SUL finalisation

This page documents the work being done by the Wikimedia Foundation on the SUL finalisation, which would unify user accounts across all Wikimedia wikis.

History
Originally, Wikimedia wikis operated completely independently from each other, with separate user accounts and passwords for each wiki. CentralAuth was created to let users log in with the same credentials across multiple wikis, but as the wikis operated independently for years there were thousands of clashing accounts, i.e. cases where different people had registered the same name on different wikis. These clashes prevent those affected from logging in with the same name across all wikis.

Project Goal
The goal of the SUL finalisation is to forcibly rename any clashing user accounts so that every single user has their own single unified login across all Wikimedia sites.

Project Duration
The project is currently blocked from proceeding due engineering resourcing issues. Kunal Mehta, the engineer assigned to the project, has commitments to other teams at the Wikimedia Foundation which he must first wrap up before he can commence engineering work on this project.

Due to the above, at this time there is no time estimate available for when the project will be complete.