Background

As part of T382390, I'm working in adding a link from GUC to Special:GlobalContributions on Meta-Wiki.

When I'm logged in with my main account (meets critera and has consented):

Despite me (afaik) having the rights to see as much as this tool can show to anyone, the messaging still implies uncertainty. Maybe some results require additional rights, but the system can't or won't tell me. Is that true? Are there other tiers of access, and, it is policy not to expose the existence of these tiers to users?

When I'm logged-in with my sock account instead (not yet consented or doesn't meet criteria), the exact same message is shown.

I revoked the consent on my main account, and to my surprise it does actually show a different message there:

Finding

It is important to me that when people follow the link in GUC (being added in T382390), that people have a clear understanding of what they can and cannot do, and how to do it. It seems confusing for people to land on a page saying "No results matching the query" when in fact no query was even attempted.

Scenarios I tested:

• If you're accidentally not logged-in Meta-Wiki, convey login requirement and/or redirect to login page. LGTM!
• If you don't meet the requirements and aren't auto-enrolled, display a warning or error conveying as much, don't imply that a query was attempted and that some or all results were excluded.
• If you do meet the requirements, aren't auto-enrolled, but haven't consented, display a notice indicating as much and linking to the preferences to do, and/or to a page explaining how to do so. This exists, but it also says "No results matching query" when no query was performed, and includes uncertain messages about "incomplete" results, which is confusing.

The subtitle says "Showing results […] for all wikis where you have the right to view contributions." which sounds like it might be able to show results from some wikis but not consider others. This sounds like it might be either a left-over from a previous iteration, or in prep for something in the future because Special:GlobalContributions always redirects to the version on Meta-Wiki, and while Special:Preferences on local wikis (e.g. Commons) does show me the checkbox locally, from what I can tell the extension code for GlobalContributions only checks it locally on Meta-Wiki. And indeed with consent given on Commons, but not Meta-Wiki and not in global prefs, I get the same "you need to accept the agreement in your global preferences." notice, which suggests that this partial results is not actually a thing that exists currently.

• If you meet the requirements and have consented locally on another wiki (e.g. Commons and testwiki), but not in in global prefs and not on Meta-Wiki, then no query is attempted and a notice is shown that you need to consent via global prefs. LGTM!

The fact that, when looking up an IP that has recent temp-account edits on testwiki, when consent is given on testwiki and Commons, but not Meta-Wiki or global prefs, confirms that there is not actual uncertainty. But that does suggest the subtitle text and "No results matching the query" messaging is misleading relative to how the system works today.

Suggestion

In all likelihood, given the complexity of the system, and generally that the above is unlikely to all be unintended left-overs, I am missing some information about how it is meant to work and probably the problem isn't that these should be removed but rather that the meaning is inconsistent or insufficiently explained.

However, from the POV of someone who understands the above, the following appears to make sense:

• Remove "No results matching the query" and "may not" uncertainty from the checkuser-global-contributions-no-results-no-permissions message. Instead phrase it as a simple permission denied error, with the appropriate red error message box styling.

• Remove "No results matching the query." and "may be incomplete" uncertainty from the checkuser-global-contributions-no-results-no-global-preference message. Perhaps emphasize "need to sign the agreement" instead, and promote to warning message box styling.

• Remove "where you have the right to view contributions" from the subtitle.

Mockups: