Re: wiki.erights.org and anonymous edits

On Mon, 2009-01-12 at 08:37 -0500, Kevin Reid wrote:
> On Jan 12, 2009, at 6:52, Toby Murray wrote:
> 
> > Surely we're losing far more than we're gaining by continuing to allow
> > anonymous edits.
> 
> Here are two arguments for preserving anonymous editing. I'm not  
> saying they outweigh the greater spam blocking, but they should be  
> considered.
> 
> * No anonymous editing will discourage that rare unknown-profound-and- 
> lazy contributor who *is* sufficiently valuable to make up for their  
> comparative rarity.
> 
> * With anonymous editing, they just edit and we can block their  
> address and prohibit account creation from it. Without anonymous  
> editing, they create accounts (yes, there are spambots that do that)  
> and Wikipedia hides their IP address (from me, at least), so we can't  
> block anything but their throwaway account (which persists forever in  
> the wiki database).

I agree completely that these arguments must be considered. The reason I
gathered the data was to try to work out what weight to give these
arguments. The evidence (to me) suggests that
 * the unknown-profound-and-lazy contributor doesn't exist, or hasn't
yet contributed under the relaxed conditions, and
 * reCAPTCHA breaking spambots are not a current threat.

Of course, preventing anonymous editing might make reCAPTCHA breaking
spambots a threat and preventing anonymous edits might hinder the
creation of a community around E. I worry about both of these things.

It is heartening however that I got an opposing statement from the
person who has spent more time reverting edits and blocking IPs than any
other. Perhaps, then, I shouldn't be worrying.

Cheers

Toby