We will manually change the CPID of the not-desired account to be different from the desired account. This will allow Willy to be able to locate the proper account for matching up with other accounts. Since the email address would have been changed (based on the first part of my request) they will not re-sync.

There was one piece here I had not seen in the test with linking 2 active accounts through the same email. Whilst initially, the CPID in the 2 WCG accounts were different, after revisiting again yesterday, the 2 showed the common, speak oldest identical CPID.

Anyway for now, if you don't want it changed, leave it as is.

Account merging been asked for more than a few times. Is this possible at 'standard' BOINC projects that don't have the UD code legacy? How would joining there be possible with unique email dictate, and the email address the base of registration and maintaining an account? Is it an admin request and how does one ascertain that accounts belong to the same person? Something to be done with great caution.

"I Expect" tones do not go down well, anywhere.

Same thing, denn Deutsch sprechen wir auch! Erwarte is still demanding in the line context.

Now please, you spilled your gall, let it go.

Hi,

Agree with you on being cautious about account merging. Also, as mentioned before, the new projects did not have a UD legacy and therefore started afresh by allowing only 1 account per email id. This prevented duplication of CPIDs for 2 or more accounts and therefore, the new projects did not have to 'merge user accounts'. The problem has cropped up because WCG uses the 'username' as a unique account identifier while the new BOINC projects use the 'email id' (or a CPID generated from the email id).

However, I have a couple of suggestions that might help in this regard:

1. WCG can perhaps prevent any future account creations with existing email ids, e.g. when a user tries to register a new account with an email id that has already been used to register another account, then he can be guided to the old account or requested to give a new email id. At present the system checks for an existing username, thereby preventing duplicate usernames. This can perhaps be extended to check for existing email ids also. This step will will avoid problems for future users who are more familiar with the BOINC protocols (as compared to UD), and will also prevent accidental creation of 2 or more accounts (as happened with me 3 months ago ).

2. Existing user accounts can gradually be merged together based on multiple criteria. Same email id and CPID being the primary criteria other criteria can also be used to verify the genuineness of the request, e.g.
a) hosts attached to the different accounts (whether they are similar and/ or overlapping)
b) account opening date
c) confirmation emails sent to the original email ids used to register the multiple accounts being merged
d) ensuring requests for merger independently from all the usernames that are to be merged i.e. by logging into each account separately, etc.

I am sure that the second suggestion is difficult to implement and can happen only in slow increments. However, even though I am no programmer, I believe the first suggestion should be easier to implement.

Thanks,
Suneet