[Foundation-l] Wikipedians by country - was Stories of WP

[Rowan Collins]

On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 17:53:09 -0400, Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 21:38:53 +0200, Erik Zachte <e.p.zachte at chello.nl> wrote:
> > A suggestion: we might add a drop down box to the user preferences screen
> > where a user can >>optionally<< select his/her country of residence.
> > I would really like to add info about this to the stats pages. But better
> > wait till we have a single signon, so that each user is counted only once.
> 
> And all kinds of other optional details. City would also be useful,
> for instance.  Some users are averse to sharing any personal
> information about themselves; but others are happy to share a great
> deal of it.  And some information, like the email address, can be
> hidden from other users by default.

My only comment is that this should *only* be on a preferences page,
and we should resist temptation to ask *anything* when setting up a
new account. I think the ability to say "Yes, enter a username and
password, and that really is it, no more questions" is a real selling
point for people to set up accounts. Which, of course, makes them
easier to relate to as users, and more likely to get hooked! ;)

Oh, and of course we'd have to promise not to use it for spam, even
User_talk: spam (if you see what I mean).

Otherwise, nice idea. Would create a database version of all those
endless pages on meta: and in the Wikipedia: namespace covering this
kind of thing.

-- 
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]