Till Westermayer (till@tillwe.de) [050529 21:37]:
catching up after holidays, I'm not sure if anybody mentioned it, but at least theoretically it would be possible to make statistical comparisions between anonymous ratings and logged-in ratings (if anon/ logged in is stored), so after a while we could show if there a statictically significant differences between both ratings.
Yep. Having gathering the data and processing the data as two completely separate things will be a good way to go forward, because we can build tools on top to analyse the data any way we happen to feel like.
And on a related topic: I think ratings (who rates what how) should be visible, meaning raters are conscious about their decisions and the consequences.
Yes. Though it'll need to be noted on the ratings page - anon users who rate things on other sites wouldn't normally expect the source of a rating to be world-visible. Something like:
"Note: <b>All ratings are readable, just like article edits, with the person and time.</b> Like edits, they are part of the process of improving Wikipedia and so responsibility is attached to them. See the <a href="[whatever]">privacy policy</a>."
This will discourage some anon raters, but if we don't then many people will get a nasty surprise and be quite upset.
That second sentence, giving the rationale, needs work.
- d.