On Tue, 9 Mar 2004, Sheldon Rampton wrote:
I agree. Here's my solution:
(1) Require people to register, providing a verifiable email address that is not yahoo or hotmail, as a precondition for contributing. (Alternately, restrict the NUMBER of contributions that a non-registered individual can contribute within a 24-hour period.)
Bad idea, the ease of making contributions is one of our major "pull" factors. Also some people don't have a non-yahoo/hotmail account.
Limiting number of contribution doesn't really seem to have any advantages, after all if a user goes on a vandalism spree they could easily use multiple accounts. And having all of their "contributions" under one account allow for us to block them more easily.
(2) Unambiguously authorize sysops to take immediate, unilateral action against egregious abusers (with clear definitions of "egregious abuse").
I don't oppose this in principle, but I think we have too many admins who don't use admin powers, and I'd hesitate to increase the power of inactive admins.
Incidently on the "registration" issue, I think we should collect more information on major contributors (>1000 major edits) in case we ever need to get in touch with them after they leave wikipedia.
Imran