https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23334
Summary: Problems with transferring user contribution histories
when renaming a Wikipedia user
Product: MediaWiki extensions
Version: any
Platform: All
OS/Version: All
Status: NEW
Severity: normal
Priority: Normal
Component: Renameuser
AssignedTo: [email protected]
ReportedBy: [email protected]
I'm writing this as a bug report as well as a brief request for help with my
user account in the Finnish Wikipedia, fi.wikipedia. It might be that
everything in the next two or three paragraphs is already well-known (I tried
checking some of the other reports related to the Renameuser extension), but I
guess I should write about it anyway, to explain what led to the current
problems with my account. Going by the name Methem, it's a normal user account
without any special priv's, created separately for fi.wiki in late 2006.
A few days ago, on May 22nd, I made a formal request for a user name change,
and a bureaucrat promptly renamed my account. Soon after I figured that my
former contribution history didn't transfer over. (I was later told by another
admin that the priority for those histories to transfer over has been set to be
low and so there may be delay.) After more than an hour, my old contributions
still seemed to be under my old user name, and I thought something was wrong,
so I asked if the rename could be temporarily undone. The bureaucrat tried
renaming me back to my old name, and it seemed to work: I was now under my old
name (Methem) and (seemingly) had my contribution history at my possession
again.
Soon after that a vandal registered a user account with the new name I had
wanted to be renamed to. He/she vandalized a couple of user talk pages with
name-calling and sexual crap and was promptly blocked for that by the admins. I
didn't pay too much attention to that particular incident at that moment. I
thought that the problem with renaming (or what I *thought* was some sort of
problem or a bug; the fact that the history didn't transfer over) was just
temporary, or it was going to be fixed soon, or something, after which we could
just get rid of the new, fake account created by the vandal and the two
offensive edits and rename my own account to the new name. So I made a couple
of general edits to some of the articles or things in fi.wiki and then logged
out after checking my contribution history, which seemed to be fine.
I logged on to fi.wiki the next day. I checked my (Methem's) contributions and
saw that most of them were gone. Only the edits made after I initially had my
account renamed to the new name I wanted to use, were left. I then checked the
contribution history of the vandal's account (which was and is still blocked)
and saw that all of my old edits (about 10000) were there. And on top of them
were the two offensive edits made by the vandal.
Now, it probably goes without saying that blocking the old/former name right
after my account was renamed would have saved me from a lot of trouble.
In any case, it seems I need someone from the technical staff of Wikimedia
Foundation to fix my account: mainly the contribution history, I guess. A
couple of emails have been sent to the staff, but I believe they haven't been
replied to as of yet. The aforementioned fi.wiki bureaucrat and another admin
also suggested me to try this Bugzilla, so therefore I've now filed this "bug
report" (after reading some of the guidelines). Please point me in the right
direction if I'm in the wrong place.
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