[WikiEN-l] Daily premier anonymity

[Jay Converse]

On 3/4/06, Jonathan <dzonatas at dzonux.net> wrote:
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28policy%29#Daily_premier__anonymity
>
> I'm sure if this feature described here ever gets implemented that this
> section title won't be used for it. The idea sparked above with the
> suggestions to divert or prevent edit wars and the users' desire to stay
> anonymous.
> * When you see any entry for a change made, the user's name or IP
> address is not shown in that entry. After you make an edit to the page
> that was changed, you then get to see who edited it in the entry, but
> that view is only available for a day from your last change.
>
> This would encourage people to focus on quality of content rather than
> who made the content. The would also apply for administrators. Only
> stewards and bureaucrats can see who made the change at anytime.
>
> For example, if you have not edited a page and you view its history, you
> would see something like:
>
> * (cur) (last) 13:31, 4 March 2006 (good q!)
> * (cur) (last) 13:12, 4 March 2006 (→1RR instead of 3RR for not logged
> users ?)
> * (cur) (last) 13:12, 4 March 2006 (→1RR instead of 3RR for not logged
> users ?)
> * (cur) (last) 13:08, 4 March 2006 (→1RR instead of 3RR for not logged
> users ?)
> * (cur) (last) 13:07, 4 March 2006 (Hmm, everyone should do it anyway :))
>
> The watchlist would look something like:
>
> * (diff) (hist) . . Computer system; 06:31 . . (→See also)
> * (diff) (hist) . . Wikipedia talk:Stable versions; 03:39 . .
> (→Semi-automation - recent stable version detector)
> * (diff) (hist) . . m Computer programming; 02:04 . . (→Software
> development - bypass disambig)
> * (diff) (hist) . . Computer security audit; 01:01 . .
>
> Recent changes would look something like:
>
> * (diff) (hist) . . Fiscal conservatism; 14:33 . . (→Notable Fiscal
> Conservatives)
> * (diff) (hist) . . End of the Spear; 14:33 . . (replacing deprecated
> {{web reference}} with {{cite web}} using AWB)
> * (User creation log); 14:33 . . Lettaylor (Talk) (New user (Talk |
> contribs | block))
> * (diff) (hist) . . Talk:Dogon people; 14:33 . . (→Completely by Robert
> Temple? - Re)
>
> As you see, there is no significance to who made the changes in the
> above views. This does not prevent somebody that reverts vandalism to
> track down who made the vandalism, as, once the vandalism is reverted
> the users name is then seen as we common know. Anything further
> vandalism by that user can be tracked down as usual.
>
> Of course, if anybody signs their name, who made the entry is always
> revealed. If we want a feature to doublecheck if the tildes were used to
> sign (in case somebody forges a name), an extra flag on the change
> entries could be made to denote that.
>
> Some worry that I don't spend enough time in article space, but I also
> am a developer of a wiki.
>
> Can I get some feedback for this kind of policy that is really more
> technological?
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This essentially removes a lot of the accountability of edits, though.
What's the point of having things like 3RR when the only way to verify that
one person is reverting multiple times is by dragging a steward or bcrat
over to an article?  There are so many content disputes raging at any given
time we'd either have to massively beef up the bcrat force or watch articles
spiral into doom as a content dispute rages on without anyone being
available to help straighten things out.

--
Jay Converse
I'm not stupid, just selectively ignorant.