The root of the problem is that using our software and site a person
is able to do harm to another anonymously. This harm is then
"innocently" spread by Google and our mirrors.
It is rather time consuming and difficult to actually identify an
editor. Much more difficult then say validating a credit card (which,
if the money arrives, is good).
Perhaps we should run two versions: a public version which could be
googled and mirrored and a semi-private version which could not be
googled or mirrored. The public version would be cited and fact-
checked; the semi-private version a work in progress.
To implement this, google would be blocked from the main site and no
distribution would be made of its contents. The public version would
be built from scratch with all information fact checked.
This would also prevent using our site for googlebombing which is a
major motive with some exploitive users.
Fred
On Nov 30, 2005, at 2:03 AM, Keith Old wrote:
We should look again at allowing anonymous edits, This
seems to
have been
the root of the problem.
Blogs and webforums have more rigorous requirements to leave
remarks than we
do. I acknowledge that most anonymous editors contribute in good
faith but
many do not.
Further, the cost of cleaning up after the ones who do not detracts
from the
main work of writing the encyclopedia. I am not calling for
credentialism
but registering as a user.
It also means that many users are blocked for 24 hours as a result of
sharing an IP with a vandal. I had to change my ISP last year
because of
vandalism from someone else. We also have had rogue registered
users but at
least we have procedures to deal with those.
Further, the anonymous nature of the edits means that many edits are
unfairly discounted because people can't be sure of the value of
the edits.
As a volunteer of the help desk, I am aware of at least two
professors who
have tried to edit but have had their edits removed. That may have
been fair
enough in one case but the point remains. A point made by Professor X
carries much more weight than a point made by IP 123.xx.
A similar problem occurs with copyvios. On a couple of occasions,
people
have uploaded material from their personal webpages which have been
speedy
deleted as copyvios. If they were identified, there would have been a
greater chance that their right would have been recognised.
We need to do a cost/benefit analysis showing what we gain from
allowing
anonymous edits compared to the losses of cleaning up vandalism from
anonymous edits.
Regards
Keith Old
Keith Old
User:Capitalistroadster
On 11/30/05, David Gerard <fun(a)thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
Andrew Lih wrote:
I know what you're saying, and I don't
think anyone on the
Foundation-L list would endorse anything like regulation or being on
the hook legally.
But this clearly should be added to the wake up calls -- "SOFIXIT"
does not cut it anymore. Wikipedia cannot enjoy the bragging
rights of
a "Top 40" web site without changing its quality standards to match.
The problem is that we peaked way too early. The site is late-
alpha or
early beta at best, and should have big 1995-style yellow and black
"UNDER CONSTRUCTION" GIFs with really bad aliasing on most pages.
There's no drastic solution that won't fuck up the community
operations
of the site. Running a hack'n'slash cull on the live site will
lead to
the current webcomics debacle times a thousand. We already have
specialists in all sorts of areas saying they don't even want to
bother
starting to write up something they know for Wikipedia because (quote
from Sunday's UK meet) "some idiot will delete it *because* they
don't
understand it." Imagine that outside attitude for a thousand
specialist
subjects.
I'm not convinced the Article Rating feature
that is waiting in the
wings is the right or efficient way to do it. But we have to get
closer to the "1.0" solution. It's time.
There isn't a fast way and article rating isn't a fast way either.
There
is no silver bullet. We are early beta (usable and testable but
mostly
composed of bugs) and the real world will need to get used to that,
because there is no way to change that in the next week or month.
I suspect we'll actually be able to work better if we're not
flavour of
the month.
- d.
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