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Background: when question is migrated from site A to site B and the author doesn't have account in site B, their name will appear "gray" until they log in to site B and associate the accounts, then the avatar show and all is good. No problems here, same for answers and their authors.

Problem: if user from site A posted comments while the question was still in site A, their name will stay gray and unclickable even after they logs in and have account in site B:

Screenshot

This is the above question, but most likely it's global problem, not specific to that one occurrence.

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  • 1
    Nick already answered this elsewhere on meta, but basically comments don't contain enough user information for us to reliably map them in all situations.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Feb 21, 2012 at 9:18
  • 1
    @Jeff thanks, didn't see such answer. Isn't there user ID associated with each comment? Just the raw display name?
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Feb 21, 2012 at 9:23
  • @Haney since you added the deferred tag, any updates about this?
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Apr 28, 2016 at 9:15
  • 1
    @ShadowWizard none at this time. It's not critical and we're slammed at the moment, but one day we hope to investigate further. :)
    – Haney Staff
    Commented Apr 28, 2016 at 15:58
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    @ShadowWizard all I can be really.
    – Haney Staff
    Commented Apr 28, 2016 at 18:08
  • 2
    Does this answer your question? When a question is migrated, re-associate the comments when the user creates an account on the site
    – Cody Gray
    Commented Feb 9, 2021 at 7:13
  • 2
    @CodyGray no. This one here got official response and a status tag, so if anything, it's the other way around.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Feb 9, 2021 at 8:44
  • 1
    @ShadowWizardisVaccinating Glorf and I closed it as a duplicate of this one.
    – Ollie
    Commented Feb 9, 2021 at 18:51
  • @Ollie cheers, you get a golden monkey as reward. :P
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Feb 10, 2021 at 6:50
  • @Mast Why the unnecessary bump?
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Oct 23, 2022 at 4:02

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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Moving forward, we will be reassigning migrated comments to their owners. If the following happens:

  1. A comment of a user was migrated to a site where the user has no profile.
  2. Then that user creates a profile on the target site of the migration.

The user will reclaim the comment. Few catches:

  1. Unfortunately, this won't work for comments that have been migrated before the fix was deployed (November 25th, 2024).
  2. The user will reclaim the comment, but the notifications or other metadata will not be migrated.

Let me know if that helps - it's still not a perfect solution, but I hope it makes the situation better!

I don't think we'll implement a much more comprehensive solution, but let me know if some crucial bit is still missing.

Update: We had to roll back the fix temporarily, as it caused an issue on meta sites that we're investigating. I'll keep you all posted.

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  • 1
    I probably miss something, but there's a conflict here. On one hand you say "comment of a user was migrated", but on the other hand "this won't work for comments that already have been migrated". Can you please clarify how user will reclaim ownership of a comment?
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Nov 25 at 11:59
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    Sure! I meant that it will not work for comments that have been migrated before today (11/25/2024). It's a pretty big catch, but it's not something that can be easily done as we miss metadata on those comments.
    – marrados StaffMod
    Commented Nov 25 at 12:33
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    Ah, sure! Thanks, that's the best I can hope for, so marking accepted.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Nov 25 at 12:39
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    We had to roll back the fix temporarily, as it caused an issue on meta sites that we're investigating. I'll keep you all posted.
    – marrados StaffMod
    Commented Dec 3 at 9:30
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    Fair, so perhaps remove the completed status for now to avoid confusion?
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Dec 3 at 10:18
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+100

Here's the answer Jeff's referring to on why this doesn't happen currently:
Comments by OP on migrated question become "anonymous"

We may revisit hooking up comments in the future, but it's not a completely trivial problem (e.g. should reply to hook up as well? that's more info that needs carrying over), and won't/can't be retroactive. That being said, I do have an idea on how to take care of this in a not terribly expensive way, I'll throw it out to the team and see if it's worth it.

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  • Cheers, good luck with that idea of yours - hope it will be accepted and implemented. :)
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Feb 21, 2012 at 11:13
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    At the very least, could commenters be notified in some non-expensive way that the question is being or has been migrated?
    – Aaron Bertrand Staff
    Commented Nov 12, 2013 at 21:27
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    Three years later, any update?
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented May 28, 2015 at 21:00
  • 4
    9 years later, any update?
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Feb 9, 2021 at 8:48
  • 10,5 years later, I don't even ask, lol.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Oct 22, 2022 at 17:52
  • 2
    12.5 years later, it's done!
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Nov 25 at 11:56

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