Identities

SortingHat maintains a database of identities of community members across different sources. An identity is a combination of a name, email, username and the source from where it was extracted. Identities corresponding to the same real person can be merged into one single individual with one unique profile.

Unify a contributor's identities

Merging different identities

You can merge all the different identities of a contributor using SortingHat, which will be available at https://[INSTANCE].biterg.io/identities.

Search for the identities using the Search box in the Individuals section. To merge one identity into another, select it on the table and drag it with your cursor into the target profile. You can select and drag several items at once.

Alternatively, you can click to select the identities and then click the MERGE button on the top right of the Individuals table to unify them. This method does not allow you to choose the main identity.

Splitting identities

If an identity was wrongly assigned to a contributor, you can take it out of that profile or "split" it. To do that, expand the profile on the Individuals table and click the button with the diverging arrows next to the identity you want to split.

To split all the identities from a profile at once, click the SPLIT ALL button above the list of identities. This will create a unique profile for each identity.

Finding identity matches

To look for identities that belong to a contributor, use the Search box on the Individuals table in SortingHat. If the contributor uses different names, emails or usernames they may all not be findable in one single search. In that case, you can pin the identities in the Workspace to keep track of all of them. To pin a profile, select it with the cursor and drag it to the Workspace area or select Save in workspace on the profile's menu.

You can then keep searching for identities and merge them with the pinned profiles using drag and drop, or saving them on the Workspace and clicking the MERGE button on the top right.

This is a somewhat time consuming process. To automate it, you can ask SortingHat to recommend possible matches based on a profile's names, usernames and/or emails. Click on a contributor's name to open their full profile, and then click the FIND MATCHES button on the upper part of the page. It will open a form where the recommendation settings can be changed and confirmed.

The process to look for recommendations automatically may take some time. When it has finished, the profile page will show recommended identities that can be merged or, if they don't belong to that profile, dismissed.

To review all of the generated recommendations at once instead of opening each contributor's profile, click on the # RECOMMENDATIONS button above the Individuals table. It will open a pop up where every suggested match can be applied or dismissed.

Manage profiles

Editing profile data

A contributor's name and main email can be edited, and information about their country and gender can be added. Click on the contributor's name on the Individuals table to open the member's full profile. To edit one of these fields, put the cursor over it to reveal a pencil button and click it to enter edit mode.

Locking a profile

Profiles can be locked to make them read-only. To lock a profile, place the cursor over the contributor's name in the Individuals section in SortingHat and click the button with a lock icon. Clicking that button a second time unlocks the profile.