[WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

[The Cunctator]

On 12/5/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Today, as an experiment, we will be turning off new pages creation for
> anonymous users in the English Wikipedia.
>
> It seems to me that the first thing we can do is try to reduce the
> workload on the people doing new pages patrol.  A fairly extensive
> monitoring and survey of new pages conducted by me over the past few
> days, coupled with discussions with several people who keep an eye on
> such things, suggests that we can have a substantial improvement here by
> eliminating the ability for anons to make new pages.

Who are these people?

> There are some potentially negative side-effects, which is why I call
> this an experiment:
>
> 1. Annoying anons may simply decide to create accounts and make annoying
> nonsense pages anyway.  This will certainly be true in some cases, but
> it is an empirical question as to how many.
>
> 2.  We will lose good new pages created by anons of good will.  This may
> cause the growth of English Wikipedia (in terms of the number of
> articles) to slow a little bit.  With 800,000+ articles, and
> ever-increasing traffic to the website, this seems to be a worthwhile cost.

3. We continue to move farther from openness and freedom, increasing a
culture of controls and limits and access.

4. We discourage people of good will from participating in Wikipedia.

5. The other consequences of increased barriers to access (forcing
participants to spend more time and energy, more of an us-vs-them
mentality, increased suspicion of strangers, the creation of a
"challenge" to be "defeated").

And so on.

>
> Notice that anons can still edit.  I am a firm believer in the validity
> of allowing anons to edit.  Most anon edits are good, and done "on
> impulse".  We would most of the good edits from anons if we did not
> allow anon edits, but we would probably not lose most of the vandalistic
> anon edits.  So the net effect of forbidding anon edits would likely be
> negative.
>
> But preveneting anons from creating new pages is a different matter, and
> it seems a worthy time to make an experiment of it.

Don't call it an experiment if it's not. If it is an experiment, then
there should be clear conditions for its start and finish, and clear
methods for taking measurements from it. Just admit that it's a policy
change and move on.

Unless you're willing to state an end date for this. Or *at a minimum*
start collecting good data on the effects of the change.

I have some other ideas for experiments, by the way, if anyone's
interested in actually trying things to make Wikipedia better.