Last modified: 2013-11-23 13:55:27 UTC
User names longer than 40 characters are (usually) truncated on Special:Ipblocklist (including the content of the href attribute). For example, "Willy willy willy willy... Mushroom, Mushroom!" becomes "Willy willy willy willy... Mushroom, Mus" This makes the use of semi-automatic tools for tracking vandals a bit difficult.
ipb_address is 40 characters long, intended of course for IP addresses. For user blocks it's overloaded also to record the name; but the actual block works based on the user ID number. We could either increase the field to 255 chars to match user_name, or join onto user to display the username link rather than using ipb_address. One thing to note with the short address field is that where ipb_address is used as a key for manually unblocking any accounts where the first 40 bytes match and the rest differ will remove the blocks for all the matching ones. This could be got around by distinguishing between IP and user blocks (thus working by user ID for clearing user blocks), which might be cleaner anyway (account renames etc).
*** Bug 5571 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Fixed as r15482
Due to bug 57481, old entries still appear "truncated"...
