----- Original Message ----
From: MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com>
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Fri, December 24, 2010 2:57:54 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] About WM private policy
Liam Wyatt wrote:
> The Wikimedia Foundation does not require that individuals create a user
> account in order to make any kind of editing. However, the local project
> community (in this discussion - English Wikipedia) decides on what can and
> cannot be done without a user account. Many (most?) language editions of
> Wikipedia allow anonymous users to create articles but the English
Wikipedia
> does not allow it. This decision on English
Wikipedia was taken primarily
as
a deterrence
against SPAM - not taken for privacy policy reasons. Also, it
was taken by the Wikipedia community, not by the Wikimedia Foundation. This
decision could be changed in the future if the English Wikipedia community
formed consensus amongst themselves to do so.
With all due respect, you're talking out of your ass. (A less polite way of
saying "citation needed.")
Anonymous page creation was disabled by decree on the English Wikipedia
following the "Wikipedia biography controversy."[1][2][3] It had nothing to
do with spam (though you could arguably say it had to do with vandalism, I
suppose) and it was not a decision made by the English Wikipedia community.
There was a subsequent "Requests for comment" in 2007 on the English
Wikipedia.[4]
All of this information and history is readily available with a few quick
searches, so I'm confused as to why you're posting the nonsense that you're
posting. Simple confusion, I assume.
Your assertion that it's a simple matter of local community consensus in
order to change this configuration setting on the English Wikipedia is also
dubious given the current political realities.
It is a simple matter of local community consensus as opposed an imposition of
the WMF privacy policy. If changing policy by consensus is no longer simple is
in some local communities; I would imagine that the issue is systematic to the
local community and not particular to this issue. I am not sure if the OP was
complaining about this practice existing at en.WP at all; or if they are
concerned about the en.WP template here being imported into zh.WP under the
guise of a requirement from WMF. It might be rather simple to determine
consensus at zh.WP.
Self-dertermination of local communities further promotes the experimentalist
ideology which is what has brought the projects such great success. We succeed
because we are so tolerant of failure. There is no reason bring general policies
in line across local communities and we can learn a great deal from being able
to compare the results of divergent approaches. So if the complaint is that
this policy existing at en.WP should be seen as a failure of openness, I
wouldn't worry too much. There are lots of failures out there and this is not
among the very few types failures which cannot be tolerated. As MZMcBride shows
above this practice began as a reaction to the failure to protect Living Persons
from defamation which happens to be one of the few types of failures which
cannot be tolerated. If it does in fact turn out to be overreaction, I imagine
it will be adjusted sooner or later. There are good reasons to be tolerant of
local overreactions; it is not as though we can judge which practice will fail
of the cost/benefit equation without trying it on for some time.
Birgitte SB