EmailConfirmation/Preferences
What (summary)
The confirmation link in the first email that gets sent out upon account signup doesn't work. When you click, it appears to work ... until you go to preferences and can see that it didn't actually work.
Mediawiki fields (e.g., preferences) having DISABLED property set, do not participate as arguments in a POST request. The target page sees nil for each of these fields and overwrites any that had a different value.
Why this is important
- Confirming emails is important for engagement
- We don't want to process wrong values for an input control.
- AlertsOnByDefault (also important for engagement) becomes useless.
DoneDone
- When you click the link in the first confirmation email you are sent, it actually works
- The values of disabled controls are ignored or processed correctly.
Steps to get to DoneDone
- Figure out why the confirmation we are sending at signup doesn't work
Findings
Reproduce the problem
- Make a new account at aboutus.org
- Log in
- Go to 'my preferences' in the sidebar. (You'll notice some checkboxes checked in the E-mail section which are also disabled).
- Click 'Save' (You've not changed any setting)
- The disabled checkboxes which were checked before, are no longer unchecked.
- Reason: 'What (summary)'
Circumvent the problem
- Make a new account at aboutus.org
- Log in
- Go to 'my preferences'. You'll notice some checkboxes checked in the E-mail section are also disabled. If you click save now, they will be overwritten.
- Click "Confirm your e-mail address" link
- Ignore the red message telling you "A confirmation code has already been e-mailed ..."
- Click the "Mail a confirmation code" button
- Go to 'my preferences'. You'll notice the checkboxes are still disabled. If you click save now, they will still be overwritten.
- Go to your email, click on the confirmation link in the second email you've received (the first one never works)
- Go to 'my preferences'. Checkboxes are no longer disabled. If you click save now, they won't be overwritten.
