userlogin-loggedin should be displayed. If it is not, then could you please provide clear steps to reproduce and include links? Thanks!

A warning is shown on Special:UserLogin in this scenario. Please keep them consistent.

I think a warning box would be better than a modal - less disruptive, and doesn't require Javascript.

In T284927#7155583, @Aklapper wrote:

userlogin-loggedin should be displayed. If it is not, then could you please provide clear steps to reproduce and include links? Thanks!

Checking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CreateAccount, I see no warning. As shown on the first screenshot in the task description, there is only a field that asks why I'm creating another account.

Now we know that userlogin-loggedin can be used on Special:CreateAccount.

My fault, was looking at Special:UserLogin instead of Special:CreateAccount. (For future reference please include URLs - thanks)

Checked the current behavior for the scenario below (e.g. wmf.12 with https://test.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:CreateAccount&campaign=growth-advancement-test-2021&geEnabled=1)

Scenario

A person is directed to create an account on Wikipedia (as part of a campaign or editing event) which provides a link to the "Special:CreateAccount". The person has previously signed up and remained logged in, but has forgotten, so they select the page. They do not realise they are creating an additional account/

• no warning
• a newly created account would be treated as a regular account on that particular wiki, i.e. it'd be a subject to A/B testing, Welcome survey etc.

(per team discussion today)

Change #1191779 had a related patch set uploaded (by Bartosz Dziewoński; author: Bartosz Dziewoński):

[mediawiki/core@master] Add a warning when creating a new account while already logged in

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1191779

I took to heart @RHo's criticism of the warning as opposed to a modal message (see task summary) – it can be missed, does not offer an action, and may prevent the user from completing their goal – and made some changes to mitigate it:

• Shortened the warning text
• Added an action button after the warning (it redirects the user to the main page, or to the returnto page configured in the link they used)
• Added a heading to say once again that you're creating a second account, and de-emphasized the form action button
• Removed the distracting "account benefits" sidebar (since you are already logged in)

This may be a bit too much, comments welcome. I don't want to do something that would be an obstacle for users who actually need to create additional accounts for other people.

Before (login)	After (login)	Before (signup)	After (signup)

Also, while this is not strictly required for this change, I proposed making the forms a bit wider. The Codex guidelines state that forms should be as wide as possible, but the login and signup forms were so narrow that the label on the new action button (which includes the username) would often be cut off.

In T284927#11221737, @matmarex wrote:

I took to heart @RHo's criticism of the warning as opposed to a modal message (see task summary) – it can be missed, does not offer an action, and may prevent the user from completing their goal – and made some changes to mitigate it:

• Shortened the warning text
• Added an action button after the warning (it redirects the user to the main page, or to the returnto page configured in the link they used)
• Added a heading to say once again that you're creating a second account, and de-emphasized the form action button
• Removed the distracting "account benefits" sidebar (since you are already logged in)

This may be a bit too much, comments welcome. I don't want to do something that would be an obstacle for users who actually need to create additional accounts for other people.

Before (login)	After (login)	Before (signup)	After (signup)

Also, while this is not strictly required for this change, I proposed making the forms a bit wider. The Codex guidelines state that forms should be as wide as possible, but the login and signup forms were so narrow that the label on the new action button (which includes the username) would often be cut off.

@KStoller-WMF @KColeman-WMF @AAlhazwani-WMF could you please have a look at these screenshots and let us know if the design and wording is OK?

FWIW, I'd go with something like:

The warnings get progressively stronger, and there are links to help pages where needed, and finally it tells users what they need to do.

I don't see the need for all that. I prefer matmarex's design.

There is no need to have the first two warnings be separate. The first sentence of of the second warning comes across as an (empty) threat.

The third warning is inaccurate since the reason field isn't required.

In T284927#11232240, @JJMC89 wrote:

The third warning is inaccurate since the reason field isn't required.

Perhaps it should be?

I thought that my version with one warning was already at risk of overdoing it, so I think your version with three warnings is too much. I wouldn't want people who just follow a link to Special:CreateAccount from somewhere to worry that they've done something wrong.

However, it would make sense to add optional site-customizable labels in these places (not warnings) – similar to the messages like 'createacct-username-help' or 'signupstart' which we already have – to allow site admins to link to policies about using multiple accounts. I'll add that unless someone thinks it's a bad idea, thanks for the suggestion.

thanks @kostajh for the ping. a clarifying question, before spending more time on this... i read in the task description that

a person is directed to create an account as part of a campaign or editing event [...]

if that's the case, couldn't we address this issue "upstream" by a smarter routing, and redirect already logged-in people somewhere else (to be defined) instead of showing a warning message?

Another idea here.

If I try to reuse my own username as a new username while logged in, (which is something that someone would do if they habitually use the same username for things), I get:

Which is mw-userexists

But this could be a little more specific to this case, such as:

(You are already logged in with this username)

Feel free to move enhancement requests for uncommon corner cases to a separate ticket.

In T284927#11234281, @AAlhazwani-WMF wrote:

thanks @kostajh for the ping. a clarifying question, before spending more time on this... i read in the task description that

a person is directed to create an account as part of a campaign or editing event [...]

if that's the case, couldn't we address this issue "upstream" by a smarter routing, and redirect already logged-in people somewhere else (to be defined) instead of showing a warning message?

That might be possible (have some code in Campaigns that looks at the campaign parameter, reroute the user if they're logged in) but there are other instances where people end up creating accounts while logged-in, so I still think we should do something here.

I also think this dialog and its outcomes would be useful to instrument, so we can understand if this is effective.

In T284927#11235776, @Aklapper wrote:

Feel free to move enhancement requests for uncommon corner cases to a separate ticket.

It's not really a corner case when people have a favourite handle that they like to use across websites, as it makes them easier to remember. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@Bugreporter2: It is. Modern browsers autofill fields.

In T284927#11298257, @kostajh wrote:

In T284927#11234281, @AAlhazwani-WMF wrote:

thanks @kostajh for the ping. a clarifying question, before spending more time on this... i read in the task description that

a person is directed to create an account as part of a campaign or editing event [...]

if that's the case, couldn't we address this issue "upstream" by a smarter routing, and redirect already logged-in people somewhere else (to be defined) instead of showing a warning message?

That might be possible (have some code in Campaigns that looks at the campaign parameter, reroute the user if they're logged in)

nice!

but there are other instances where people end up creating accounts while logged-in, so I still think we should do something here.

gotcha! i took a look at...

In T284927#11221737, @matmarex wrote:

I took to heart @RHo's criticism of the warning as opposed to a modal message (see task summary) – it can be missed, does not offer an action, and may prevent the user from completing their goal – and made some changes to mitigate it:

• Shortened the warning text
• Added an action button after the warning (it redirects the user to the main page, or to the returnto page configured in the link they used)
• Added a heading to say once again that you're creating a second account, and de-emphasized the form action button
• Removed the distracting "account benefits" sidebar (since you are already logged in)

This may be a bit too much, comments welcome. I don't want to do something that would be an obstacle for users who actually need to create additional accounts for other people.

Before (login)	After (login)	Before (signup)	After (signup)

...and the warning message is not enough to "stop" people from creating a new account or logging in, people experience banner blindness more often than ever. i've tested some of the most visited websites[1], and when you try to open the sign in or sign up page while being logged in, you are redirected to the main page, whatever that might be. thinking aloud, for us it could be the user page (though it could be confusing if empty) or the homepage (with a floating message, given that especially on mobile we can't "highlight" or point to the username on page load to help people understand that they are already logged in). thoughts @kostajh?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-visited_websites

Yeah, maybe an inline warning is not enough, I am not sure. For T378806: Add confirmation step to exit session flow for temp accounts, we implemented a dialog to attempt to ensure the user really wanted to proceed with the action. Maybe something similar would work here.

In T284927#11301817, @kostajh wrote:

Yeah, maybe an inline warning is not enough, I am not sure. For T378806: Add confirmation step to exit session flow for temp accounts, we implemented a dialog to attempt to ensure the user really wanted to proceed with the action. Maybe something similar would work here.

where would you suggest to display the dialog? i've put together a quick mock to better share my suggestion... UX copy to be defined, take it with a grain of salt

In T284927#11301968, @AAlhazwani-WMF wrote:

In T284927#11301817, @kostajh wrote:

Yeah, maybe an inline warning is not enough, I am not sure. For T378806: Add confirmation step to exit session flow for temp accounts, we implemented a dialog to attempt to ensure the user really wanted to proceed with the action. Maybe something similar would work here.

where would you suggest to display the dialog? i've put together a quick mock to better share my suggestion... UX copy to be defined, take it with a grain of salt

I'm not sure. I think we would need to better understand the examples from campaigns / events. I'd personally find a "You are already logged in / if this is not you" warning on homepage after clicking a URL from somewhere else to be confusing.

I think it's fairly common that users find their way to Special:CreateAccount even when they're already logged-in, separately from campaigns and events.

In T284927#11302359, @kostajh wrote:

I'm not sure. I think we would need to better understand the examples from campaigns / events. I'd personally find a "You are already logged in / if this is not you" warning on homepage after clicking a URL from somewhere else to be confusing.

I think it's fairly common that users find their way to Special:CreateAccount even when they're already logged-in, separately from campaigns and events.

yeah, the text of the message needs further refinement... but this is exactly what other major websites do. when people try to sign in/up while being logged in, they are automatically redirected somewhere, and that experience makes it explicit to them that they are already logged in.

for wikipedia, we don't have anything "personal" that makes it immediately clear that you are logged in (e.g twitter redirects you to your timeline, youtube to your custom homepage, etc.), which is why i suggested displaying a message. we probably don't need to say "if this is not you[...]", people will try to log out anyway if that's the case.

There are a number of similar workflows that happen via login/signup:

(1) - Technically, you could probably enter a different username during reauthentication and switch user accounts. It's more a bug than a feature though.

Account switching is probably not used much. We broke it accidentally for a while and no one complained. The behavior is not quite the same as logging out and logging in again (logout affects all devices, account switching only affects current device) but I'm not sure that's enough to justify it.

Switch to a new account is probably even less useful, although I have no data to support that.

All the other workflows are heavily used. From a UX POV creating a new account for another user should probably be a completely separate form and workflow, but from a system POV they share a ton of logic so it would be a lot of work for little value.

thanks @Tgr! the table is super helpful, thank you for doing that. thou now i'm confused. is this task trying to find a solution for all of these workflows or only for:

The task as stated is about the last two rows. The same UX considerations apply to account switching via login and to reauthentication though. The task was originally about the signup form not even showing a warning; that is now fixed, all workflows show a similar warning.

I didn't want to add a dialog (or anything you have to click through), because Special:CreateAccount is also used by people who actually want to create another account, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Account_creator. I'm aiming for something that would be reasonable for both groups, even if it isn't ideal for either. Like @Tgr says, maybe the problem is that we have too many workflows that all happen through the same login/signup forms, and maybe we could split off things like Special:CreateAnotherAccount, Special:SwitchAccounts and so on – but that feels like a quarter-long project to me.

Regarding banner blindness, I wonder if it would be better to make this message be just plain text, and not styled as a warning? I am also hoping that people will use that "Continue…" button, because they would be familiar with other login systems that ask them to "Continue with <whatever>" and present the option to sign up "manually" below (e.g. login with Google, Facebook etc.).

In T284927#11303427, @matmarex wrote:

I didn't want to add a dialog (or anything you have to click through), because Special:CreateAccount is also used by people who actually want to create another account, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Account_creator. I'm aiming for something that would be reasonable for both groups, even if it isn't ideal for either. Like @Tgr says, maybe the problem is that we have too many workflows that all happen through the same login/signup forms, and maybe we could split off things like Special:CreateAnotherAccount, Special:SwitchAccounts and so on – but that feels like a quarter-long project to me.

thanks @matmarex for adding the extra context!

i wasn't aware of the Wikipedia:Account_creator, but specifically for this use case.. i would assume that users in this group could be excluded from the auto-redirect rule because they already know that they are creating a new account for another person.

i would also caution against creating separate workflows as this comes with discoverability issues among other things. for instance, "where do i find the right account creation form", "how do i know if this is the right account creation form". we should only have one sign up / sign in form.

Regarding banner blindness, I wonder if it would be better to make this message be just plain text, and not styled as a warning? I am also hoping that people will use that "Continue…" button, because they would be familiar with other login systems that ask them to "Continue with <whatever>" and present the option to sign up "manually" below (e.g. login with Google, Facebook etc.).

my recommendation would still to automatically redirect already logged in people to the homepage or something better.

if this is really non-viable for reasons... i liked your "continue..." suggestion, which i would build on top of and extend to "hide" the forms on Special:CreateAccount and Special:UserLogin behind a button to avoid any confusion, here are 2 rough ideas...

1. present logged-in people with an option to continue (redirect to the homepage) or create a new account (redirect to Special:CreateAccount)

or

2. present logged-in people with the same options, but creating a new account is not a redirect but it reveals the form just below.

thoughts?

I think hiding the form like that would be better than a redirect, especially if we made it remember the state after being toggled once, but I would still prefer not to add extra steps to the workflow. I'd be open to adding it if we discover that the form is still confusing.

I think we should merge the existing patch which adds the warning box and is clearly an improvement over the status quo without much disruption to power user workflows, and then the Growth team can take over if they feel there are more UX improvements needed, or we can cycle back if we get more bug reports (the context here being that SUL3 made it more common that one sees the signup form with an unexpected login state - it's on a different domain, cookie expiry times will differ etc).

I find it quite odd that we allow logged-in users to access a slightly modified version of Special:CreateAccount. I would love for us to eventually explore a solution that is more newcomer-friendly and foolproof. The approaches Amin proposed seem like a step in the right direction.

That said, I recognize that I may not fully understand how experienced editors use this form to create accounts for others. I’m therefore not opposed to merging the existing patch as an incremental improvement. I just wanted to add my support for taking this further in the future.

In T284927#11314434, @KStoller-WMF wrote:

I find it quite odd that we allow logged-in users to access a slightly modified version of Special:CreateAccount.

Well, it's a slightly modified user creation workflow. The form will mostly have the same fields, it will do the same checks (does the proposed username pass AbuseFilter etc.), it will mostly perform the same actions.

"Slightly modified" basically means four things:

• Depending on user permissions, rate limits (new users / day / IP) will be loosened. Those are anti-vandalism measures which aren't needed for trusted users, and e.g. for editathons one might need to create many accounts.
• There will be a bunch of extra checkboxes if the user has sufficient permissions (override AbuseFilter, override SpamBlacklist) - we don't want account creators to accidentally create an account with an unwanted name when they weren't aware that that name would be filtered, but we do want them to be able to intentionally override such filters.
• There will be a "create by email" button which sends a temporary password to the new user, rather than expecting the password to be entered in the signup form.
• The account creation will be logged as "User X created User Y".

But overall it is very similar so internally it would have to be the same special page. You can certainly make it available at a different URL when logged in, it's probably very simple to implement, but it will invalidate a lot of muscle memory and written documentation.

The task as written is done (with option B). Do you want to keep it open for the form hiding or other newcomer-friendliness changes, or close it and make a separate task about that?

Change #1191779 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@master] Add a warning when creating a new account while already logged in

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1191779

In T284927#11321111, @Tgr wrote:

The task as written is done (with option B). Do you want to keep it open for the form hiding or other newcomer-friendliness changes, or close it and make a separate task about that?

Feel free to QA and resolve with the current task acceptance criteria.
I've created a separate task to consider any follow-up work: T408649: Early design exploration for Account Creation
(I've tried to preserve the notes you've shared in this task, but feel free to add further details to the task if I've missed anything important).

In T408649#11333469, @A_smart_kitten wrote:

Question: when someone is (a) already logged in, (b) uses the form at Special:CreateAccount while logged in, & (c) encounters an error when using that form, should the error message appear underneath the main 'Create account' header, or under the next 'Create another account' header?
Asking because IMO, it seems like the current location of the error message may be confusing; given that the error is with the 'create another account' form, rather than with the 'Continue as <username>' button (that the error message currently appears above). Maybe this might need some design thoughts, though?

I guess it would be better to use addPreHtml() rather than addHeaderHtml()?

Change #1201062 had a related patch set uploaded (by Bartosz Dziewoński; author: Bartosz Dziewoński):

[mediawiki/core@master] LoginSignupSpecialPage: Move "already logged in" warning before the form

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1201062

Yes, thanks for spotting that.

Change #1201062 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@master] LoginSignupSpecialPage: Move "already logged in" warning before the form

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1201062