On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 16:42:23 +0100, John Lee johnleemk@gawab.com wrote:
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Many people don't want to get fully involved at first. I was one of them, and many Wikipedians I've talked to also started out this way. If we had to pass through the registration barrier, all of us would never have joined. As it occurred, we joined after making at least a few dozen edits and realising how addictive Wikipedia was. This is of course purely anecdotal, but based on it, I have no doubt at all when I say Wikipedia would not be anywhere near its present size if you could not contribute without registering from the start.
True, I myself created 9 articles and 2 categories as an anon. I only registered because it was the only way to upload images, and then I fell in love with the watchlist and all the rest.
Would I have become hooked if I was not allowed to create articles though? Hard to tell, but I think soo, most people can find a few articles they can fiddle with without needing to create an article. Others might react differently though. I have seen one or two good contributors who refuse to register and consider userpages, and comunity building a complete and utter waste of time. It would be a shame to loose these as they are dedicated to providing good content, but as long as they can still edit existing pages I don't think it will become a huge deal. If push comes to shove those people will just create a "dispisable" acount, use it to create pages and maybe upload images, and otherwise keep editing without logging in (this is anoying if they forget to provide source and copyright info on the images as you can't get in touch with them again, but otherwise not rely a problem).