[Wikimedia-l] Thanking anonymous users

[Tim Starling]

On 11/01/14 06:21, Ryan Kaldari wrote:
> These are two reason we don't have Thanks for anonymous editors:
> 1. Anonymous editors don't get notifications
> 2. Multiple editors often share the same IP address
> Problem #2 isn't as prominent as it use to be, but there are still many
> large companies and schools that connect to the internet through a single
> IP. I imagine that once IPv6 is widely in use, this problem will go away
> and we'll be able to turn on all notifications (including Thanks) for
> anonymous editors.

We could have a persistent cookie with an ID number assigned to
anonymous users, and send messages to that. Then anons would get their
messages despite roaming between IP addresses, and they wouldn't get
messages for other people who happen to share their IP.

We could even allocate a row in the user table for them, which would
be beneficial for various features that currently exclude anons due to
the need to link to a user ID.

-- Tim Starling