On 11/01/14 06:21, Ryan Kaldari wrote:
These are two reason we don't have Thanks for anonymous editors:
- Anonymous editors don't get notifications
- Multiple editors often share the same IP address
Problem #2 isn't as prominent as it use to be, but there are still many large companies and schools that connect to the internet through a single IP. I imagine that once IPv6 is widely in use, this problem will go away and we'll be able to turn on all notifications (including Thanks) for anonymous editors.
We could have a persistent cookie with an ID number assigned to anonymous users, and send messages to that. Then anons would get their messages despite roaming between IP addresses, and they wouldn't get messages for other people who happen to share their IP.
We could even allocate a row in the user table for them, which would be beneficial for various features that currently exclude anons due to the need to link to a user ID.
-- Tim Starling