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When I visit http://area51.stackexchange.com I see my username at the top with a reputation of 51 and one badge. When I visit http://discuss.area51.stackexchange.com I see the same user name but no badge

On further inspection it looks like the discussion area is linked to my email that I used to commit to a proposal. When I click on my username I can visit the 'main user' from the 'discussion user' and vice-versa.

What is the difference between the two and how do I resolve this so that my profiles are merged?

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  • I just now saw the 'Copy Area 51 profile to related accounts' button and clicked that but I still have separate profiles.
    – Steve Moser
    May 14, 2011 at 18:04

1 Answer 1

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Consider these two sites: Area 51 and Area 51 Discussion Zone.

The latter site is considered to be a child of the former, and you have a single shared account between the two of them. Each site, though, has its own page for your account; that page shows the shared rep (from the main account), but the badges and activity on each differ.

This works similarly to the way accounts work elsewhere across SE. For instance, you have an Apple.SE account, which is then shared with Meta.Apple.SE. Note again that that's one account (same rep, for instance), but two separate pages with separate history.

Now, as far as "related accounts" go, your Area 51 and Area 51 discussion accounts aren't related to each other as such, because they're one single account. You can see your related accounts on your network profile page. When you clicked "Copy profile to related accounts," you copied your information from your Area 51 account to your Apple, SO, Web Apps, SU and UX accounts.

If this isn't completely clear, let me know what you're still having trouble with.

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  • @Dori Thank you that clears a few things up. However I still don't understand why the site creators decided to set it up this way. It does seem very straight forward. So meta-StackOverflow contains meta-questions about SO, Area51, and StackExchange at the same time? Also I believe this should be explained in the FAQ. I see that in the FAQ it says that meta-SO is the meta site for Area51 but it doesn't explain why it is also the meta site for SO. One more question. Why doesn't my rep from SO carry over to meta-SO like Apple.SE and Meta.Apple.SE? Thanks again!
    – Steve Moser
    May 15, 2011 at 2:13
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    Hmm, I found this question to somewhat answer my questions meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/1451/…. Sounds like it is this way due to the history of SO. I think we should change the faq to state this more clearly. I proposed this here meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/91311/…
    – Steve Moser
    May 15, 2011 at 3:03
  • @SteveMoser. Meta.SO is a bit different. It's an independent site, unlike the other Metas. This is for historical reasons. This means that SO is the only site without a Child Meta. A bit weird, but there you are.
    – TRiG is Timothy Richard Green
    Sep 26, 2011 at 17:11

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