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  1.  
    On meta, I accidentally have JacquesCarette and Jacques Carette. Could the one without-a-space be merged into the second? [Or, at worst, deleted?]
  2.  

    Hi Jacques,

    I actually can't find the first account. Could you post a link to the user page? The second account is at http://mathoverflow.net/users/3993/jacques-carette.

    It will be easy to merge once we've found them!

  3.  

    And for any future viewer of this thread -- emailing a moderator, ideally with links to both accounts, is the most efficient way to get accounts merged. Even better, send it from the registered email address for the account(s), so we don't even have to pause to check it's kosher.

  4.  
    What I meant is that I have 2 accounts on meta.mathoverflow.net - not 2 on mathoverflow! I've emailed you directly, with links.
  5.  

    Even better, send it from the registered email address for the account(s), so we don't even have to pause to check it's kosher.

    Of course, anyone can send email looking like it is from any email account, whether they own it or not. To be reasonably sure, you'd have to reply with a request for confirmation. (Sometimes the included Received headers will tell you what you need.)

  6.  

    @Jacques,

    sorry, I didn't read your first post very carefully. Unfortunately, I see no way to merge accounts on this forum. Perhaps Andrew Stacey (who knows this software much better than I do) is listening and can suggest something?

  7.  

    I don't know of a way to do it using the software itself (I did a quick check and there's a plugin to delete a user, but not one to merge two. Deletion removes all that users' posts as well, which can be irritating.) However, if you have access to the mysql database itself, either via the commandline or some online tool (eg phpmyadmin, if I remember its name aright) then it's not too hard. The key is to remember that users are referenced by their UserID so in all tables except LUM_User (assuming you've gone for the standard install, modify to suit) then you need to replace all references to the old id with references to the new one:

    UPDATE LUM_X SET column = NewID WHERE column = OldID;
    

    To see all the tables, use

    SHOW tables;
    

    To see the columns in a table, use:

    SHOW columns FROM table;
    

    Then look for columns like UserID, AuthUserID, and so forth. You're not using whispers so you should be able to safely ignore all references to such. Once that's all done, you can simply:

    DELETE FROM LUM_User WHERE UserID = oldid LIMIT 1;
    

    The LIMIT 1 is not necessary, but is a precaution. Needless to say, you should back-up your database first!

  8.  

    Okay Jacques --- I think I can do this, but I'm not going to bother unless I hear again that you actually want it to happen. (Laziness :-)

  9.  
    Please do it. I don't like leaving such untidyness around. Not urgent, naturally ;)
  10.  

    Okay, for future reference, the relevant TABLE/COLUMN pairs for the UPDATE commands are:

    LUM_CategoryBlock UserID
    LUM_Comment AuthUserID
    LUM_Comment EditUserID
    LUM_Comment DeleteUserID
    LUM_CommentBlock BlockingUserID
    LUM_Discussion AuthUserID
    LUM_Discussion LastUserID
    LUM_IpHistory UserID
    LUM_OpenID_OpenId UserID
    LUM_Style AuthUserID
    LUM_UserBlock BlockingUserID
    LUM_UserBlock BlockedUserID
    LUM_UserBookmark UserID
    LUM_UserDiscussionWatch UserID
    LUM_UserRoleHistory UserID
    LUM_UserRoleHistory AdminUserID
    
  11.  

    There's now a little SQL script in http://tqft.net/svn/mathoverflow/VanillaMergeUsers/merge.sql. You need to modify it to set the @newID and @oldID variables. You can run it on the correct database just by executing merge.sh in the same directory (but would have to know the appropriate password, so this is really just for me and Anton).

    I've done this for Jacques -- let me know if it worked out.

  12.  

    Is that publicly available? I might steal it for my own installation (not that I've needed it yet, but you never know).

  13.  

    The 'old' account definitely seems to have disappeared. Of course, I can't find any of the comments I had left under that one (I'm not claiming they are gone, just that I can't seem to find them).

  14.  

    I just looked at the SVN repository, and it appears to be safe to make it public, so I've done so. If you, @Andrew, or anyone else, would like write access email me with a username/password.