[Wikipedia-l] Re: TMC.

Thu Nov 14 15:45:55 UTC 2002

Tarquin wrote:

> Regarding the immutability of the TMC username -- are article
> histories stored as text values or User IDs? If it's the latter,
> someone with database access can hack TMC's username and poof! all
> the histories automagically change to read "Fluffy bunny land" or
> something.

Both: the user name is included in the record along with the article, both in the "current article" table and in the "old versions" table. There is also a user ID (a positive integer) that links to the "user name" table, so the hack you describe is possible to perform in more than one way.

For example, we could run an "update query" that changes a throbbing and monstrous barnyard fowl to a cute and harmless child's pet in each record of the article tables.

Whether we *ought* to do this is another question, of course.

If TMC agrees to adopt the nom de plume of "TMC", it would take Brion about 2 minutes to write, run and check the results of a name-change update query.

And TMC could still keep his "Chicken that ate Milwaukee" picture. It's actually funny, once you get over the double entendre.

Ed Poor