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Split user account
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Description

Author: mattbisanz

Description:
I was doing a rename on en.wiki of a user with 31,000 edits. The rename timed out and when I re-loaded, there were two user accounts. One at the original username and one at the target. Could a dev re-merge them into the target, as clearly it was a system error for it to split one account into two accounts. I also don't know which account the non-public data (password, email address, etc) ended up residing with.

The rename is logged at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&offset=&limit=1&type=renameuser&user=MBisanz&page=&tagfilter=&hide_patrol_log=1&hide_review_log=1

It involves http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Edinburgh_Wanderer being renamed to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Blethering_Scot


Version: unspecified
Severity: normal
URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&limit=1&type=renameuser&user=MBisanz&page=User%3AEdinburgh+Wanderer

Details

Reference
bz38585

Event Timeline

bzimport raised the priority of this task from to Medium.Nov 22 2014, 12:55 AM
bzimport set Reference to bz38585.
bzimport added a subscriber: Unknown Object (MLST).

users with over 25,000 edits shouldn't be done without a sysadmin at hand, as a
rule of thumb.

mattbisanz wrote:

Apparently he just automatically recreated it at the exact moment the extension timed out on my end.

The provided link is of User:Edinburgh Wanderer Mobile to Blethering Scot
Mobile, which seems to have worked.

I see no contributions at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/User:Edinburgh_Wanderer

I don't see how an old account could have been kept back, as it was renamed.
Maybe it was autocreated from being logged in into SUL ?

mattbisanz wrote:

Sorry, I used a non-persistent link. We've figured out he instantly re-created it via SUL.