(This bug is about MediaWiki's behavior. But an additional point to consider, specifically for Wikimedia wikis: when unified login is finalized, users may want the ability to establish a global user page that automatically "transcludes" to other projects where a local user page does not exist.)

guy.chapman wrote:

I have no user page because people behave differently when they see edits with a redlinked username. This is good and bad: users with no user page are often newbies so may well need help correctly framing content, but some people reflexively revert, which is WP:BITEy.

Any change won't upset me as it will happen for everyone. I don't really see a problem, though, as this is how Wikipedia handles any nonexistent lemma.

(In reply to comment #1)

(This bug is about MediaWiki's behavior. But an additional point to consider,
specifically for Wikimedia wikis: when unified login is finalized, users may
want the ability to establish a global user page that automatically
"transcludes" to other projects where a local user page does not exist.)

See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global-Wiki

The information to be displayed will most likely be related to the local wiki, not the global wiki. Though can use both.

This can be done by implementing a WikiPage subclass for the User namespace. Similar to what we do for Category and File. The general information can be displayed using a minimal interface on top of the page. The underlying wiki content (if exists) can be displayed right underneath that.