[Foundation-l] and what if...

[Alex]

Anthony wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 3:33 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>wrote:
> 
>>>>> "They" didn't block editing.  "You" did.
>>>> Technically, yes, but they made it impossible for us to do anything
>> else.
>>> I think at this point you have to describe what you mean by "block
>> editing",
>>> then.
>> I think we all know what "block editing" means. It's when you go to
>> Special:BlockIP and make it impossible for someone to edit.
> 
> 
> There are many different options when going to Special:BlockIP.  Personally
> I wouldn't consider all of them to consist of "blocked editing" - one I'd
> refer to as "restrict editing to logged in users".

Don't try to make it sound more complicated than it is. There's many
different options, but as far as the actual block goes, when blocking an
IP, there's 2. You can block all editing from the IP or you can block
editing from non-logged-in users. The other options, like account
creation block, or blocking from editing the user talk page are just
"added on" to the main block, which is the block from editing.

> Well, I guess technically it's pseudonymity. The important thing is
>> that you can't (easily) link the IP address to a person in real life.
> 
> 
> And what good does that provide?  Seriously, how is that useful?  Why should
> Wikipedia allow anonymous contributions in the first place?  Don't say it
> has something to do with the government, because the government can easily
> link IP addresses to people in real life anyway, barring the use of a system
> like Tor, which Wikipedia doesn't support anyway.

What do you mean "what good?" I really don't understand. Your argument
about "usefulness" really seems to have nothing to do with what Thomas
was talking about, which is simply that its not perfect anonymity. I
don't think he was arguing that we should have perfect anonymity, though
he can correct me if I'm wrong.

Good for wiki administration? It makes an easy way to track and block
vandals without having to learn an arbitrary system that's meaningless
outside the wiki (unlike IP addresses).

Good for users? Unless they are one of the tiny percent of people with a
static IP that's actually linked to their real-life identity, it
provides decent privacy. At most, someone who doesn't have access to ISP
records couldn't determine any more than their general location. While
its not perfect anonymity, being able to narrow down the identity of
someone to "someone in a general geographical area" isn't particularly
helpful in determining their identity.

I don't see what "the government" (which government?) would have
anything to do with it at all.

> And if it really is a goal to allow this, there are blind token systems that
> can do it right.

You've not established why we actually need to change the whole system.
This would actually make vandalism/spam control harder. If the system is
truly anonymous, we would be unable to determine whether 2 vandals are
really the same person because we couldn't see if they are on the same
IP range.

The "goal" is to allow anyone to edit without having to do anything more
than editing a page. Using IP addresses mostly achieves that, except
when a country like China blocks all access (which a token system
wouldn't fix). I don't how see perfect anonymity is part of that goal,
or even necessarily desirable.

> (Well, actually, the important thing is that you don't need to go
>> through the (minimal) hassle of registering an account - I doubt the
>> proportion of anons that consciously prefer to go by an IP address is
>> very high - they are less private than accounts.)
>>
> 
> I'd say it's long past the point where the (minimal) saved hassle is worth
> the trouble.

What trouble? The vast majority of helpful anon edits I've seen are from
anons who make 1 or 2 edits then may never edit again. They go on with
their business, we go on with ours, no one is "troubled."

-- 
Alex (wikipedia:en:User:Mr.Z-man)