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  2. Account Merge (and possibly Edit) Problem

moderated Account Merge (and possibly Edit) Problem #bug

Chris Jones
 

Mark; a sequence of events yesterday on the (Restricted) group I co-own has revealed what I suspect might be a bug within the Merge or Edit Account functions. Suffice to say it has left an account holder in limbo and I hope that you will be willing and able to resolve it.

The sequence was as follows:

  1. An existing member submitted a membership application with a different email address; he explained in a subsequent message that his actual requirement was to use a different email address.
  2. I advised him that it would be better to Edit his Account to achieve that goal and provided him with the relevant section number in the Members Manual (pdf version) and he agreed to do that.
  3. I left his new application "pending" which with hindsight was probably a mistake.
  4. Later in the day he informed me that he had merged accounts; I checked back with him and he confirmed that he had carried out a Merge, not an Edit. (At this point I started getting a little worried... justifiably as it turned out)
  5. On checking I found that several things appeared to have "gone wrong".

    His Pending Membership had vanished
    He was now listed as a "full" member with the new email address
    His "old" membership was no longer listed
    Posts made using his "old" membership were still in place with the "old" email address
    There were no entries in the Activity Log corresponding to any changes made.
    He was not "approved" by a Moderator

    He has since informed me that he tried accessing his "new" account but was told that it diod not exist. (See note above about his apparent membership being listed) He also told me that he has another membership lurking somewhere but I advised him to make no more changes until you have had to opportunity to clear the matter up.

The "bug" would (IMHO) seem to be that the system didn't stop him merging an existing account into a non - approved application, but converted that application into a sort of "limbo membership". With hindsight I suspect that it would not have allowed him to Edit his membership using an email address that was also in the Pending Approval list; your guidance on that would be (very!) greatly appreciated.

I hope you can help sort this muddle out; I will provide further particulars of the member concerned once I can see that you have picked up this request.

Chris  (with tightly crossed fingers!)
Andy
 

Chris,

I don't know anything about how merging accounts works.  But it seems to me that some of the things you seem to be surprised about, are normal or ought to be normal.

If this person was already a group member (as I think he was), then it makes sense that the Pending membership would disappear.  He is already a member before, and he is still a member.

It makes sense to me that nothing would appear in the group's Activity Log, because his account and the group are separate entities.  Merging a user's account does not merge the group.

I would think that merging two accounts should not depend on what groups that person might or might not belong to, or is waiting to become a member of.  That shouldn't have prevented the merge from happening.  (That's kind of like saying that two people can't get married if one of them has applied for membership in a local club.  One should not affect the other.)  I would guess that groups.io needs to ascertain that both accounts are owned by the same person before a merge can proceed.

Andy
Mark Fletcher
 

Chris,

The points Andy made are in fact how things work. I'd be happy to investigate this specific instance if you'd like; off-list send me the two email addresses and I'll check it out.

Thanks,
Mark

On Fri, Oct 22, 2021 at 6:32 AM Chris Jones via groups.io <chrisjones12=btinternet.com@groups.io> wrote:
Mark; a sequence of events yesterday on the (Restricted) group I co-own has revealed what I suspect might be a bug within the Merge or Edit Account functions. Suffice to say it has left an account holder in limbo and I hope that you will be willing and able to resolve it.

The sequence was as follows:

  1. An existing member submitted a membership application with a different email address; he explained in a subsequent message that his actual requirement was to use a different email address.
  2. I advised him that it would be better to Edit his Account to achieve that goal and provided him with the relevant section number in the Members Manual (pdf version) and he agreed to do that.
  3. I left his new application "pending" which with hindsight was probably a mistake.
  4. Later in the day he informed me that he had merged accounts; I checked back with him and he confirmed that he had carried out a Merge, not an Edit. (At this point I started getting a little worried... justifiably as it turned out)
  5. On checking I found that several things appeared to have "gone wrong".

    His Pending Membership had vanished
    He was now listed as a "full" member with the new email address
    His "old" membership was no longer listed
    Posts made using his "old" membership were still in place with the "old" email address
    There were no entries in the Activity Log corresponding to any changes made.
    He was not "approved" by a Moderator

    He has since informed me that he tried accessing his "new" account but was told that it diod not exist. (See note above about his apparent membership being listed) He also told me that he has another membership lurking somewhere but I advised him to make no more changes until you have had to opportunity to clear the matter up.

The "bug" would (IMHO) seem to be that the system didn't stop him merging an existing account into a non - approved application, but converted that application into a sort of "limbo membership". With hindsight I suspect that it would not have allowed him to Edit his membership using an email address that was also in the Pending Approval list; your guidance on that would be (very!) greatly appreciated.

I hope you can help sort this muddle out; I will provide further particulars of the member concerned once I can see that you have picked up this request.

Chris  (with tightly crossed fingers!)

Chris Jones
 

On Fri, Oct 22, 2021 at 06:02 PM, Mark Fletcher wrote:
I'd be happy to investigate this specific instance if you'd like; off-list send me the two email addresses and I'll check it out.
For "group-wide info" this has been done.

Chris
Christos Psarras
 

Andy,

>>> It makes sense to me that nothing would appear in the group's Activity Log, because his account and the group are separate entities.

Actually some main account actions do get logged and show in the group log, i.e. when the user changes their Email address, Name, or Display Name, or deletes their main account, (now also account merge), maybe even more, not sure.  They are getting logged because whatever they changed in their main account also (indirectly) modified their group sub/membership settings/profile as well.

Cheers,
Christos
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