Forum:Is it possible to usurp an account?

I have an account on Wikimedia's wikis with lots of edits (mainly on the English and Swedish Wikipedias). I see that someone has registered the same account on Wikia at some point, but Special:Editcount tells me that the user has no edits on any wiki. Would it be possible to usurp this account? I have noticed that Wikia has imported a few of my Wikimedia edits to various, crediting them to this user instead, and it would be nice to be able to claim these edits. Besides, it would be less confusing if I could use the same user name on as many wikis as possible.

Secondly, is there a way to find out where this user has registered and whether it might be possible the user on a talk page or by using Special:EmailUser (which I suppose would have to be user on a wiki where the account is registered)? Keep in mind that the user has no edits anywhere, so searching for contributions using something like wouldn't work. --130.237.227.15 12:40, November 7, 2011 (UTC)


 * No, Wikia does not usurp accounts. Special:EmailUser should work on any wiki, assuming that the user is emailconfirmed.


 * I see. Special:EmailUser on this wiki tells me that "this user has not specified a valid e-mail address," so obtaining the user account is probably beyond hope. Too bad: having my edits assigned to someone else's account is inconvenient. Is there any way to find any wiki where the account is registered so that I may post a notice at the talk page? There's still a possibility that the user might log in once in a while in order to use a different skin or check things on a wishlist, although it seems unlikely. --130.237.227.15 13:01, November 7, 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm fairly sure hundreds of accounts are created every day that are never used - but if you were to request it through Special:Contact, it is possible staff would be able to retrieve the wiki the account was registered on.


 * It seems to me as if misattributing imported edits to the wrong account is a breach of the CC-BY-SA license, though. It should be possible to convince Wikia of the idea that re-attributing those edit to a new account of your choice (or even letting you usurp the account as you suggest) would be in their own interest. :) -- NablaOperator 14:28, November 7, 2011 (UTC)


 * You assume that Wikia actually cares about breaches of CC-BY-SA. See for example any image with, or the upload form in the RTE.

The fact that there is a Wikia user with your username is irrelevant, and there isn't much that you can do to fix it. Wikia is not Wikimedia - they are two very separate things. It is also not a violation of CC-BY-SA that another user has "your" username here, since this is Wikia and not Wikimedia. Additionally, all accounts on Wikia are global, meaning that you can leave that user a message on their talk page on any wiki and they will get the message if they still use the account. It is very unlikely that they are active, however, if they have no edits. It could be worth contacting Wikia staff, though, since they might be willing to rename the current account and allow you to create it. Sorry we can't be of more help, 15:23, November 7, 2011 (UTC)


 * Renamed accounts can't be created over, and Wikia believes that despite the fact that the user will likely never use the account, they are entitled to the name because they took it first - they won't rename it.


 * ajr, that's completely missing the point. Of course it is not a license violation if someone else is using the same username on a different wiki. It is, however, a license violation to claim that "this content was written by User:X", if User:X is a different person than wp:User:X.
 * To the OP - I would advise contacting Wikia using Special:Contact, explicitly linking to the edits in question, as well as your edits on the other Wiki, and proof that you are that other person (for example by offering to put something on your user page there). If that doesn't work, I'd be interested in hearing from you, as I'm generally interested in free licenses and their (apparent?) breach by Wikia. -- NablaOperator 16:47, November 7, 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but I think that you are the one missing the point. Because Wikia and Wikimedia are not the same thing, there is no legal reason to assume that any user on Wikia owns the same username on Wikimedia. An example of this would be User:VegaDark here and on enwp. The only attribution issues that this would cause would be if content from Wikimedia was imported to Wikia with edits that you made, but I doubt that Wikia is going to do anything about it until that happens. 17:32, November 7, 2011 (UTC)
 * From the first post: "I have noticed that Wikia has imported a few of my Wikimedia edits to various, crediting them to this user instead".
 * I didn't see that particular sentance. The Nabla account on Wikia has 21 global edits, but it might be possible to have those deleted if they are improperly attributed from the Wikimedia account. It wouldn't be hard for staff to find those edits (Special:lookupcontribs), and they could delete them as required. 18:16, November 7, 2011 (UTC)
 * It wouldn't be hard, yes, but they still won't do it. Wikia doesn't usurp accounts or delete valid contribs, and considering their record of abiding by CC-BY-SA I sincerely doubt they'll care if your edits are attributed properly or not.


 * This isn't about my edits, either (which should be much more than "21 global", anyway) - please check the above discussion again. For what it's worth, it seems as if the OP would really be better off by just contacting Wikia directly, because suggestions he gets here are filled with weird assumptions and spite against Wikia. -- NablaOperator 18:27, November 7, 2011 (UTC)
 * Not so much weird assumptions and spite as long term observations. Per above, if you look at any image with, the name of the uploader is displayed in such a way as to imply they are the copyright holder of the image. The RTE's upload form doesn't even have a place for adding a license to the image. The vast majority of the images here on Central, which is overseen by staff, are unlicensed. The percentage of images here that legally should be licensed is probably quite high. Staff know that these images have no license and don't care. It's not something Wikia is concerned with. God forbid, however, that someone violates Wikia's copyright, lawyers will rain from the sky.
 * Don't forget about staff not attributing pictures (at large scale) themselves. I have shown them that several times, so they might improve their behaviour somewhat.
 * But it is indeed best to contact staff and see if they want to sort out your problem. Usually if you are contacting them about legal infringement they have to check it out toroughly as well, or they will have a lawsuit against them. Most of the time however the information on the wiki's isn't harmfull to companies but actually helpfull, which is why most copyright holders won't push for lawsuits.

Note: I am the same as the person posting as User:130.237.227.15 before. I'm now using a different computer elsewhere in the city, so the IP address has changed.

There is a lot of talk about copyright violations here. I think that the main issue is that it takes a lot of time to file a lawsuit and go to court, so most companies wouldn't be doing that if not necessary. Thus, it is probably quite easy to get away with a copyright violation: in the worst case, the copyright holder might ask you to remove the violating data, which you would then do.

Concerning the account name issue, I think the key point here is that I am the copyright holder of the imported edits (and I can prove it by e.g. putting a statement on a Wikimedia page). I have identified two imported edits on Wikia (on two different wikis) which were exported from English Wikipedia and imported to Wikia, and I have bookmarked the diffs at both Wikia and English Wikipedia for the relevant edits. There could be more imported edits elsewhere on Wikia, but there doesn't seem to be an easy way to search for them. The CC-BY-SA licence states that you should credit the original author. If you do so by providing a link to the user page of someone who is not me, but who is using the same user name as I am using at a different place, this is maybe a licence violation, since it could imply that the edits were made by someone other than me. Maybe something would happen if I, as the copyright holder, were to contact Wikia myself. I'll try doing that later. --212.247.11.156 21:40, November 7, 2011 (UTC)