[Foundation-l] Assume Good Faith and Don't Bite Newbees

[Delphine Ménard]

On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 18:18, Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod at mccme.ru> wrote:
> What if someone registers an account 'Miscrosoft" and starts vandal
> editing? The media reports like 'Miscosoft blocked for vandalism in
> Wikipedia'" would be hardly better than 'Microsoft blocked on sight'.
>
> Concerning the joint accounts I thought the main problem is that someone
> should be held responsible for the edits. I mean if there are some illegal
> edits done from this account and then someone claims it is not him, it is
> another user who uses the same account? On ru.wp we ban the joint accounts
> on sight, even though the company name policy has not been really
> enforced.


I support Liam's idea and think we might want to look at a two-tier policy:

1- have "verified" accounts, which are used by some
companies/organisation to do "encyclopedic work"
2- disallow using a company's name in one's user name if they have not
asked for a verification - and provided the right credentials

This said, I am completely with Lodewijk on the fact that I find
incredible that we push companies to actually make what is nothing
else than sock puppets accounts, because we don't allow to have a
company's name in the user name. I am sure this has been debated at
length, but I fail to see how this can be better than being able to
identify staff from a company contributing to an article.


Delphine

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