Change 457498 had a related patch set uploaded (by MR70; owner: MR70):
[mediawiki/extensions/CentralAuth@master] Display global rename log in "Previous global account changes"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/457498

Change 457498 abandoned by WMFOffice:
Display global rename log in "Previous global account changes"

Reason:
abandoning patch sets of globally banned user

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/457498

Change 546381 had a related patch set uploaded (by Ammarpad; owner: Ammarpad):
[mediawiki/extensions/CentralAuth@master] Show global rename log on Special:CentralAuth

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/546381

Change 546381 abandoned by Ammarpad:
[mediawiki/extensions/CentralAuth@master] Show global rename log on Special:CentralAuth

Reason:

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/546381

👍 This would definitely be a useful feature, particularly for monitoring users that have requested multiple renames. I'm not sure how often this occurs on the Wikimedia projects, but it certainly does happen fairly often on non-Wikimedia projects. Should we re-add this idea to the community wish list for 2021?

Change #1290933 had a related patch set uploaded (by Bartosz Dziewoński; author: Bartosz Dziewoński):

[mediawiki/extensions/CentralAuth@master] Display renames to and from this name on Special:CentralAuth

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1290933

This was on my mind after working on T196386 recently. I'd like to balance the transparency needs of account renamers or other people investigating renames of abusive users, with the privacy needs of the users who have been renamed.

The proposed patch only displays the logs on Special:CentralAuth when it is viewed by someone who can rename accounts. For all other viewers, it only displays a notice that the account was previously renamed, without the logs (or a link to the logs) [even though the logs are otherwise public]. And if the log entry has been oversighted or revision-deleted, it displays nothing, unless you have permissions to view that log entry.

I think this is reasonable, but your thoughts are very welcome.

privacy needs of the users who have been renamed

What privacy need? Usernames (past and present) are public. On the English Wikipedia, for example, it is against policy to suppress the logs and other artifacts of account renames.

For all other viewers, it only displays a notice that the account was previously renamed, without the logs (or a link to the logs) [even though the logs are otherwise public].

I have wanted this more times in a non-renaming context than I did as a when processing renames. Making users manually chase down the information is bad UX.

Past usernames are indeed public, but there's a difference between that and displaying them prominently on the account information page. I think we shouldn't do the latter, and I'm not sure whether even the notice I proposed is a good idea.

As for oversighted or revision-deleted log entries, I'm not going to check the suppression logs to see if it's done, but I haven't found a policy forbidding doing it for global renames, so it should be handled by the code.

Not sure how this is Product Safety and Integrity, removing the tag

I mostly agree with JJMC89. MediaWiki shouldn't go out of its way to not show publically available information; we all know security through obscurity is bad.

(I agree with matmarex that regardless of what local policies say the code should properly handle hidden log entries, though)

Change #1290933 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/CentralAuth@master] Display renames to and from this name on Special:CentralAuth

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1290933