User talk:Writ Keeper

Technical issues with my account

I was working on the article Palace Hotel, San Francisco when I went to check my watch list and there was nothing there. So I checked my contributions and the only thing that showed was just those edits to the Palace hotel article. I logged out and then back in and everything seemed fine but when I checked my contributions...the Palace article did not show. I went to the article to see if perhaps the edits just didn't take and when I looked at the history...to my surprise the edits are there...but listed under my old user name Amadscientist. I went to the village pump and made a post there about the situation and while doing so looked up at my username and it was Amadscientist and all my signatures there were now changed as well. So I logged out and back and it is back to my Mark Miller name (my actual name), but I need someone to check to see what is happening as I do not wish to make further edits until the situation is sorted out. I really begins to look like I am running two accounts and is messing with the accuracy of the edit counts..which isn't that big a deal but...I use my contribution page to jump back and forth on articles I am working on. My main concern is that, whatever is happening be sorted out as to not flip back to the old name. Do you think this has anything to do with my global account? I would really like all my accounts, across the board to be under Mark Miller and thought this might have something to do with y request on commons yesterday to change my name there but I don't want to blame them as they have suggested I make the request on Meta, which I have not done yet. Help please!--Mark Miller (talk) 23:06, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

@Mark Miller: Yes, it has to do with the interaction between your local and global accounts. Basically, what you have here is a set of two global accounts; one under the name "Amadscientist", which I think is your original global account, and one under the name of "Mark Miller", your new account. Basically, what happened on the Palace Hotel article is simply that you were still logged in as Amadscientist when you made the edits (you were probably still logged into that name after editing Commons, asking for the rename). So, that edit naturally went under your Amadscientist account. You see, the whole point of global accounts is that, once you're logged into one WMF wiki, you're logged into them all, so your login on Commons transferred over to here. So, that's the good news: your accounts haven't been smudged together or anything, and there's nothing wrong with the software; you were just logged into a different account.

But there's bad news, too. Local renames are no longer possible under any circumstances whatsoever: in fact, the tool isn't even accessible anymore. (This is a recent development, as of Sept. 15). So, unfortunately, it is no longer possible for your Amadscientist account to be renamed to Mark Miller on any WMF wiki, no matter what usurps you've obtained. What happens now is that renames must be done globally, on your global account, rather than just on your local account on the one wiki. The problem here is that, as I mentioned, you have two different global accounts; we can't Amadscientist to Mark Miller without conflicting with your account that already is Mark Miller (since, for example, it would have to rename the enwiki Amadscientist account to Mark Miller, and of course there already is a Mark Miller account on enwiki--yours). I believe that merging your two accounts is also impossible, so I think you're just kind of out of luck. Sorry. :(

If you would prefer to have your Amadscientist account named Mark Miller over your current Mark Miller account, then that can be done by just asking the stewards at meta:SRUC to rename your Mark Miller account to something else, which would free up the name, but the contribs that are currently credited to "Mark Miller" would then be credited to that other name. There's no real good way around it, I'm afraid. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 23:23, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

This has never happened before and I think I am a bit confused as to why I have two global accounts.

• Are you saying there is now a Wikipedia account for Amadscientist again?
• I am stuck with Amadscientist on all my other accounts?
• We no longer allow renaming of accounts on Wikimedia?
• I jump back and fourth between commons on a regular basis and have the entire time I have been contributing to commons. Are you saying that when I do that my Amadscientist account will come up again.
• Is it just possible (now that these things have oddly been changed) to just have the Amadscientist account as a legitimate secondary account so that I cannot be accused of sock puppeting when this happens or is this going to really become an issue that gets me blocked now?
• Who do I call at the foundation to lodge a formal complaint about this...seriously? This is a mess.

Thanks for looking into this for me.--Mark Miller (talk) 23:34, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

• What I'm saying is that there always was a Wikipedia account for Amadscientist; it never went away.
• You're not stuck with Amadscientist if you don't want to be; you should be able to use your Mark Miller account on any WMF wiki, unless the name is already in use on that wiki, which I think you said it was on itwiki.

  That will also change in the future when what's called "SUL finalization" happens, which hasn't happened yet. SUL finalization means that all accounts on every WMF wiki will be brought into agreement; whoever holds the "Mark Miller" account on one wiki will own it on every wiki, guaranteed, and anyone else who might've had that name before will be forcibly renamed to make room. But even then, the contributions you made in the past under the "Amadscientist" account will stay on that account; you cannot combine them with your Mark Miller edits into one account.

• We no longer allow local renaming of accounts on Wikimedia. There is still such a thing as renaming, but only in a global context: it cannot be done on each individual wiki separately as it was in the past. Renaming is now all-or-nothing; your account is either renamed on all WMF wikis at once or it is not renamed at all.
• It shouldn't come up, but it might depend on your browser or some other things. If you log into "Mark Miller" here, you should still be "Mark Miller" if you navigate over to Commons. Same thing in reverse: if you log into "Mark Miller" on Commons, you should still be Mark Miller here. What I think happened is that you deliberately logged into Amadscientist on Commons (to make the request about renaming it to Mark Miller), and, since Amadscientist is just as global as Mark Miller is, you stayed as Amadscientist when you came over here to enwiki. What you could've done is just logged out of Amadscientist and logged back into Mark Miller, and you would've been Mark Miller again.
• Amadscientist is already a legitimate secondary account. Second accounts aren't really a problem if you haven't been deliberately deceptive about it (i.e. done something that would make it look like Amadscientist is a different person than Mark Miller), and you haven't been deceptive about it at all, so you should be fine as you are. If you want to be triply sure, you can just write a note on your user page that declares Amadscientist is your alternate account, but really, I don't think that's necessary; you shouldn't be in any danger of being blocked. It's not that big a deal, really.
• You're on your own for that one.

And you're welcome, of course; it's not that big a deal; 'crats see things like this all the time. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 23:52, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

OK...I think I forgot not to panic! I will consider what I need to do from here! Thank you so much for your detailed look into this!--Mark Miller (talk) 00:09, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Here is a question I will pose to you....as Amadscientist...because its the account that came up after my last visit to commons: Do you think it is my responsibility to remember that every time I upload to commons that I have to log out and log into Wikipedia or should I be able to edit as Amadscientist without trying to remember to do so every single time. To be honest, I think that is asking a lot for me to suddenly remember now. I really think that this sudden change is not something I signed up for...but if that is the case I will abandon Commons completely and give up all image and file contributions since I can make no further changes. This isn't trying to be stubborn...but I just feel I can't be held to such an odd standard. What are your thoughts. be as honest as you feel is justified. Am I just being stupid or do I have a legitmate complaint in that manner. Have you seen this happen with others? Is this a new issue or am I just that ...unique? (Why do I feel I am bth not so special and yet still oddly on my own here?) The thing is....Commons just fixed the multiple upload issue and I have a backlog off images I intended to donate to Wikimedia...but now I think that may not be possible with this weird thing going on. Am I over thinking this? --User:Mark Miller/Amadscientist (talk) 03:03, 2 October 2014 (UTC)