[Wikimedia-l] The soft underbelly of the WP: the sponsored private fiefdoms that thrive in the blind spots

[Andreas Kolbe]

Marc,

The page I linked to says in part:

"It goes without saying that using the process described we are also unable
to verify the identity of the person(s) behind the user account."

("Es versteht sich von selbst, dass wir mit dem beschriebenen Verfahren
auch nicht die Identität der hinter dem Benutzerkonto stehenden Person(en)
überprüfen können.")

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Benutzerverifizierung

Note the plural ending in brackets. I read this as a tacit acknowledgement
that different individuals may be using the account at different times.

A similar user verification process in the English Wikipedia could well
communicate a requirement to the registrant that only one person should use
each company account, and that any other company employee wishing to
contribute to Wikipedia under the company name should register a separate
account (say, Coca-Cola Germany 2).

However, it is generally impossible to verify that only one person is using
any given Wikipedia user account. This applies to private accounts as much
as to company accounts. I am sure there are thousands of ordinary user
accounts that have been used by more than one person.

The German Wikipedia's user verification process has been operational since
2011. A list of verified user accounts (there are about 1,500 to date) is
here:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kategorie:Benutzer:Verifiziert

It's not unlike Twitter's system of verified accounts.

Andreas

On Tue, Jul 23, 2013 at 8:43 PM, Marc A. Pelletier <marc at uberbox.org> wrote:

> On 07/23/2013 02:03 PM, Todd Allen wrote:
> > I
> > don't think such a proposal would be hopeless on en.
>
> How did dewiki circumvent the difficulties regarding attribution and
> role accounts?  Last I checked, our terms of use prohibit password
> sharing, and IIRC Mike Godwin (legal counsel at the time) stated there
> were some serious issues with the idea of contributions not being
> credited to an individual.
>
> -- Marc
>
>
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