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Community: login at mathoverflow is overly fancy, problematic

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    Since clearing my cookies, MO doesn't recognize me but thinks it does. When I try to login it thinks I am anonymous(google).

    I'm sure I can figure this problem out, my question is why this overly clever method of login at all? I have had a few problems at various time: my wordpress.com ID is never recognized, I have 2 gmail (one university "cmail") accounts, both linked to a third (youtube) account and this has caused problems, and now I can't login to my account. Wouldn't we be better off with username/password login like every other outfit on the internet?
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    You only need to login once with your old e-mail address to regain your account. The moderators can also merge your two accounts.

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    If you can't remember which google account your account is registered with, what makes you think you would remember a username and password?</snarkiness>

    Could you please provide some details about your problems? What happens when you use your wordpress id? In what way has it caused problems that your gmail accounts are linked to a youtube account? Are you really unable to log into your account? What happens when you log out and try one of the other OpenIDs you use (e.g. your other google account)?

    If you contact moderators@mathoverflow.net and tell us which accounts are yours, we can merge them. You can have two different OpenIDs associated with your account, which should mitigate the problem in the future, though it sounds like you want to be able to use something like four different OpenIDs.

    I can find two Andrew Marshalls which look like different people. I assume you're the later. I also have reason to believe this user is you.

    • CommentAuthorMariano
    • CommentTimeMar 26th 2011
     

    At that point, it begins being worthwhile to use a fifth openid to log into the other four... :)

    • CommentAuthoran_mo_user
    • CommentTimeMar 26th 2011
     
    Mariano, might one be able to generalize your observation, using an inductive approach, to infer that no finite number is sufficient? :)
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    I'd also love to hear the details of the problems.

    I'm actually a big fan of OpenID: any new website I run into that supports it gets a little smile, and every website that has some ridiculous requirement (your password must contain 7 consecutive exclamation marks) annoys me.

    For anyone who runs their own website, consider also adding the 2 lines in the header that let you use your own URL as your OpenID. This ensures you're not tied to any particular provider, as you can just change the redirect on your own webpage.

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    You are right Anton, I would forget my username.

    I only have need for 1 mathoverflow account, 1 email account, 1 blog through wordpress, 1 youtube account, etc. It would seem like openID was perfect for me. Yet I've had a number of problems, all my own fault for having multiple various accounts, but it seems like

    username:
    password:
    forgot either of those? click here

    would be really easy. Is that too pedestrian? seriously, what is wrong with it?

    This is my account http://mathoverflow.net/users/2031/andrewlmarshall I am looking forward to conquering the login process and--in time--using my account again.
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    What's wrong with it is that it duplicates functionality that we already have, but in poorer form. Your username is your OpenID and your password is whatever your password is. Forgot either of those? Click the "Is this your account?" link on your user page, type in your email, and you'll be sent a recovery email.*

    I just don't see any benefit to using a plain old login. You still haven't explained what problems you're having. As far as I can tell, you've simply forgotten which OpenID you used to register your account. This problem would only be compounded by a plain login. And as I explained above, it's no harder to recover your account if you forget your OpenID details. If you failed to provide a valid email, then you can still recover your account by contacting moderators@mathoverflow.net.

    *I've triggered a recovery email for you. Click the link in the email and you'll be logged in. Then click the link in the banner at the top to associate another OpenID.

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    Scott and Anton are right, open ID is awesome.
    • CommentAuthoran_mo_user
    • CommentTimeMar 27th 2011 edited
     
    Of course I cannot know what happened to the OP, but on reflection it occured to me that something possibly not that distinct happened to me.

    The general situation: two gmail accounts are in use with the browser I use to visit MO. Only one of them 'has' an MO account to it. Typically the non-MO account is not logged in, as it is only used rarely.

    The problem: once when I wanted to vist MO and went to login and then clicked the google button, something unexpected happened, namely instead of the usual two either direct login (when logged in to google) or requested for google username and password (when not) I got a message saying something like:
    trying to connect to mathoverflow; buttons [connect] and [cancel]

    The solution: I got lucky and figured what was going on; clicked [cancel] diconnected the non-mo google account and proceeded as usual. But I can well imagine that if the circumstances would haven been slightly different that I would have clicked [connect] in which case I inadvertently had created a new account.

    Hypothetical continuation: If this had happened. And I then would have just thought (which for me is likely): this is strange, disconected everything restarted the browser whatever. And then everything would have worked again, I might well forget about this incident.

    But then, if the 'problem' mentioned above (wrong google account active) should reoccur then I assume I would not even have gotten the surprising dialog making me aware that something unusual is happening, as it just would have been a normal and not a first login. And then I might be quite confused.

    A suggestion/question: until just now I was unaware of the recovery procedcure via 'is this your account' . And now after a cursory look through the FAQs I did not see it there either (appologies in case I just overlooked it). So, perhaps it makes sense to display this information somewhere prominently, e.g., on the login page (in case it is easily possible to alter it) and/or the FAQs.
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    One downside of open ID is that it seems to absolutely baffle many mathematicians older than, say, 55. (cf. well-known mathematicians with multiple mathoverflow accounts.) If you don't already have a google/yahoo/etc. account, the procedure for logging in is really quite complicated and non-obvious to the non-internet-savvy user.

    Maybe it would help to include our own very detailed step-by-step instructions for how to log in, rather than just point to the open ID site for explanations.
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    "seems to be absolutely baffle"?? This construction has me baffled, but only conditionally.
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    Oops -- make that "seems to absolutely baffle".
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    My only problem with openID is that there have been a few times (week-ends mostly) where login was entirely unavailable for mysterious reasons.
    • CommentAuthordeane.yang
    • CommentTimeMar 28th 2011
     
    As someone close to 55, I support Kevin's suggestion for "our own very detailed step-by-step instructions for how to log in". I haven't had any trouble yet, but I anticipate that I will when I hit 55.
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    Part of my problem is that my university has 2 email addresses for me, and one gets forwarded to the other, so this accounts for one problem I had, which I'll concede would be the same if I had forgotten my account info with a more standard login.

    However, now that I'm logged in to my cmail account (the only one which I directly access) MO thinks that my openID is the same as the recover link I was sent by Anton (thank you, btw), which is now expired. I've requested another.

    Apparently this email is associated to this account http://mathoverflow.net/users/3962/mathuni which I opened long long ago, and is associated to my wordpress blog. Now I need to find out how to merge the two (preferably keeping the icon of the more current account, I prefer it to the photo of me).

    None of this seems insurmountable to me, but only unneccesarily inconvenient.
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    I've merged your accounts and added your wordpress OpenID as an alternate. You can now log in with either the google (cmail?) credentials or with your wordpress credentials. If you want to change this to something else, click the "change openid" link in your profile.

    I'm still confused about what happened with your cmail account. Did the email account somehow expire, or did the OpenID somehow expire? Perhaps this has something to do with how your university manages email accounts. If that's the case, then it seems much more reliable to use your wordpress or myopenid credentials.

    The icon is tied entirely to the email address via gravatar. You can change the icon there if you want.

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    [well done Anton :-) ]
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    Thank you for the help Anton!

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