[WikiEN-l] What's the big deal about anonymous editing?

Thu Dec 8 15:30:30 UTC 2005

I've been following this argument with great interest for a long time.

I have to admit that I never really understood why anonymous editing
was such an important thing for so many people. Especially, since it
doesn't give you more privacy than a username does.

A typical internet user creates user accounts on dozens of sites. You
can't even read email without a user account. You can't even access
the internet without some sort of user account at your ISP.

I admit but sometimes it's convenient not having to log in, but both
the server and modern browsers help you remember your username /
password, so mostly it takes less than 10 seconds to log in.

And it seems that no one talks about this, but its soo *frustrating*
to communicate with anonymous users? Has the anonymous editor been
warned already not to upload copyrighted material? Not to write in ALL
CAPS? Pointed to various policies or guidelines? Was this her first
edit?  You can't tell, because they don't have a user name.

Can anyone tell if Wikipedia wouldn't have reached its current size if
you required the creation of a user account, just like 99.9% of the
websites does?

Did anonymous editing make such a great difference? Can someone prove it?

-- nyenyec

On 12/8/05, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/7/05, Brian <reflection at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Many feel that the [[USA PATRIOT Act]] was only passed on the basis of it being
> > a highly emotional, gut reaction. Pretty much everyone was OK with it at first,
> > but over time a lot of Americans have come to wonder if it violates some of our
> > very basic principles. That's just a surface analogy - don't read into it too
> > far. The point is that, whether or not it is a perennial suggestion, and whether
> > or not an article existed for several months and displayed a prominent person as
> > an assassin, we should absolutely not go against the principles that got us
> > here.
>
> Perfectly said.
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