkpages could be gradually archived with notices to redirect to the central talkpage.
• One set of preferences without having to set them individually on each wiki.
• One watchlist to keep an eye on changes in several wikis at once, with an option to filter results by wiki.
• One contributions list with an option to filter by wiki.
• Edits on a particular wiki would still be credited there but reported centrally.
• User-related content would be centralised, e.g. user categories, guidelines, templates, user boxes etc.
• Anti-vandalism work would be enhanced by allowing users to see if content has been vandalized elsewhere.
• Bring the User Community together with a central forum to discuss user-related matters.
• If a separate userwiki isn't feasible, then all the user accounts could be moved to meta-wiki?

• Thank you to User:Quiddity, who has highlighted that some of these features are being developed separately. See #Pointers to related efforts.

User:Green Giant

Accounts Wiki, WikiLogin, WikiCentral, WikiMain.

• CentralWiki, AuthCentral / CentralAuth, OneWiki / OnlyWiki (suggested by User:Harrybrowne1986)

• Global-Wiki - similar in some respects but it is proposing an extra layer of permissions whereas this is a proposal to move the local accounts into one single account.

• http://www.userwiki.org
• http://www.accountswiki.org
• http://www.wikilogin.org
• http://www.wikimain.org
• https://centralwiki.org (suggested by User:Harrybrowne1986)
• https://authcentral.org (suggested by User:Harrybrowne1986)
• https://1wiki.org (or) (suggested by User:Harrybrowne1986)
• https://onlywiki.org (suggested by User:Harrybrowne1986)
• https://wikiwe.org (suggested by User:Janezdrilc)

• See also the similar Global-Wiki proposal. --MF-W 22:41, 7 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• My thoughts:
  • Pros:
    • It would keep userspace edits, categories, guidelines, templates, userboxes, and awards entirely out of the projects, themselves.
    • One set of talkpage, watchlist, notifications, contributions and preferences would be great for the most part!
    • I do think it would help anti-vandalism efforts.
    • I think the userspace prefix User: could become an interwiki prefix, meaning no wikilinks would need changing. That part could be handled voluntarily by each wiki once they moved their userspace over, using redirects on moved userpages in the meantime. That would also mean a wiki could opt-out, if the local consensus was to have a separate userspace, or even to choose an alternate central userspace, using only one language, for instance.
  • Cons:
    • Regarding preferences, I sometimes like to set a preference different on one wiki, especially test.wikipedia.com, such as different signatures or language settings.
    • It may take a lot of time and complication to move every wiki's userspace over... Userspace can be one of the most complicated spaces. For instance, userspace is often used as a drafting space, and it is easier to move pages between spaces on the same wiki than between wikis.
  • Suggestions and questions:
    • WikiProjects are often related to userspace, as well as article space, but I assume they could have a place in UserWiki, as well.
    • I suppose users would need to move their own userpage here, if they have more than one, possibly setting up alternates as subpages, but some users are inactive. I suppose their userpages could be moved to subpages if they don't have a definite home page, with a menu on the real userpage?
    • It would be nice if the contributions and watchlist could filter by the custom spaces of each wiki. I don't know how technical that would be to implement.
    • I would like support for language preference detection for templates or something, to select one of several user pages in different languages, in case those coming from other language projects don't know English. Alternatively, I could provide links for other language subpages, which would probably work fine. I am not sure if talk pages should separate by language, but if so, I assume sections or subpages would work. I don't think it is a big concern, but maybe something to consider.
  • I think something like this would be ideal, other than possibly complicating separation of language and preferences. This seems like the way it should have been, in hindsight. Some wikis may take a while to adopt this because their spaces are very intertwined, but others may already want to opt-in. Good idea. PC-XT (talk) 10:39, 24 February 2014 (UTC) 10:45, 24 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't see a problem with comments in different languages on the same talk page. However, this creates a bigger problem with user pages. Users active on projects in multiple languages often have localised user pages in different languages. I realise that you could use for example Commons:Template:LangSwitch for this purpose. --Stefan2 (talk) 15:38, 26 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I rather support Global-Wiki.--GZWDer (talk) 15:10, 5 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• I personally prefer the Global-Wiki idea, if that isn't feasible I think this would be much easier. It would fix a huge problem with cluttering the various Wikis and move categories and userbox templates out of current wikis. I really only see benefits here, especially since we already have GlobalUsernames implemented. --Nicereddy (talk) 03:35, 6 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• I have two concerns: different wikis have different policies about userpages and what about languages? My Italian userpage is in Italian while others are in English for obvious practical reasons. --Vituzzu (talk) 13:12, 7 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• There are several multi-lingual wikis including Meta, Commons and Wikidata, so language isn't a significant obstacle. As for different policies, I think they all have a common core of guidelines so it shouldn't be too difficult to adapt the differences. Green Giant supports NonFreeWiki (talk) 10:11, 16 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Question the wiki you just listed are multilingual Wikis, which of course accept all kind of languages there, but there are specific wikis that are not multilingual and may not accept some language either due political or religion reason, how do you see this UserWiki will help with this one?--AldNon^Ucallin?☎ 05:22, 30 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm not sure that I understand your question. I'm only aware of two factors that have ever played a part in the creation of any wiki within Wikimedia - function and language. Function is why we have a separate set of dictionaries, news services and quotes wikis and the separate media, data, coordination, and technical wikis. Language is the reason we have separate encyclopedias for English, French, German, Hausa, Ilokano and Japanese etc. As far as I know, there has never been a Wikimedia wiki approved exclusively on religious or political grounds. This proposed wiki will not be for any single language, just as the other multilingual ones are not intended to be language-specific. The majority of Wikimedia users do not participate in Commons, Meta and Data for various reasons, but I believe that bringing user accounts together like this will encourage a lot more users to cross wiki-borders. From a Wikipedia point of view, one of our biggest failings has been the utter lack of multilingual cooperation on subjects. Apart from the language barrier, one reason is that WikiProjects have grown within linguistic borders but how many of those WikiProjects are multilingual? As an example, we have 15 WikiProjects about France and yet there are 247 Wikipedia articles about France, ranging from featured articles to stubs? Are there going to be another 232 France WikiProjects, or would it not be more effective to have one multilingual WikiProject? Let the separate existing ones continue as sub-projects but also lets help editors that are not as fortunate as some of us. Another example from en-wiki is the currently dormant Africa-related WikiProjects, such as the lonely WikiProject Zambia, but overall we have 178 Zambia articles which suggests that there are folk out there who might be interested in collaborating but we just don't have the necessary links yet. A UserWiki with multilingual WikiProjects would almost certainly mean fewer dormant WikiProjects and almost certainly better articles. Although PC-XT says it better than me ↑ up there at the start of the comments, a UserWiki will enable users to feel that they are part of a multilingual community instead of feeling they are part of a mono-lingual group that just happens to share servers wih other mono-lingual groups. At the end of the day, we only really have separate Wikipedias and Wiktionaries for presentation purposes i.e. so everyone can read articles in their preferred language, but why do have to keep such linguistic barriers between our editors? Green Giant supports NonFreeWiki (talk) 12:11, 1 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• If UserWiki wants to bring the User Community together why do we have meta then? I see no need for seperating user- and project-related discussions, as they nearly always directly related to each other. I would support global userpages on an "opt-in basis", for example by creating a globally transcludable meta namespace. (f. ex. Global:User:FDMS4/status, transcluded using {{global:/status}} on my local userpages). |FDMS (WP: en, de) 08:10, 8 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• I've always understood Meta to be the coordinating wiki, and I would be equally happy to have accounts centralized here. Green Giant supports NonFreeWiki (talk) 10:11, 16 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Also consider increasing interdependence of WMF projects and adverse reactions of Wikimedians about relying on an external website. C.f. the frequent complaints about Meta Wiki and Wikimedia Commons, and lately even about the reliability of Wikidata. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 02:09, 9 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
•  Support. I think that this is a good idea and will save time changing usernames on all these small wikis or on the big wikis and will stop having to change SUL. This is a good proposal and I support this idea.. Reception123/Receptie123 (talk) 04:55, 10 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
•  Support--Seems to be reasonable one. The Herald 14:14, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
•  Support. I support this proposal, I think that advantages are much more than disadvantages or possible complaints. --Nastoshka (talk) 19:40, 20 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• nice —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Partha jojo (talk) 12:43, 27 April 2014
•  Support I support this. It's bothersome to have several talk pages in different wikis. --Ricky Setiawan (talk) 15:49, 29 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
•  Support I hope in the future can manage my personal accounts with greater ease and fun. Wagino 20100516 (talk) 05:09, 30 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
•  Support - Sounds good to me. A single unified login, userpage and talkpage. Anupmehra -Let's talk! 06:55, 1 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
•  Support - At least I won't have to manage every userpage I created, and could instead group them in one area. ZappaOMati (talk) 23:19, 2 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
•  Support - Un marronier, like we say in French. jd ❂ 18:36, 3 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
•  Support - I like the benefits of this proposal, although merging all the current pages would have to be worked out. Fredlyfish4 (talk) 16:09, 6 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• On many wikis, user space is also a tool for working on projects related to the specific "local" wiki. One example (preparing new articles in user space, then moving to article space) was already mentioned. Many users also have structured their user space with lots of subpages, usually related to one specific project. I would prefer the "fallback" Global-Wiki approach - easier to implement and retaining flexibility. Gestumblindi (talk) 22:58, 7 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
•  Oppose Bad answer, there have been case user getting blocked just because he placing national flag on his user page (see Cekli), there have been case user getting vandalized just because placing LGBT flag on his user page. Good idea though, but doesn't seem looks good on practice.--AldNon^Ucallin?☎ 05:47, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Aldnonymous: I don't understand the point you are making. What is the relevance of these two examples and how do they relate to this proposal? Was the user blocked on Meta or somewhere else? I searched for Cekli and found one user with an account on Indonesian Wikipedia but with no edits and no blocks. Green Giant (discuss) 06:21, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Since when Cekli is Indonesian? Okay I guess you don't even know global related matters then, I change my Oppose to become Strong Oppose.--AldNon^Ucallin?☎ 18:59, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm struggling to understand your reasoning because you seem to think this is some sort of election. Cekli has been on ID-WP since 16 February 2009. Yes there are other Cekli's but without clarity from you, it is highly unreasonable of you to expect that I can guess which one you are referring to. You can strongly oppose all you want but so far you have been very cryptic. Green Giant (discuss) 22:05, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Aldnonymous: This page is not a place to "rate" a user, but to discuss a proposal.    FDMS  4    12:31, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

By not knowing Cekli829 controversies over the flag on his userpage on other wiki You two Green Giant FDMS4 have proven to be totally blind about local related matters that affect global, It was on purpose I don't give the last 3 number on his username because Cekli is famous for trying for stewardship for more than 5 times (open here for more detail 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2011-2) and his controversies about national flags on his userpages are well known. Second, did you two even know that you are not allowed to show other part of the bodies except face for women on ace.Wp/Acehnese Wikipedia? Then how about people who like to post nudes on their userpages?--AldNon^Bicara? 13:47, 5 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! It only took 9 months to find out who you are referring to. I am aware of this person and that the same question has been asked on their most recent application to be a steward. However, I still fail to see how this relates to this proposal. What part of the proposal says that it involves stewardship? In response to people putting objectionable material on their userpages, I don't see why such pages couldn't be blocked locally if they are contravening local policies. I am perplexed by your assertion about nudity on Acehnese WP, because as far as I can see that "policy" is still only a proposal that hasn't had a single edit in 18 months. If it is a policy then it has not been implemented properly because it is possible to view Commons files locally, and they include nude images. I can't see how Acehnese WP can do this without locally blocking Commons images. Anyway, you need not worry about this proposal, because it appears that elements of the proposal will probably be implemented separately anyway (see the comments by Quiddity below). Furthermore the proposal is going to be merged to Global-wiki sometime soon. Green Giant (talk) 19:16, 5 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Of course it took 9 months because I just saw the change on recent changes (this userwiki pages been dormant for a long time until Base edit it), also "nudity" here is only one such example, other reason : Nationalism, ethnic hatred, forbidden symbol used on userpages, but, be free my son, I don't care anymore, it's funny seeing many user got blocked locally on many wikis anyways.--AldNon^Bicara? 15:48, 6 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

ace.wikipedia was overridden in the past by stewards, for abuse of local flags, so I wouldn't mention it as an example of local practices to avoid overriding. No subdomain is safe haven to national or religious discriminations.

In general, Meta-Wiki is more permissive than most wikis on many things, but also has precedents of bending to local sensibilities. The most famous example is one deletion request some years ago where the en.wiki community got a Meta-Wiki page deleted as offensive to them (a sysop of theirs), even though the Meta-Wiki community wouldn't normally have deleted such a page. --Nemo 22:12, 6 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

•  Support I'd prefer to just have one user page and one user talk as the default. But maybe allow people to create separate ones on separate projects (the different languages being an obvious example). The name resolution would be straightforward if a link to a User or User Talk page occurred on a project, it would first attempt to resolve locally on the project and if not onto the "global" User Wiki. Kerry Raymond (talk) 22:36, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
•  Support I think it is important to centralize the user pages and the user discussions. So I strongly support this proposal. Stiegenaufgang (talk) 16:28, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
•  Support I support the proposal and I would like to see a global watchlist as well. Maybe that could somehow be tied into this as well. Either way I think its a good idea and worth looking into. I do wonder at the technical requirements of linking thousands of Wiki Userpages to another Wiki for every editor, but I wouldn't imagine it would be that bad. Especially considering most folks only edit the same 2 or 3.Reguyla (talk) 20:46, 27 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
•  Support It can save a significant amount of time for those who volunteers on several wiki projects. --Taweethaも (talk) 01:58, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
•  Support Centralize preferences and user pages is a very good idea. --Epìdosis (talk) 19:20, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Support in principal This needs a lot more thought, particularly around which wikis can block which users access to their user / user talk pages; which bot policies applies; etc. In principal it seems good though. Stuartyeates (talk) 22:40, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
•  Support Sounds ideal to me. Someone mentioned— setting preferences differently on different projects; I think something could be implemented (akin to the common.js/vector.js, monobook.js, etc. user subpages) where you could set "preferences for all projects" or "preferences for specific projects". Eman235 (talk) 00:43, 16 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
•  OpposeBy receiving a message on alocal talk page you know that its an issue that needs to be dealt with there, having a single central talkpage breaks this link.--KTo288 (talk) 00:58, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
•  Support As a new user I was surprised that I have a "Unified login" but 22 user pages and 22 usertalk pages. This is an unsustainable model for participation, from a user's point of view. — Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 23:55, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
•  Support I think it is a good idea! 2teach4ever (talk) 03:53, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
•  Oppose I'd rather want to keep some wikis as is - and when there is no userpage set, it just renders meta userpage, instead. (I'm not sure if that is possible.) — revi^☏ 12:08, 6 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
•  Support I would like also got an InstantUser like InstantCommons. Allow to get authentification on projects that are not under the WM projects --Vev (talk) 12:58, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
•  Oppose I'd like to have such global userpage but while being able to keep some of my local userpages per wiki. I contribute to wikis with different language, different community, different rules. It'd be messy. E.g. if in one wiki I happen to be banned as far as to not be able to edit my talk page - why should I also be banned to use talkpage in all other wikis. etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. --Base (talk) 12:14, 5 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Many of these items are being worked on individually. In order:

• Global userpage: m:Global userpage, specifically bugzilla:14759 (If a local version doesn't exist, the meta:userpage will appear, just like a file from Commons does currently.)
• Global usertalkpage: mw:Flow should eventually cover this
• Global preferences: mw:Extension:GlobalPreferences and mw:Extension:GlobalCssJs (woo!)
• Global watchlist: This item needs a lot of work. mw:Watchlist wishlist compiles or links to much of it. I'm not uptodate on the efforts.
• Global contributions list: We have Special:CentralAuth and https://tools.wmflabs.org/guc/ (both are linked in the MediaWiki:Sp-contributions-footer on some wikis' user-contributions pages. Should possibly be standardized?) See also mw:Admin tools development/Global contributions tool)
• User-related content being centralized: This is difficult, because each project has different rules regarding categories/userboxes/etc...
• Anti-vandalism work: Does this mean - we could see talkpage warning messages centralized (versus scattered over many wikis)? If so, see the Global talkpage item. Or possibly the Global contributions item. If not, please clarify?
• Bring the User Community together with a central forum: Flow will eventually cover this. Pages will be cross-wiki, where desired. The details will take a long time to get right (with much experimentation and feedback needed in future months), but the back-end is built with this in mind.
• Also, mw:Requests for comment/Global notifications, eventually.

HTH. Quiddity (talk) 18:48, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]