On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 16:42:23 +0100, John Lee <johnleemk(a)gawab.com> wrote:
<snip>
Many people don't want to get fully involved at
first. I was one of
them, and many Wikipedians I've talked to also started out this way. If
we had to pass through the registration barrier, all of us would never
have joined. As it occurred, we joined after making at least a few dozen
edits and realising how addictive Wikipedia was. This is of course
purely anecdotal, but based on it, I have no doubt at all when I say
Wikipedia would not be anywhere near its present size if you could not
contribute without registering from the start.
True, I myself created 9 articles and 2 categories as an anon. I only
registered because it was the only way to upload images, and then I fell
in love with the watchlist and all the rest.
Would I have become hooked if I was not allowed to create articles though?
Hard to tell, but I think soo, most people can find a few articles they
can fiddle with without needing to create an article. Others might react
differently though. I have seen one or two good contributors who refuse to
register and consider userpages, and comunity building a complete and
utter waste of time. It would be a shame to loose these as they are
dedicated to providing good content, but as long as they can still edit
existing pages I don't think it will become a huge deal. If push comes to
shove those people will just create a "dispisable" acount, use it to
create pages and maybe upload images, and otherwise keep editing without
logging in (this is anoying if they forget to provide source and copyright
info on the images as you can't get in touch with them again, but
otherwise not rely a problem).
--
[[User:Sherool]]