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There are a lot of valid questions about the basic usefulness of CW posts.

There are a lot of equally valid questions about whether the "user" selected for display on a CW post is generally the right one.

This tweak doesn't do anything whatsoever to address any of that. But:

If we're going to show a user name, regardless of how we picked it, it should work like it does everywhere else and link back to the user.

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  • 1
    I actually like that it links to the revision history instead of the user profile, because it reminds me that the post is a CW and the user displayed may not be the actual author of the post. And typically when I click on a user profile link from a post they posted, it's because I want to see something about them in regards to the post they created, and it would be misleading to go to a profile of a user who didn't actually create the post.
    – Rachel
    May 10, 2013 at 16:15
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    @Rachel, I agree that you want to differentiate, but it seems like the percent contribution that's on the page does that a lot better than what amounts to what, from an internal consistency standpoint, seems to be discovering a non-functional link when you try to click it.
    – Jaydles
    May 10, 2013 at 16:18
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    @Rachel, your second point makes sense - you normally don't want to click to their profile in this case. But not being able to seems undesirable, and a user name leading to revision history in one place, and a profile everywhere else is clearly a surprising outcome, which you never really want.
    – Jaydles
    May 10, 2013 at 16:19
  • Well I was going to expand my comment into an answer below and delete it, but since you've replied to it I won't. Feel free to delete it though if you want to clean up the comments, and move your comments to my answer below :)
    – Rachel
    May 10, 2013 at 16:27
  • Something else to consider is that CW posts that were "Most contributed to" by a deleted user still show that deleted user's original username and underline it like it's a link. (example) I remember coming across this a few days ago, and thinking that was strange. :)
    – Rachel
    May 10, 2013 at 16:52
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    Yes! Most importantly, having two side-by-side links to the same revisions page is just unecessary, and, after two years, it's still occasionally surprising to me that the username doesn't go to a profile like it does everywhere else.
    – jscs
    May 10, 2013 at 17:39
  • Nice, but it was already proposed here before. Well, reported as bug actually, but that other post should be changed to status-completed as well.
    – Shadow The Spring Wizard
    May 17, 2013 at 20:56
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    @ShaWizDowArd, I looked for and failed to find that one. Marked it complete, though - thanks.
    – Jaydles
    May 20, 2013 at 14:32

3 Answers 3

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Going forward we'll be linking to the mentioned user's profile if possible.

Old posts have been updated for most cases on the larger sites (anything not in beta, basically). The few straggling posts will be updated as they're edited.

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    Not completely fixed. The username correctly points to user page on CW posts with multiple revisions. But it still points to revision history on CW posts without revisions. Bug reported here.
    – user259867
    May 21, 2014 at 17:34
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    Agree with @pizza, it's still borked
    – Shadow The Spring Wizard
    Apr 20, 2015 at 23:10
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I actually like that it links to the revision history instead of the user profile, because it reminds me that the post is a CW and the user displayed may not be the actual author of the post.

Typically when I click on a user profile link from a post they posted, it's because I want to see something about them in regards to the post they created, and it would be misleading to go to a profile of a user who didn't actually create the post.

So my vote would say no, don't do this because when I click on the name in the lower-right of a post, I expect it to take me to the person that created the post, not to the person that "edited" it the most (and as I found out a while ago, SE's "algorithm" to determine who contributed the most to a post is quite flawed).

If you really want to make a link, consider linking to the creator of the post in addition to the highest contributing user, such as

156 revs, 44 users
Rachel (Author)
Jaydles (87%)

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    Hmmm... I think your main point is an argument against showing the user the way we currently do. I still think if we show them, we shouldn't make their name work differently here than everywhere else. That said, I kind of like your suggestion at the end better than the current version.
    – Jaydles
    May 10, 2013 at 16:29
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    Yes, CW reads "X revs, Y users, zz% <line break> @userName", so the percentage is often not noticed, and it looks like the user displayed is just the author like on other posts. Personally I would be in favor of not showing the the highest contributing user at all because the algorithm to pick who to display will often just choose the person who edited in the most line breaks, but I tried not to focus on that in my answer :) (Also, I don't like doing minor edits for readability, only to suddenly find I am displayed in the "author" position of a question)
    – Rachel
    May 10, 2013 at 16:38
  • The editors/authors list is a nice idea -- I'd almost say list three or four contributors, to reinforce the "community-owned" aspect. But there's no reason to have both the editor's name and the usual edited at MMM DD 'yy at HH:mm link, 50 pixels to the left, go to the same place.
    – jscs
    May 10, 2013 at 17:43
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Agreed. Community wiki never served the purpose it was meant for. The few times you encounter it, the rules surrounding it are strange.

Community wiki should be renamed "reputation-free". Any other behavior (like the name-to-history link and overwriting the original author) should be removed.

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