James Farrar wrote:
I look at it like this:
If registration is required, Wikipedia is no longer "the encyclopaedia that anyone can edit".
Anyone can edit, as long as they sign up.
Registration is more in line with our principles than the way we ban people, if that's your concern.
Myself, I'm of two minds - I don't consider most anonymous editing to be useful, but I also have a larger number of young adult novels on my watchlist that I'm constantly battling with. At the same time, there's not any real difference between editing with 4 numbers and editing with a completely unrelated nickname, so what's the big deal, I suppose.
-Jeff