Erik Moeller wrote:

Wikipedia is not about "rights". Wikipedia is about creating an encyclopedia. All this trolling distracts from that goal. Trolls should be banned quickly and painlessly as soon as an opportunity presents itself to get rid of them.

Just out of curiosity, is there some reason why the entry bar for Wikipedia contributors is so low? Right now the system lets anyone post unless someone blocks their IP number or user name. While this has certain virtues in terms of inclusiveness, it also makes vandalism more likely. Moreover, blocking an IP numbers has the effect of blocking an entire class of people for the infractions of a single individual, and it isn't even effective at blocking people who use an anonymizer to continually change their IP number.

It seems to me that it would better to require people to register before they can contribute. That's a fairly minor requirement, but it would probably be enough even without a verification system to deter some of the casual vandals and trolls, and it would also ensure that bans only affect people who have actually done something wrong to merit the ban.

I imagine this discussion has already happened before, but I haven't seen it, and I'd be curious to know what the reasoning is behind the current system.