On 3/8/07, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Many editors of huge quality are not willing to provide their real name. Why would they consider sending this information to a totally anonymous email address handled by volunteers, who are not necessarily identified under their real name and have signed no confidentiality agreement them ?
I think it's clear that we're evolving towards a completely voluntary system here. That is fine, but in return, I think it is reasonable that such a system will operate using all available tools, including OTRS. There can be no reasonable argument, in my view, that it would be improper or a "drain on volunteer resources" for us to set up an OTRS queue to help with credentials verification. If people want to join the queue, they will; if they don't, they will not -- the system is voluntary and optional in the first place, and if it does not scale, it will simply not be adopted. OTRS is just a tool here, it does not imply any official role of the Wikimedia Foundation.
I think we can come up with a guideline that involves user templates, OTRS-based verification, and possibly even web of trust style mechanisms, and then we'll figure out if users adopt it or not. IMHO the very fact that a subset of users would follow such a guideline would help to instill a healthy sense of skepticism towards statements of credentials.