QUOTE(cookiehead @ Mon 12th December 2011, 4:25pm)
This brings up a point I think often overlooked by the WP Elite in their disdain for "IP editors"....IP editors are actually more trustworthy stewards of the WP community..."you know where they live" so to speak....the rest of us Anonymous kooky name alias editors get to hide who we are and where we are editing from (like what company or government agency). Some anonymous editors even use more than one alias.
IP editors meanwhile are easily traceable by all WP editors. You can "geolocate" if someone is a corporate or government "lobbyist" without having to be a part of the Wiki Police. No favors required.
WP should allow editing only with a verified "real name" or otherwise post IP addresses next to each edit/alias.
But I guess that would take the fun out of what appears to be WP's #1 goal, to be a social media game.
This.
User accounts on Wikipedia are onerous collars of discipline that are meant to subject the human being who knows the password to the account to arcane and arbitrary rules. If you follow the rules and pay enough lip-service, the "community" will come to "like" you. Alternatively, if you point out that the emperor has no clothes, if you broadcast how shaky their infrastructure is, or if you ignore their arbitrary rules, the "community" will come to "dislike" you. As a person. The person behind the user account.
The freak show that is WR comes in part from the fact that many of the ex-contributors here were hoodwinked into thinking that user accounts were an attractive feature of the website. They are, rather, the means to Party Membership into their 1984-like cult. And WR is Emmanuel Goldstein.