Deleted user: history lost

[woodpeck]

Deleted users used to be changed to something like "user_12345" (number chosen for illustration only), and you were still able to e.g. view the edit history of such a user. This is an important feature for the community to understand what someone has done (imagine e.g. a vandal making 20 edits then asking for his account to be deleted - you still want to be able to identify which edits they made).

However, for reasons I failed to identify in the code, deleted users now show up with the user name "deleted" (e.g. http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/37413625), and no hyperlink.

This is definitely a recent change but I cannot pinpoint where and when exactly it was introduced.

Requesting the raw XML for such an object still reveals the "user_12345" name, but then requesting that user's history through a link like http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/user_12345/history yields an error message as well. It would be desirable to be able to access the user's history in this way even though the account was deleted.

This might not be such a recent change but in March this year it was definitely still possible to access deleted users' histories in this way.

[tomhughes]

Deleted users still are changed to that, they just aren't visible. As far as I know deleted users have never been visible, or at least not for a very long time.

[tomhughes]

Oh the link may have been hidden in some specific contexts sure, but that was mostly because the link didn't work anyway, and just the name of it effectively revealed the identity because the uid to name mapping is known.

[tomhughes]

So 80c46f5 introduced the current message but even before that they were shown as anonymous, along with very old users that have never agreed to make their edits public.

[tomhughes]

So in fact it was the previous edit from the same merge (341f6cd) that made them anonymous. See #1154.

[woodpeck]

Hmm, appears I was wrong with "in March this year it was definitely still possible to access deleted users' histories". But I'm adamant that until very recently, I was able to see whether two edits had been made by the same deleted user or by different deleted users...

[tomhughes]

I don't see how - as far as I can the changeset list code has refused to give you a list for a non-active user for at least the last five years.

[woodpeck]

Yes I concede the "give you a list" bit but I was told that one edit was by "user_1234" and the other by "user_2345", whereas now both edits are by "deleted". Or am I imagining that as well?

[pnorman]

That was my recollection, but I haven't tested a great deal so can't be certain.

[tomhughes]

Yes that was possible until that change in February.

[mmd-osm]

However, for reasons I failed to identify in the code, deleted users now show up with the user name "deleted" (e.g. http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/37413625), and no hyperlink.

There's in fact a hyperlink at the very bottom of the changeset page, shown as "user_836238" and pointing to http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/user_836238/history

I guess that link shouldn't be shown in the first place, as it links directly to an error page "User user_836238 does not exist".

[BushmanK]

Currently, when you click "user_836238" on a page like http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/37413625 , it leads you to a page with some gibberish in the left sidebar. It actually loads the whole content of the http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/user_836238/history into the div#sidebar_content, which is obviously an improper behavior.