Rename of global (attached) users to existing global usernames
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	Nemo_bis
	May 1 2013, 7:56 AM

Description

Split from T16862: Allow global renaming of global users.

Imagine:

A@global (composed of A@commonswiki and A@metawiki both attached),
B@global (composed of B@wikidatawiki and B@metawiki both attached)
C@global (composed only of C@mediawikiwiki).

Current situation (since T16862 was fixed) is that B and C can't be renamed to A. This means that all the users forcefully renamed for T37707: Complete unification of all accounts to SUL (if on more than one wiki) will have to request rename on Meta and only RenameUser will help.

However, this means that all such accounts will be unattached, and this is less than ideal, beside being a pain for everyone involved. All such users will be in the case B, because requesting rename creates a local account on Meta, and A will probably have to confirm too.

What we need is:

C can be renamed to A: C@global is deleted, the local account is attached to A@global.
B can be renamed to A: the wikidatawiki account is attached to A@global, while B@metawiki is left behind and B@global stays.

Version: master
Severity: normal
URL: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/SUL_finalisation/Global_account_merge
See Also:

Details

Reference: bz47918

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Status	Assigned	Task
		· · ·
Resolved	Legoktm	T37707 Complete unification of all accounts to SUL
Declined	Legoktm	T49918 Rename of global (attached) users to existing global usernames
Resolved	Legoktm	T16862 Allow global renaming of global users
Resolved	Legoktm	T41470 Can't merge blocked users: Duplicate entry for key 'ipb_address'
Resolved	Legoktm	T51518 When user is deleted, some tables are not cleaned
Resolved	Reedy	T72376 UserMerge: don't update the entire table in one query
Resolved	None	T70844 Expand deployment of UserMerge to all CentralAuth-enabled Wikimedia wikis
Resolved	Legoktm	T78423 "User must be logged in to view notification!" exception during global merge
Resolved	EBernhardson	T78422 Error: 1054 Unknown column 'workflow_user_id' in 'where clause' during global merge
Resolved	Legoktm	T961 Code review CentralAuth's GlobalUserMerge and related UserMerge code before SUL finalization mass usage
Resolved	Jdforrester-WMF	T69758 Identify extensions that need updates to work with user merging
Resolved	Legoktm	T103739 User merge local log entries being attributed to 127.0.0.1
Resolved	bd808	T103738 <centralauth-usermerge-nousers> message missing?
Resolved	Reedy	T104686 Unbreak/finish global merge of Yuvipanda into YuviPanda
		· · ·

Event Timeline

There are a very large number of changes, so older changes are hidden. Show Older Changes

NealMcB subscribed.Feb 12 2015, 9:39 PM

zhuyifei1999 subscribed.Mar 1 2015, 5:48 AM

Harej subscribed.Mar 6 2015, 6:37 AM

Keegan added a subtask: T961: Code review CentralAuth's GlobalUserMerge and related UserMerge code before SUL finalization mass usage.Mar 30 2015, 11:32 PM

Keegan added a project: SUL-Finalization.

Keegan set Security to None.

This is the GlobalUserMerge tool, currently under review before deployment.

Keegan moved this task from It's complicated to To-do on the SUL-Finalization board.Mar 30 2015, 11:37 PM

Keegan added a project: GlobalRename.Apr 29 2015, 8:36 PM

Stryn subscribed.May 1 2015, 9:07 AM

Glaisher subscribed.May 2 2015, 4:52 PM

Legoktm closed subtask T78423: "User must be logged in to view notification!" exception during global merge as Resolved.May 12 2015, 8:06 PM

• Spage mentioned this in T98915: Document: extensions that store user IDs or usernames need to listen to UserMerge hooks.May 12 2015, 8:41 PM

Ricordisamoa subscribed.May 19 2015, 12:32 AM

Legoktm added subtasks: T103739: User merge local log entries being attributed to 127.0.0.1, T103738: <centralauth-usermerge-nousers> message missing?.Jun 24 2015, 8:00 PM

Legoktm closed subtask T961: Code review CentralAuth's GlobalUserMerge and related UserMerge code before SUL finalization mass usage as Resolved.Jun 24 2015, 8:04 PM

Legoktm closed subtask T103738: <centralauth-usermerge-nousers> message missing? as Resolved.Jun 24 2015, 10:52 PM

Legoktm closed subtask T103739: User merge local log entries being attributed to 127.0.0.1 as Resolved.

He7d3r awarded a token.Jun 28 2015, 1:11 PM

Restricted Application added a subscriber: Steinsplitter. · View Herald TranscriptJun 28 2015, 1:11 PM

He7d3r updated the task description. (Show Details)Jun 28 2015, 1:13 PM

Nahum subscribed.Jun 29 2015, 9:12 PM

Update: We tested global user merge in production yesterday, and ran into issues with database tables missing and transaction handling. T104686 has some blocking tasks on it.

Meno25 subscribed.Jul 11 2015, 6:20 AM

waldyrious subscribed.Jul 23 2015, 1:40 AM

waldyrious updated the task description. (Show Details)Oct 18 2015, 9:10 AM

Hex unsubscribed.Oct 28 2015, 2:42 PM

Hex subscribed.

Glaisher mentioned this in T120499: SUL account merging.Dec 17 2015, 12:47 PM

Liuxinyu970226 awarded a token.Dec 26 2015, 3:25 AM

After over a year of testing and struggling, I'm finding it less and less likely that this tool will be able to hit production. It's Reliable for new (post-2014) accounts, Pretty Reliable for accounts from 2010 forward, Fairly Reliable for 2008 onward, and anywhere before that in time is a Unreliable. Given the number of accounts that would need this feature to complete SUL finalization were created prior to 2010, I'm having a hard time finalizing a product that is so unstable for so many accounts - deploying a tool that has any chance of mangling contributions is grossly irresponsible.

@Legoktm @hoo @DerHexer Let's consider closing this task as declined in the near future and just move on with the inconvenience of multiple accounts and soft redirects.

didn't mean to close

Ahonc subscribed.Jan 13 2016, 10:18 PM

Shanmugamp7 subscribed.Jan 14 2016, 8:41 AM

Steinsplitter awarded a token.Jan 14 2016, 11:12 AM

Does the CentralAuth extension page (or one subpage thereof) explain to wiki sysadmins how to enable this tool on their wiki farm? If we give up, we should make sure that someone else is able to use the code (in the remote chance they have a farm with similar issues) so that maybe in the end we get patches etc.

XXN subscribed.Jan 25 2016, 11:03 PM

XXN mentioned this in T31188: UserMerge enhancement: merging "anonymous" user to registered user.Jan 25 2016, 11:13 PM

XXN updated the task description. (Show Details)

I've tested the local Special:UserMerge feature on a couple of wikis and tried to merge some of my old accounts with the new global one. See for example https://pt.wikiquote.org/wiki/Especial:Registo/usermerge?uselang=en. In all the cases there was success and nothing bad happened, at least none that I can see. The account and its edits were merged, and the old account deleted. Global account works just fine. Might be because the accounts are past-2009, I don't know. However I was told this tool (the local Special:UserMerge) was also unstable, so I did not continue.

For the sake of clarity, and not talking about Special:GlobalUserMerge, is Special:UserMerge also buggy? Is there any remote posibility that we could use that tool on a wiki by wiki basis with some accounts?

Best regards.

In T49918#1967346, @MarcoAurelio wrote:

For the sake of clarity, and not talking about Special:GlobalUserMerge, is Special:UserMerge also buggy? Is there any remote posibility that we could use that tool on a wiki by wiki basis with some accounts?

Best regards.

At the minimum, Special:UserMerge is not integrated within all extensions (T69758). The bigger, underlying issue is the inconsistency of databases and user data sets. At the very least we can wind up with account information that is utterly lost, which is unacceptable for many reasons, and at the worst it can corrupt the entire database.

In T49918#1934169, @Nemo_bis wrote:

Does the CentralAuth extension page (or one subpage thereof) explain to wiki sysadmins how to enable this tool on their wiki farm? If we give up, we should make sure that someone else is able to use the code (in the remote chance they have a farm with similar issues) so that maybe in the end we get patches etc.

The existing documentation is in the code, it's not on-wiki AFAIK. If @Legoktm or someone with the knowledge and interest would like to publish it, that's always welcome :) I'm not sure of its usefulness because it's so specific to our wikis, but that's not for me to judge overall.

In T49918#1933044, @Keegan wrote:

After over a year of testing and struggling, I'm finding it less and less likely that this tool will be able to hit production. It's Reliable for new (post-2014) accounts, Pretty Reliable for accounts from 2010 forward, Fairly Reliable for 2008 onward, and anywhere before that in time is a Unreliable. Given the number of accounts that would need this feature to complete SUL finalization were created prior to 2010, I'm having a hard time finalizing a product that is so unstable for so many accounts - deploying a tool that has any chance of mangling contributions is grossly irresponsible.

@Legoktm @hoo @DerHexer Let's consider closing this task as declined in the near future and just move on with the inconvenience of multiple accounts and soft redirects.

Closing this enhancement request; too many consequences to automating this process at this time.

Restricted Application removed a subscriber: Liuxinyu970226. · View Herald TranscriptJan 28 2016, 10:25 PM

Keegan moved this task from To-do to Done on the SUL-Finalization board.Jan 28 2016, 10:48 PM

Meno25 unsubscribed.Jan 30 2016, 7:00 PM

Qgil added a project: Liaisons-January-2016.Feb 1 2016, 10:08 AM

Qgil subscribed.

In T49918#1967346, @MarcoAurelio wrote:

For the sake of clarity, and not talking about Special:GlobalUserMerge, is Special:UserMerge also buggy? Is there any remote posibility that we could use that tool on a wiki by wiki basis with some accounts?

In the context of Wikimedia wikis, the UserMerge code simply doesn't scale with our giant db tables (e.g. T105398). The "global" CentralAuth wrapper just made it even scarier on top.

Keegan moved this task from Backlog to Closed on the GlobalRename board.Feb 8 2016, 7:14 PM

Quiddity merged a task: T120499: SUL account merging.Aug 23 2016, 10:28 PM

Quiddity added subscribers: • DannyH, Quiddity, JEumerus and 3 others.

Liuxinyu970226 rescinded a token.Sep 4 2016, 12:16 AM

Liuxinyu970226 awarded a token.

Samat subscribed.Nov 15 2016, 9:47 PM

Samat awarded a token.Nov 15 2016, 10:03 PM

I wonder if when T148242 is finished global user merging would be easier to achieve, now that we're adding local and global user IDs to the user properties?

In T49918#2856813, @MarcoAurelio wrote:

I wonder if when T148242 is finished global user merging would be easier to achieve, now that we're adding local and global user IDs to the user properties?

No, that doesn't help with any of the "hard" problems regarding user merges :/

MarcoAurelio moved this task from Backlog to Done on the MediaWiki-extensions-CentralAuth board.Dec 15 2016, 4:21 PM

MarcoAurelio mentioned this in T105893: Implement some kind of double confirmation for global user merges.Dec 18 2016, 10:43 PM

Not having a few indexes isn't really a "hard" problem. I don't think this extension would be a problem except for accounts with too many edits.

MarcoAurelio mentioned this in T156459: Update reassignEdits.php to not only migrate edits but to also migrate logs.Jan 27 2017, 9:47 AM

MarcoAurelio mentioned this in T156584: Full UserMerge support for WMF wikis.Jan 29 2017, 12:30 PM

matej_suchanek mentioned this in T69758: Identify extensions that need updates to work with user merging.Feb 4 2017, 11:25 AM

Jdforrester-WMF closed subtask T69758: Identify extensions that need updates to work with user merging as Resolved.Apr 19 2017, 8:09 PM

TerraCodes subscribed.Jul 17 2017, 1:33 AM

Reedy closed subtask T104686: Unbreak/finish global merge of Yuvipanda into YuviPanda as Resolved.Aug 1 2017, 6:11 PM

Restricted Application added a subscriber: PokestarFan. · View Herald TranscriptAug 1 2017, 6:11 PM

MarcoAurelio mentioned this in T104686: Unbreak/finish global merge of Yuvipanda into YuviPanda.Aug 1 2017, 6:57 PM