Forum:CT:Registration requirement

Forums > Consensus track archive > CT:Registration requirement

This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made in the Senate Hall or new Consensus Track pages rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record.
The result of the debate was to continue to allow anonymous editing.

From the Community Portal:

Vote

Disable anonymous editing

  1. Kuralyov 21:21, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Don't disable anonymous editing

  1. Sikon [Talk] 06:10, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
  2. RMF 06:26, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
  3. MyNz 06:45, 24 April 2006 (UTC) Don't put the blame on all anonymous editors.
  4. WhiteBoy 08:52, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
  5. —Silly Dan (talk) 23:15, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
  6. Fixing vandalism is a minor problem. --SparqMan 23:50, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
  7. CooperTFN 02:55, 25 April 2006 (UTC) If we ban anons, then the terrorists vandals win!
  8. Breathesgelatin 04:41, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  9. Red XIV 09:06, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Registration Requirement

Why isn't there a registration requirement for users? It seems like that would make life easier to prevent random people from vandalizing, no?--DannyBoy7783 01:32, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Forcing people to join up to use Wookieepedia kinda defeats the purpose of a free encyclopedia. -- SFH 01:34, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
    • If it cost something to join then you'd be correct.--DannyBoy7783 01:37, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
      • Wouldn't we have to get Wikicities management to do that? I'll bet they're not going to require all editors to register anytime soon. So it's a moot point. — Silly Dan 01:40, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
        • I was simply asking a question, regardless of whether or not it is moot. I wanted to know why we don't have that requirement. --DannyBoy7783 01:45, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
          • S'OK. I always assumed it was wikicities policy, myself (and I think read it somewhere, but my memory is fuzzy). You might want to poke around the main wikicity and see if it's been discussed already. — Silly Dan 01:50, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
            • I had read somewhere that registration was going to become mandatory for wikipedia (if you wanted to edit) but perhaps I am wrong or it just hasn't gone into effect yet. I was under the impression it had so I wondered why we didn't also have that policy. --DannyBoy7783 01:52, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
    • That was just to make new pages, in an attempt to stop anons from making useless articles or general spamage. It's been failing...quite miserably I might add. -- SFH 01:55, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
      • Plus, anons can still edit existing articles on Wikipedia. — Silly Dan 01:58, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
        • Ahhh.--DannyBoy7783 02:01, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
          • Yeah, you should have to register before editing, it would stop spammers and vandals, seeing as once they took the time to register and validate their email and everything, they would probably lose the gumption. -- Doo Doo 04:32, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
            • Requiring people to log in, which only takes 2 seconds anyway, doesn't prevent spam or vandalism. See the "Abolish anonymous users" discussion on Wikipedia. Angela (talk) 12:27, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
              • I completely agree. I'm sick of seeing "You nerrrrrdddds!!!!!" and "Revan wuz liek totally a gril." I mean, we all know we're nerds, but what's nerdier than vandalizing a Star Wars website? Lonnyd 08:45, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
                • I have no idea how to program bots like R2-D2 but if there could be bots to catch key phrases and words I think that would greatly reduce some of the problems. I also think that users should have to register. It's annoying when an anon makes an edit or needs to be spoken to and they don't have a talk page. Also I think it would deter people just a little bit from vandalizing.--DannyBoy7783 14:42, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

My two credits:

  1. Many anons just make minor, but positive edits. Imagine that someone sees a mistake in an article - if they had to register to fix that, they probably wouldn't bother at all.
  2. Registration requirement doesn't stop vandals, for reasons outlined.

Therefore, I'm against mandatory registration. Registration is not required on Wikipedia, other Wikimedia projects, Memory Alpha, Uncyclopedia and almost all Wikia (if not all). Why should we be special? We aren't even the Wikia site that receives the largest amount of vandalism - Uncyclopedia suffers from way, way more vandalism than we do, yet they manage to fight it. Actually, we do as well. One or two users per day on VIP isn't very hard for twelve admins to manage.

What we need, however, is admins' and active users' permanent presence on IRC, where vandals and fanon posters can be reported quickly. Sort of like Uncyclopedia, except they don't have to deal with fanon. - Sikon [Talk] 14:58, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

  • I second the IRC idea. I also agree that we should not require registration—like Sikon said, there are numerous small (but positive) edits that anons make (spelling comes to mind, foremost). Also, the ability to edit anonymously allows people to contribute without any hassle, often opening the door to further involvement—case in point, myself: I began editing on Wikipedia anonymously a while ago, fixing spelling/grammar errors as I read articles. I certainly would not have bothered if there would have been a registration requirement (not matter how easy). Instead, I gradually started doing more and more, eventually finding this wiki and becoming involved here. None of this would have happened had I been required to register, and I think this is the case for a number of people. That's my take. RMF 22:46, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
    • Show those anons some mercy please. When I first started contributing to Wookieepedia in March 2005, I was an anonymous editor and did not create an account to late October 2005 after Silly Dan praised me for creating the badly needed Ruurian article. Not all anons are bad, there are always good ones out there. Limiting contributing to only registered users would cause the number of contributions to fall. I wish that we could bring track down vandals and bring them to the police and they would be prosecuted and convicted for their crimes. MyNz 06:59, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
      • Prosecuted and convicted? Er, with what charges? 8) —Silly Dan (talk) 23:51, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
        • Imagine if there was a way to track down vandals like Willy on Wheels, MARMOT, the Communist Vandal and SuperShadow, and get them arrested by the local police and tried on charges of internet abuse at a court. MyNz 00:18, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Once more, I need to say: the only way we can help reduce this vandalism is by ending anonymous editing and making new users wait a while before editing. Kuralyov 21:51, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Ending anon editing wouldn't reduce vandalism; they would simply register (which takes almost no time). And once registered, do you realize how much more difficult RC patrolling would be considering everyone would have a username? Interestingly enough, most of our recent vandalism has been of the "move" type – the type which requires you to be logged in. Making registration compulsory would not help with this in the least. RMF 22:02, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
      • The thing is, Kuralyov would also like to restrict new users from making edits, too, from editing soon after registering. That *would* have prevented the recent vandalism, but it would also have a substantial chilling effect on new productive editors. jSarek 22:07, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
        • Ah, I read too fast. But you're right, it would definitely dissuade many (if not most) new editors, and thereby freeze our growth. RMF 22:12, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
          • Rather than registration requirement, could we have something like the Homestar Runner Wiki has? If you try to edit a page there, you'll notice that you have to enter an "image code", which effectively gets rid of spam edits/moves. While I don't think we should implement that for editing, it may be useful for making moves, as people who do that should think about it anyway and it would most probably stop such quick "on Wheels" and "is Communism" movers. —Jaymach Ral'Tir (talk) 23:16, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
            • Actually, I get the impression from the recent changes logs over there that it only slows them down. (The Wikipedia "On wheels" vandalism page has a lot of reports about copycat vandalism on hrwiki.org.) One thing that does help is the fact that they have a "User creation log", which allows admins to block anyone with a username like "Communism on wheels!" before they can do anything. However, I don't see that log on even the central Wikia, and I'm not sure we'd even be able to see it on our wikia. A vandal could theoretically log on for the first time on some semi-abandoned wikia, wait a day or so, and then come over here and make a mess. —Silly Dan (talk) 00:44, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Vandalism is a relatively minor nuisance, and reverting it away is easy. No need to do away with the very essence of a Wiki in a vain attempt to stop it. Vandals aren't going to stop just because they have to register, any more than requiring registration prevents message boards from getting trolled. Red XIV 09:06, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.