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Change "Basic information" section of Special:Preferences into "Account management"
Open, LowPublicFeature

Description

Currently in the "Basic information" [[Special:Preferences]] section, you see something like this:


Username: Jimbo Wales
User ID: 1234
Member of groups: Autoconfirmed users, Users
Connected apps: Manage 123 connected applications
Number of edits: 123,456
Registration time: 12:34, 15 January 2001
Global account status: All in order!

Your account is active on 123 project sites.
(Manage your global account | View global account info)

Password: Change password

  • Remember my login on this browser (for a maximum of 30 days)
  • Always use a secure connection when logged in ---

This is problematic because most of this info (edit count, registration time, etc.) isn't related to setting preferences; it's out of scope.

Proposal for this bug: change "Basic information" into "Account management" (or similar wording) and include only:


  • Manage 123 connected applications
  • Manage your global account | View global account info
  • Change password
  • Always use a secure connection when logged in ---

I'll file a separate bug about where to move the non-preferences information.


Version: 1.24rc
Severity: enhancement
See Also:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=63988

Details

Reference
bz63987

Event Timeline

bzimport raised the priority of this task from to Low.Nov 22 2014, 3:09 AM
bzimport set Reference to bz63987.
bzimport added a subscriber: Unknown Object (MLST).

That section is not really about "Account management" in core; that clutter is added by CentralAuth and OAuth. Considering bug 52342, only "change password" is not "basic information". It's also to be noted that the groups one is member of affect whether some preferences are shown or not.

(In reply to Nemo from comment #1)

That section is not really about "Account management" in core; that clutter
is added by CentralAuth and OAuth.

Hmmm, right. Looking at translatewiki.net:


Username: Jimbo Wales
Member of groups: Autoconfirmed users, Users
Number of edits: 123
Registration time: 12:34, 15 January 2001
Real name: [ ]
Real name is optional. If you choose to provide it, this will be used for giving you attribution for your work.
Password: Change password

Remember my login on this browser (for a maximum of 180 days)

User ID is missing, not sure why... but most of this information still isn't preferences. I can agree that it's basic information, but it feels misplaced. Thoughts about this?

I'm not sure a section with only "Change password" would be terrible. It's probably the most used user preference.

It's also to be noted that the groups one is member of affect whether some
preferences are shown or not.

I'm not sure what this means. Can you elaborate?

(In reply to MZMcBride from comment #2)

I'm not sure a section with only "Change password" would be terrible. It's
probably the most used user preference.

I'm not saying it's terrible; it's just the only thing that is not "basic information". Though one could say one's password hash is a crucial part of their wiki identity, dunno.

It's also to be noted that the groups one is member of affect whether some
preferences are shown or not.

I'm not sure what this means. Can you elaborate?

Some preferences are not shown if they don't make sense for your level of privilege on the wiki. If you don't know what rights you have, you would be surprised of not finding them.

(In reply to Nemo from comment #3)

Some preferences are not shown if they don't make sense for your level of
privilege on the wiki. If you don't know what rights you have, you would be
surprised of not finding them.

I understand what you're saying, I just can't think of an example in MediaWiki core that does this. Are there any user preferences in MediaWiki core that are conditional on user rights? I suppose it might happen in MediaWiki extensions as well, though I'm also struggling to think of examples of that.

(In reply to MZMcBride from comment #4)

I understand what you're saying, I just can't think of an example in
MediaWiki core that does this.

Just grep for "isAllowed", I think.

		if ( $user->isAllowed( 'createpage' ) || $user->isAllowed( 'createtalk' ) ) {
			$watchTypes['read'] = 'watchcreations';
		}

etc.

(In reply to Nemo from comment #5)

Thanks for the example. I hadn't realized that some of those checkboxes are conditional. I'm not totally sure they should be, but that's a separate issue.

That said, the broader point seems to be that knowing that you, as a user, are part of "Autoconfirmed users, Users" is helpful, but I don't think this is really the case. Knowing that you're "autoconfirmed" and a "user" doesn't really explain clearly to the user why he or she may or may not be able to see a particular checkbox at Special:Preferences.

(In reply to MZMcBride from comment #6)

Knowing that you're "autoconfirmed" and a "user" doesn't
really explain clearly to the user why he or she may or may not be able to
see a particular checkbox at Special:Preferences.

How so? That's what the groups names are linked for. If you think that doesn't work, you should file a bug (maybe they should instead link Special:ListGroupRights? that special page is rather recent, probably didn't exist when the links were added).

See also related task T203727: Restructure and improve 'Basic information' section, which aims at refining separation of concerns of this salmagundi of options within “Basic information”. Currently, I don't see any of the proposals for renaming as clear advantageous over “Basic information” in regards to meta title “User profile”.
“Account management”, “Account details” or “Account information” have the same weakness as “Basic information” – there's information and options underneath one word umbrella, but the options further down like “Signature” would also work underneath the same title, no matter which one we chose.
I'm inclined closing this in favor of T203727 if no further arguments are brought forward.

Aklapper changed the subtype of this task from "Task" to "Feature Request".Feb 4 2022, 11:13 AM
Aklapper removed a subscriber: wikibugs-l-list.