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Q&A Network-wide sign in created accounts for me on all sites even though I had no accounts there beforehand

I don't think that visiting site A while logged in on site B should automatically create an account on site A, for at least two reasons: Doing it inflates the list of users, making it harder to g...

posted 4y ago by Monica Cellio‭

Answer
#1: Initial revision by user avatar Monica Cellio‭ · 2020-06-21T02:21:32Z (almost 4 years ago)
I don't think that visiting site A while logged in on site B should *automatically* create an account on site A, for at least two reasons:

- Doing it inflates the list of users, making it harder to get a sense of how many people were actually interested enough to take that first step.  For sites with imported content this isn't a factor (those sites already have a ton of stub accounts), but for a brand-new site like Cooking, I'd like to be able to get a sense of how well we're doing in getting people to check us out -- not just visit, but take that next step to join us.

- Some people might not want to have their names show up on some sites.  Imagine that a site you find personally distasteful takes off, drawing lots of attention.  Imagine you visited once.  Imagine that someone you'd rather not have see this sees your name on the user list.  Fortunately on Codidact we don't give moderators access to PII, so *that* concern doesn't apply[^1], but there's still the appearance to consider.  And we don't have a way for users to delete an account on just one site, so you can't undo it if you goof (or didn't know).

We should make it easy for people who have an account (and are logged in) to join a new site.  I think we *do* make that easy; perhaps we can add more contextual help, but I think the workflow is sound: visit, click, confirm.  Auto-signin *on sites where you've done that* is great, but let's not take the extra step of *auto-creation of the account*.


[^1]: I deleted accounts on two SE sites for this reason and I know others have too.  In one case a moderator had bullied me directly; in the other a moderator had made an antisemitic post.  I was not comfortable with either being able to track my movements in physical space through IP addresses.