Robert Graham Merkel wrote:
Is it time to make it wikipedia policy that you should
sign
your posts on talk pages?
Other than a very tiny handful of things, we run more under social
norms than policies, I think. I mean, NPOV is policy, in the sense
that I'm willing to defend it by banning people, if it ever came to
that. (Like, if a large group of ideologically minded people swooped
in on us to put forward their version of the world, at the expense of
NPOV, then I'd be willing to fight it with software, bans, etc.)
But most other things are "merely" social norms. Like: be bold in
updating encyclopedia articles. Like: don't edit other people's
signed comments during an ongoing discussion on a talk page.
The only way to enforce the social norm you're proposing is if most
people "sign on" to it. Larry used to write these things on a page,
and people could "sign on" as agreeing -- a sort of unenforceable but
powerful social commitment. I guess we'd just ignore people who don't
sign posts? Or, we could make it "fair game" to just delete comments
that are unsigned?
I see some drawbacks to either.
Maybe the best thing to do is to "sign" the comments _for them_.
I.E., add an identifier to what people have written, primarily to keep
the comments straight.
Anonymity isn't the problem, right? I mean, anyone can make up any
name and use it. The problem is more one of _continuity_. If I'm
/Talk ing with LDC or AxelBoldt, then I know something of their
history, and they of mine, so we can talk more efficiently.
--Jimbo