So… this is really more of a MediaWiki OAuth feature request… but I noticed it here when I was in anonymous mode and tried to login. I get redirected to the meta login page… But I have NO IDEA WHY.
Look at the screenshot. Why did I end up here, when I was on space before. What is meta ?
Thanks for this, @TheDJ. Given that all Space users have Wikimedia accounts, I wonder if this is truly confusing for people? I can see where someone with zero context would be confused, but am I safe to assume that virtually everyone creating a Space account knows what Meta is? The fact that the logo is in the corner also helps the user to know they are still within the Wikimedia system. And, given that we want to make the experience of using Space more seamless with the use of the projects, it seems like logging in this way would be logical. If this is truly confusing or off-putting to people, I could see a redirect possibly helping (something like: “You are being sent to meta-wiki to log in with your Wikimedia account”). I’m not entirely sure this is the case for users, though.
Not everybody knows or is familiar with meta. You might try looking for a redirect to their home wiki to do the sign in.
I think that making assumptions about people’s capabilities and knowledge is what we often do, but especially in an area as ‘low barrier’ as this, is a path that sets us up for failure. Why not would space.wikimedia.org be the first location for a GLAM enthousiast to want to signup and discuss wiki things ? If that happens we should make sure we don’t loose them at a meta.wikimedia.org registration page ;)
This reminds me that when I was at Wikicon Deutsch, I showed Space to one person. In the main page, she quickly decided that she wanted to check the Discuss part more than the Blog. And when she was at https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/, the first think she clicked was “Ask a question”.
If you click that button while being logged off, there too you get sent immediately to Meta without any context. That user was very familiar with Wikimedia (she was more a chapter person than an editor) but she was very confused, thinking that something was broken.
I was about to explain to her what happened and why that screen had been presented, the logic of it. However, I just told her to press back and continue looking the rest of Discuss.
Wat would they see at space.wikimedia.org? I imagine that to be the future stable url for the production version of space.
