I've been following this argument with great interest for a long time.
I have to admit that I never really understood why anonymous editing was such an important thing for so many people. Especially, since it doesn't give you more privacy than a username does.
A typical internet user creates user accounts on dozens of sites. You can't even read email without a user account. You can't even access the internet without some sort of user account at your ISP.
I admit but sometimes it's convenient not having to log in, but both the server and modern browsers help you remember your username / password, so mostly it takes less than 10 seconds to log in.
And it seems that no one talks about this, but its soo *frustrating* to communicate with anonymous users? Has the anonymous editor been warned already not to upload copyrighted material? Not to write in ALL CAPS? Pointed to various policies or guidelines? Was this her first edit? You can't tell, because they don't have a user name.
Can anyone tell if Wikipedia wouldn't have reached its current size if you required the creation of a user account, just like 99.9% of the websites does?
Did anonymous editing make such a great difference? Can someone prove it?
-- nyenyec
On 12/8/05, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/7/05, Brian reflection@gmail.com wrote:
Many feel that the [[USA PATRIOT Act]] was only passed on the basis of it being a highly emotional, gut reaction. Pretty much everyone was OK with it at first, but over time a lot of Americans have come to wonder if it violates some of our very basic principles. That's just a surface analogy - don't read into it too far. The point is that, whether or not it is a perennial suggestion, and whether or not an article existed for several months and displayed a prominent person as an assassin, we should absolutely not go against the principles that got us here.
Perfectly said. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Nyenyec N wrote:
I've been following this argument with great interest for a long time.
I have to admit that I never really understood why anonymous editing was such an important thing for so many people. Especially, since it doesn't give you more privacy than a username does.
A typical internet user creates user accounts on dozens of sites. You can't even read email without a user account. You can't even access the internet without some sort of user account at your ISP.
I admit but sometimes it's convenient not having to log in, but both the server and modern browsers help you remember your username / password, so mostly it takes less than 10 seconds to log in.
And it seems that no one talks about this, but its soo *frustrating* to communicate with anonymous users? Has the anonymous editor been warned already not to upload copyrighted material? Not to write in ALL CAPS? Pointed to various policies or guidelines? Was this her first edit? You can't tell, because they don't have a user name.
Can anyone tell if Wikipedia wouldn't have reached its current size if you required the creation of a user account, just like 99.9% of the websites does?
Did anonymous editing make such a great difference? Can someone prove it?
-- nyenyec
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.
John Lee ([[User:Johnleemk]])
On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 16:42:23 +0100, John Lee johnleemk@gawab.com wrote:
<snip>
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).