[WikiEN-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Most read US newpaper blasts Wikipedia

[Keith Old]

We should look again at allowing anonymous edits, This seems to have been
the root of the problem.

Blogs and webforums have more rigorous requirements to leave remarks than we
do. I acknowledge that most anonymous editors contribute in good faith but
many do not.
Further, the cost of cleaning up after the ones who do not detracts from the
main work of writing the encyclopedia. I am not calling for credentialism
but registering as a user.

It also means that many users are blocked for 24 hours as a result of
sharing an IP with a vandal. I had to change my ISP last year because of
vandalism from someone else. We also have had rogue registered users but at
least we have procedures to deal with those.

Further, the anonymous nature of the edits means that many edits are
unfairly discounted because people can't be sure of the value of the edits.
As a volunteer of the help desk, I am aware of at least two professors who
have tried to edit but have had their edits removed. That may have been fair
enough in one case but the point remains. A point made by Professor X
carries much more weight than a point made by IP 123.xx.

A similar problem occurs with copyvios. On a couple of occasions, people
have uploaded material from their personal webpages which have been speedy
deleted as copyvios. If they were identified, there would have been a
greater chance that their right would have been recognised.

We need to do a cost/benefit analysis showing what we gain from allowing
anonymous edits compared to the losses of cleaning up vandalism from
anonymous edits.

Regards


Keith Old

Keith Old
User:Capitalistroadster

On 11/30/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
> Andrew Lih wrote:
>
> > I know what you're saying, and I don't think anyone on the
> > Foundation-L list would endorse anything like regulation or being on
> > the hook legally.
> > But this clearly should be added to the wake up calls -- "SOFIXIT"
> > does not cut it anymore. Wikipedia cannot enjoy the bragging rights of
> > a "Top 40" web site without changing its quality standards to match.
>
>
> The problem is that we peaked way too early. The site is late-alpha or
> early beta at best, and should have big 1995-style yellow and black
> "UNDER CONSTRUCTION" GIFs with really bad aliasing on most pages.
>
> There's no drastic solution that won't fuck up the community operations
> of the site. Running a hack'n'slash cull on the live site will lead to
> the current webcomics debacle times a thousand. We already have
> specialists in all sorts of areas saying they don't even want to bother
> starting to write up something they know for Wikipedia because (quote
> from Sunday's UK meet) "some idiot will delete it *because* they don't
> understand it." Imagine that outside attitude for a thousand specialist
> subjects.
>
>
> > I'm not convinced the Article Rating feature that is waiting in the
> > wings is the right or efficient way to do it. But we have to get
> > closer to the "1.0" solution. It's time.
>
>
> There isn't a fast way and article rating isn't a fast way either. There
> is no silver bullet. We are early beta (usable and testable but mostly
> composed of bugs) and the real world will need to get used to that,
> because there is no way to change that in the next week or month.
>
> I suspect we'll actually be able to work better if we're not flavour of
> the month.
>
>
> - d.
>
>
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