How to find the checkboxes to merge multiple fake users?

Software Support
1

We are using OJS 3.1.2.1.
On our website there are many fake users registered.
As a journal manager I do not have administrator permissions. So I do not have access to the database.
I want to delete lots of fake users. Is there a possibility to merge multiple fake users? I do not see the checkboxes at the list of users. Where can I find these checkboxes? In older versions of OJS they were available. I do not like to merge them one by one.

Best,

Jurry

2

Hi @AI_JE

No, it’s not possible to merge many users at once. Typically, the way that we do it at PKP|PS is that we get a list of the user names of the users we wish to remove, and create a quick shell script that calls the mergeUsers.php CLI tool that comes with OJS repeatedly until they are all merged and removed.

Cheers,
Jason

3

Hi all,

Just a quick note that the merge users command line script can merge multiple users in a single invocation, I believe.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

4

Hi all,

Is the solution you are proposing available for me in my role as a journal manager, or can this only be done by the administrator of our journal? I referred to the older versions of OJS because there I could merge multiple users by using the check boxes in front of the user names.

Regards,

Jurry

5

Hi @AI_JE,

In OJS 3.x, the user interface currently only allows a single user selection. The command-line tool does support multiple users, but does require command line access.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

6

Hi all,

While we are at it, I just wanted to point out that searching for users in a multi-journals portal has become an excruciating time-consuming task.

One simple search took me more than five (!!!) minutes to return results. I recorded a video here: Users & Roles.webm - Google Drive

Regards,
Alex Mendonça

7

Hi @alexxxmendonca,

Yes, this has been noted here: User search query take a long time

I’ve done some experimentation and will post a link to it shortly, but I haven’t resolved the underlying issue yet.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

8

Hi Jason and Alec,

Thanks for your advice.
It would be nice to have the multiple user selection function back in a future update of OJS. This, in combination with a possibility to see the date of registration of a user in the userlist, would make it easier to control on a regular basis if there are new fake users.

Regards,
Jurry

9

Hi @asmecher,

Thanks for pointing to the right topic, I’ll be tracking it.

Regards,
Alex