[WikiEN-l] Anons banned from creating articles

Wed Dec 7 07:07:11 UTC 2005

On 12/6/05, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> The Cunctator wrote:
>
> > What annoys me particularly is pretending that this is an experiment.
> >
> >It's not. It's a permanent policy change.
> >
> >
> My guess is that it's an experiment that will turn into a permanent
> policy change if it turns out to be useful.
>
> >Who's willing to bet that I'm wrong?
> >
> >
> About this being not an experiment, or about it being permanent?
>
> It will stay if it turns out to be a Good Thing (tm). As most people
> expect it to be good, most peolpe will expect it to stay.
>
> So, you're likely wrong about the "experiment" part, but probably not
> about the "permanent"part :-)

Actually, I'd argue the opposite if I were to be didactic, because
nothing is *truly* permanent. Though maybe Wikipedia will be the seed
of a Teilhardian noosphere that will expand throughout the universe
until its heat death.

Jimbo claiming it's an experiment does not make it an experiment.
Laying out metrics for success and failure would draw closer.

The problems caused by increasing restrictions and decreasing openness
are almost always very hard to see; it's very difficult to quantify
lost opportunities. Especially if there isn't an effort made
beforehand to define a proper metric, which is extraordinarily
difficult for something like Wikipedia.

If Jimbo were honest about it being an experiment, I'd recommend that
he do something like have the anon article creation ability be turned
on and off for semi-random, unannounced periods of time and see what
happens as a consequence.