[Wikipedia-l] Require confirmed email address to upload images?

[Gregory Maxwell]

On 6/28/06, Oliver Coddington <olivercoddington at gmail.com> wrote:
> I suppose it does open up the question of having to have an e-mail address
> to just simply register an account, as opposed to just having to have one to
> upload images. Especially when there was a debate going on about reusing
> accounts which have been inactive, if one had to register with a valid
> e-mail address then a warning e-mail could be sent out to inactive accounts,
> for example. Of course that does go against the nature of Wikipedia
> slightly, in some people's views. However, it is something worth considering
> as the rate of new users keeps on increasing.

Of course, were we to do this more people would simply edit without an
account. You already are not able to upload without an account.  But I
think the more important consideration is this, how often do we need
to email a few-edit account... vary rarely, perhaps only once to tell
them that their account is expiring.  Drive by image uploaders, on the
other hand, provide incomplete copyright information in a majority of
cases.

It's not reasonable to expect new users even uploading ones to be
experts at our requirements, even when we make a strong effort to
inform people prior to upload.  As such I support this feature.