[WikiEN-l] Blocking anon page creation was an experiment, wasn't it?

[Anthony]

On 8/26/06, Cheney Shill <halliburton_shill at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Ian Woollard <ian.woollard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >On 26/08/06, Anthony wrote:
> >> Or to quote Jimmy wales, "we should proceed experimentally to see if
> >> this helps or not. If not, we try something else. Calvinball."
>
> >I think that that's true atleast.
>
> I think it's smart too and will turn out to be VERY beneficial.
>
> >I'm coming at the new article issue from the opposite direction.
>
> >Isn't the question how we can leverage the editors so that they can
> >easily remove new, inappropriate articles, rather than trying to stop
> >people from creating new articles?
>
> If you stop or significantly slow the creation of new, inappropriate articles, editors have more time to work on existing articles.  I think you'll also find that the majority of new articles that are kept or don't need complete rewriting are by registered users.  In fact, I'd bet if you pulled the stats that the same is true of all edits, not just creation.
>
I agree with David that volunteers are going to do what they want.
However, I also agree with Matt.  *IF* you can significantly slow the
creation of new, inappropriate articles, (and all other things remain
equal), the people who enjoy dealing with new articles will have more
time, time which at least some of them will likely spend productively.

This would be a good thing, for sure.  But having seen no study
conducted, I'm not convinced that this can be achieved.  And also,
it's pretty much obvious that all other things *don't* remain equal.
At least some people have switched their attention to Articles for
Creation, for instance, an activity which wasn't necessary before this
change.

I think Ian explained it well.  "how we can leverage the editors so
that they can easily remove new, inappropriate articles".  Moreover,
how can avoid excessive duplication of effort when identifying new,
appropriate articles?  It would be nice if we could flip a switch and
turn off bad articles, but short of requiring adminship to create new
articles I don't see it happening.  Improving the collaboration
process, on the other hand, that's much easier, and more the basis of
Wikipedia - trust that most people are trying to do the right thing,
and give them the tools to do it.

> I'd like to see the experiment applied to all edits.  I.e., no anon edits period.  Registration is so simple and requires so little info (name and password only) that it serves less as removing anonymity and more as simply forcing vandals to do more in order to vandalize.  If anything, it protects naive users from publicly broadcasting their IP to those looking for easy targets.
>
I wouldn't mind having the experiment applied to all edits, but only
if it was for a very short period of time (definitely less than a
month), and only if there were clear criteria for measuring the
effectiveness.

That said, I don't really see the point.  It makes it harder for
vandals to edit, but it also makes it harder for non-vandals to edit.
Other than making it harder for anyone without an account to edit (as
well as anyone with an account who isn't always logged in), it doesn't
really accomplish anything (protecting naive users could be
accomplished by simply not publishing the IP address of "anons" but
instead assigning them a unique number which can only be tied to their
IP address through CheckUser).  In fact, I'd say vandals tend to be
more persistent than casual copyeditors, and would be *less* likely to
give up when they find they have to register.

One last point to consider - you don't want to have a four day wait
before you can edit, right?  Assuming not, the barrier to vandals (and
to non-vandals) would be very low.

Anthony