On 6/14/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/15/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Slim Virgin wrote:
At some point, we'll have to face that allowing any account, even a very recent one, to take part in policy discussions, BLP issues, and important AfDs is editorial, moral, and legal folly.
That kind of abject elitism would make us a very different place.
Not necessarily a worse one.
I'm not about to suggest that we require accounts registered in real identities, but it might make sense to divide the Wikipedia community from the people who edit Wikipedia. The members of the community aren't trolls, for the most part they're not anonymous and they don't conceal their identities (although I recognise that there are significant exceptions to the latter two).
I don't see any reason why a Wikipedian should demand that his voice be heard while his identity is uncertain.
I'm not proposing that we go down that path, but it's a very respectable position that deserves consideration.
There have been various suggestions in the past. (1) That only admins be allowed to edit policy pages, and we could extend that to BLP issues, which would include BLP AfDs; (2) same as (1) but using a minimum edit count rather than adminship; (3) that only users willing to identify themselves be allowed to be edit BLPs or decide on BLP deletions or policies. I do think it's time we started discussing these options seriously.