allow lower-case user names
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	MarkAHershberger
	Jun 18 2016, 10:37 PM

Description

Brion did work long ago {T4290: Disallow usernames that are too similar to existing names (confusables, impersonation)} to make sure usernames with different capitalisation wouldn't conflict. I've created users with an initial lower case letter and found that they work.

These users show up on an un-modified MediaWiki's RecentChanges page. You can search for the uploads on ListFiles. However some pages do not show these users.

For example, even though the user "lowercaseUser" had been created, going to [[User:lowercaseUser]], [[Special:UserRights/lowercaseUser]] and [[Special:Contributions/lowecaseUser]] would say the user doesn't exist.

Upon examination, all these cases relied on the value of the private MWNamespace::$ $alwaysCapitalizedNamespaces. Removing NS_USER from that list allowed the special pages to understand that the user existed and act accordingly. (Note, I also removed a couple of ucfirst() calls in User.php.)

Since T4290 ensures that users won't be able to create a user named "LowercaseUser", and "lowercaseUser" is only allowed normally if $wgCapitalLinks is false (not the default), I think this is a safe change.

Details

	Subject	Repo	Branch	Lines +/-
	Allow usernames with an initial lowercase letter.	mediawiki/core	master	+5 -12

Customize query in gerrit

Related Objects

Mentioned In: T191591: Make usernames case-insensitive
Mentioned Here: rMW6e6023740c42: Add NS_USER to MWNamespace::$alwaysCapitalizedNamespaces, as suggested by Happy…
T4290: Disallow usernames that are too similar to existing names (confusables, impersonation)

Event Timeline

MarkAHershberger created this task.Jun 18 2016, 10:37 PM

Restricted Application added subscribers: Zppix, Aklapper. · View Herald TranscriptJun 18 2016, 10:37 PM

Krenair added a project: MediaWiki-General.Jun 18 2016, 11:30 PM

Note that I have found that the following code from 2005 in User::isValidUserName() causes problems here since it assumes all namespaces are treated the same. That is, setting

$wgCapitalLinks = false

works, but

$wgCapitalLinkOverrides[NS_USER] = false;

does not. However,

$wgCapitalLinkOverrides[NS_USER] = false;
$wgCapitalLinkOverrides[NS_MAIN] = false;

works since NS_MAIN can have lower case titles and the comparision in the following code treats a name as though it was in the main namespace.

		// Ensure that the name can't be misresolved as a different title,
		// such as with extra namespace keys at the start.
		$parsed = Title::newFromText( $name );
		if ( is_null( $parsed )
			|| $parsed->getNamespace()
			|| strcmp( $name, $parsed->getPrefixedText() ) ) {
			return false;
		}

Change 295101 had a related patch set uploaded (by MarkAHershberger):
Allow usernames with an initial lowercase letter.

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/295101

gerritbot added a project: Patch-For-Review.Jun 19 2016, 1:07 AM

Aklapper triaged this task as Low priority.Jun 19 2016, 11:51 AM

Note, this would revert r60063 / 6e6023740c (http://mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:Code/MediaWiki/60063)

Krinkle subscribed.Jun 25 2016, 1:54 PM

Krinkle edited projects, added MediaWiki-User-login-and-signup; removed MediaWiki-General.Jun 25 2016, 1:59 PM

Krinkle added subscribers: tstarling, Anomie.

Might be a idea to setup a test instance on labs to make sure extensions work as desired with the changes.

A lot of extensions are going to require updates... (I trimmed what looked like irrelevant matches from the below grep)

km@km-tp ~/p/v/m/extensions> ack \\\-\\\>ucfirst --php
EditAccount/SpecialCloseAccount.body.php
101:		$userName = $this->getLanguage()->ucfirst( $userName );

EditAccount/SpecialEditAccount_body.php
95:			$userName = $this->getLanguage()->ucfirst( $userName );

CentralAuth/includes/specials/SpecialMultiLock.php
54:			$this->mPrefixSearch = $this->getLanguage()->ucfirst( trim( $this->mPrefixSearch ) );
94:			$username = $this->getLanguage()->ucfirst( $username );

CentralAuth/includes/specials/SpecialCentralAuth.php
51:		$this->mUserName = $wgContLang->ucfirst( $this->mUserName );

CentralAuth/includes/specials/SpecialGlobalUsers.php
31:		$rqUsername = $wgContLang->ucfirst( $req->getVal( 'username' ) );

CentralAuth/includes/specials/SpecialWikiSets.php
290:		$name = $wgContLang->ucfirst( $this->getRequest()->getVal( 'wpName' ) );

UserMerge/MergeUser.php
373:		$newusername = Title::makeTitleSafe( NS_USER, $wgContLang->ucfirst( $this->newUser->getName() ) );

ReassignEdits/ReassignEdits_body.php
59:		$newusername = Title::makeTitleSafe( NS_USER, $wgContLang->ucfirst( $request->getText( 'newusername' ) ) );

Renameuser/specials/SpecialRenameuser.php
56:		$newusername = Title::makeTitleSafe( NS_USER, $wgContLang->ucfirst( $newnamePar ) );
256:		if ( $oldusername->getText() !== $wgContLang->ucfirst( $oldusername->getText() ) ) {

MobileFrontend/includes/specials/SpecialMobileDiff.php
363:				$memberName = $this->getLanguage()->ucfirst( $memberName );

SocialLogin/SocialLogin.body.php
63:		$name = $wgContLang->ucfirst($name);
158:				$name = $wgContLang->ucfirst($wgRequest->getText('name'));
177:				$name = $wgContLang->ucfirst($wgRequest->getText('name'));
242:				$name = $wgContLang->ucfirst($wgRequest->getText('name'));
291:				$name = $wgContLang->ucfirst($wgRequest->getText('name'));

There's also probably a lot of third-party code making this assumption, e.g. scripts and API clients.

Change 295101 abandoned by MarkAHershberger:
Allow usernames with an initial lowercase letter.

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/295101

Krinkle removed a project: Patch-For-Review.Dec 22 2017, 5:49 PM

Aklapper mentioned this in T191591: Make usernames case-insensitive.Apr 6 2018, 9:48 AM

Krinkle unsubscribed.Apr 6 2018, 5:35 PM

Aklapper merged a task: T191591: Make usernames case-insensitive.Aug 4 2018, 3:33 PM

Aklapper added a subscriber: Johnywhy.

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