Forced Anonymity for Wikipedia, Would the world end? Options

[Corrupted]

This is a continuation from another thread where the sidenote about Wikipedia being better if it had forced anonymity got more attention than the more central topic.

What is forced anonymity? 4chan is an obvious example to how it works. In Wikimedia terms, this means there is no identity - no one can see your IP except the site operators. You can't see anyone elses' either.

The goal of forced anonymity is to prevent persona building. Personas do have some small benefit on the current Wikipedia, in that people are scared of damage to their personas reputation, but overhwhelmingly this makes Wikipedia worse in my matter, because contributions are no longer valued based on their own merit, but based on who made it. This makes it too easy for POV pushers with sockpuppets to make themselves appear hugely popular and capable of destructive edits without repercussions - because no one can call them on it.

Sure, there would be vandalism in forced anonymity. But vandalism can always be reverted. Except when it's done by a high-power cabal member persona. That's right, you can't undo all vandalism if it's done by a high power editor. With forced anonymity, every bit of vandalism can be undone.

To put it short, it would remove any and all MMORPG aspects from Wikipedia.

[Eva Destruction]

That's a stupid idea, be it for Wikipedia, Facebook or any other user-generated site right down to Rate My Bottom. The "vanity" element is an unavoidable side-effect, not the primary purpose; the point of having registered accounts is to be able to keep track of who was responsible for what. If you really think making it easier to publish libel and misinformation unaccountably would be a step in the right direction, WR is probably not the site for you.

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

That's a stupid idea, be it for Wikipedia, Facebook or any other user-generated site

I don't agree on two counts .... and I would not agree to peer pressure pushing folks off this site just after they jump the hoops to join it. Give them some time to settle please.

I would say forced anonymity works very well for 2ch in Japan ... which also performs far more 'other' and far more 'positive functions' than it is generally portrayed in the West as doing. The founders comments on this issue are interesting to read and concurrent with this argument.

Q: Why did you decide to use perfect anonymity, not even requiring a user name?

A: Because delivering news without taking any risk is very important to us. There is a lot of information disclosure or secret news gathered on Channel 2. Few people would post that kind of information by taking a risk. Moreover, people can only truly discuss something when they don't know each other.

If there is a user ID attached to a user, a discussion tends to become a criticizing game. On the other hand, under the anonymous system, even though your opinion/information is criticized, you don't know with whom to be upset. Also with a user ID, those who participate in the site for a long time tend to have authority, and it becomes difficult for a user to disagree with them. Under a perfectly anonymous system, you can say, "it's boring," if it is actually boring. All information is treated equally; only an accurate argument will work.

I have no idea what 4ch is like ... copies tend not to work the same as originals.

Vanity is a big part of the appeal for both young and old contributors, from logo infested user pages to grown men voluntarily being part of Arbcom.

This post has been edited by Cock-up-over-conspiracy: Sun 6th June 2010, 9:49am

[Moulton]

Forums with anonymous posting might work as envisioned if there are thousands of participants, each of whom only posts rarely.

But if the community is small enough, and/or the forum divides down into topics with relatively few impassioned participants in any given thread, there will emerge recognizable characters whose writing style is sufficiently idiosyncratic that they can easily be distinguished from other random participants. And such people also can be found to have posted comparable screeds elsewhere on the Internet, thus providing clues to their identity.

I'll give you an example.

On Wikipedia, User:Filll would send out regular E-Mail from a Yahoo account with the name "Bob Stevens". Was that his real name, or just a pseudonymous screen name? He went to great lengths to oversight any suggestion (on-Wiki or off) that "Bob Stevens" was his real name (even though on Skype he was known a "Bob.in.MD" and on IRC his IP geolocated to Maryland). Then he created a draft article in his WP userspace on Orly Taitz at the same time that Orly Taitz held a televised press conference in which she thanked "Mr. Bob Stevens" for being her webmaster. His passionate obsessions made it impossible for him to remain anonymous.

People leave fingerprint trails all over the Internet.

This post has been edited by Moulton: Sun 6th June 2010, 10:18am

[Eva Destruction]

Forums with anonymous posting might work as envisioned if there are thousands of participants, each of whom only posts rarely.

But if the community is small enough, and/or the forum divides down into topics with relatively few impassioned participants in any given thread, there will emerge recognizable characters whose writing style is sufficiently idiosyncratic that they can easily be distinguished from other random participants.

What he said; Wikipedia is actually a far smaller site than its Google footprint suggests. Don't be misled by that "12 million users" figure – 90% of those accounts have never posted anything, and most of the others made one or two edits once and then got bored. At any given time, there are about 150,000 active users (defined as "logged in within the last 30 days"), and most of those have done very little; if one takes the 3,500 users with the rollback function (granted to pretty much any regular) as a rough guide, "the Wikipedia community" consists of no more than 5,000 people, most of whom do nothing but tinker at the margins.

[John Limey]

Forums with anonymous posting might work as envisioned if there are thousands of participants, each of whom only posts rarely.

But if the community is small enough, and/or the forum divides down into topics with relatively few impassioned participants in any given thread, there will emerge recognizable characters whose writing style is sufficiently idiosyncratic that they can easily be distinguished from other random participants.

What he said; Wikipedia is actually a far smaller site than its Google footprint suggests. Don't be misled by that "12 million users" figure – 90% of those accounts have never posted anything, and most of the others made one or two edits once and then got bored. At any given time, there are about 150,000 active users (defined as "logged in within the last 30 days"), and most of those have done very little; if one takes the 3,500 users with the rollback function (granted to pretty much any regular) as a rough guide, "the Wikipedia community" consists of no more than 5,000 people, most of whom do nothing but tinker at the margins.

Only about 4,000 Wikipedians make >100 edits in any given month. The real "community" is substantially smaller, even, than this group and amounts to a core in the hundreds.

[One]

You've managed to propose something that would actually make Wikipedia worse.

Yeah, pseudonyms enable cliques and drama, but they're also one of the best mechanisms for encouraging quality content and keeping people from being completely degenerate a-holes.

Oh, I don't think Japanese sites are a good proxy for how anonymity would work on en.wp. When the New York Times writes incredulous articles about lost and found in Japan, you know you're dealing with a substantially different culture. Without user names, a small token of vanity, and praise for do-gooders, I think vandalism would go soon unreverted on Wikipedia.

[BelovedFox]

This (and picking apart someone's details on Facebook they didn't realize they could hide) prompted me to go to another search for myself, to see what someone could do with "wikipedia + my name -wikipedia.org". Remarkably, very little, although there are a couple of details from a significant other I'd rather never been posted. As far as I know few people would be able to tie me to old forums I used to frequent as I used usernames there I don't have anywhere else.

As Damian pointed out, anonymity doesn't really exist, at least in the "complete, even playing field" way that most envision. A lot of stuff will come back to you.

[Zoloft]

Obsessive people + computers = one awesome search capability

True anonymity is impossible.

Question: if the Wikipedia community core is so small, why isn't the core better-behaved?

Is it just the natural tendency of the creative and talented to oppose norms?

Or the usual separation into warring classes that plagues any social structure?

Or just bullies vs nerds?

[BelovedFox]

Obsessive people + computers = one awesome search capability

True anonymity is impossible.

Question: if the Wikipedia community core is so small, why isn't the core better-behaved?

Is it just the natural tendency of the creative and talented to oppose norms?

Or the usual separation into warring classes that plagues any social structure?

Or just bullies vs nerds?

The community core is, I think, larger than most people here have ballparked (didn't Pete say 200 or so?) There are spheres of influence where many "core" people never wander, which I think leads to a balkanized view.

[GlassBeadGame]

Is it just the natural tendency of the creative and talented to oppose norms?

Creative and talented have their work vetted and peer reviewed. Socially inept losers endless congratulate themselves on train wrecks like Wikipedia. You're having a discussion about becoming more like 4 Chan for Christ's sake.

[A Horse With No Name]

The community core is, I think, larger than most people here have ballparked (didn't Pete say 200 or so?) There are spheres of influence where many "core" people never wander, which I think leads to a balkanized view.

When you consider these are 200 or so people from all over the world, you then realize what an incestuous environment WP really is.

Yeah, pseudonyms enable cliques and drama, but they're also one of the best mechanisms for encouraging quality content and keeping people from being completely degenerate a-holes.

Indeed -- if Steve Smith stuck to a pseudonym, he would have never been lured into the temptation of "rampant plagiarism."

[GlassBeadGame]

Indeed -- if Steve Smith stuck to a pseudonym, he would have never been lured into the temptation of "rampant plagiarism."

Excellent use of a tangentially related topic to get a lick in on someone you have a grudge with on WP.

[Milton Roe]

Is it just the natural tendency of the creative and talented to oppose norms?

Creative and talented have their work vetted and peer reviewed. Socially inept losers endless congratulate themselves on train wrecks like Wikipedia. You're having a discussion about becoming more like 4 Chan for Christ's sake.

Yes, that is bizarre. Somebody said that 4Chan was "pure content" and I suppose that's true, and could also be said about what's in a random (/b/) colon. Which also has nobody's name on it.

Pure chain-jerking content. Good for chain-jerking. If you've got a chain you need jerked.

[Zoloft]

This idea has probably been floated before:

If the core activities and structures of Wikipedia were more Balkanized and stovepiped, and run with tightly integrated management (less-democratic, and focused on quality, maybe even paid managers), would the thus segmented and marginalized inmates behave more cooperatively?

Certainly you could 'clean house' of any disaffected or abusive types more easily.

This model would of course be a completely different one thant the present-day Wikipedia, but designed to make the editor's experience less chaotic and more welcoming of expertise and energy.

It would also eliminate IP editing for better or worse.

[MC10]

This idea has probably been floated before:

If the core activities and structures of Wikipedia were more Balkanized and stovepiped, and run with tightly integrated management (less-democratic, and focused on quality, maybe even paid managers), would the thus segmented and marginalized inmates behave more cooperatively?

Certainly you could 'clean house' of any disaffected or abusive types more easily.

This model would of course be a completely different one thant the present-day Wikipedia, but designed to make the editor's experience less chaotic and more welcoming of expertise and energy.

It would also eliminate IP editing for better or worse.

I really doubt removing IP editing would be that bad; even if some constructive IP editors would be affected, they can still register an account and link their contributions back to their IP. Accounts are easier to deal with (by deal with, I mean block, CheckUser, etc.) than IPs, as IPs are not static (at least forever). It would be a good idea to implement this into Wikipedia, but it would garner significant opposition, which would lead to it not being accepted.

[A Horse With No Name]

Excellent use of a tangentially related topic to get a lick in on someone you have a grudge with on WP.

Thank you, but I have no grudge with Steve -- I never conversed with him on WP.

Besides, he admitted to "rampant plagiarism." It is not like Roger Davies, who was outed by a couple of investigative Wikipedians but denied he did anything wrong.

[DoctorHver]

Forums with anonymous posting might work as envisioned if there are thousands of participants, each of whom only posts rarely.

But if the community is small enough, and/or the forum divides down into topics with relatively few impassioned participants in any given thread, there will emerge recognizable characters whose writing style is sufficiently idiosyncratic that they can easily be distinguished from other random participants.

What he said; Wikipedia is actually a far smaller site than its Google footprint suggests. Don't be misled by that "12 million users" figure – 90% of those accounts have never posted anything, and most of the others made one or two edits once and then got bored. At any given time, there are about 150,000 active users (defined as "logged in within the last 30 days"), and most of those have done very little; if one takes the 3,500 users with the rollback function (granted to pretty much any regular) as a rough guide, "the Wikipedia community" consists of no more than 5,000 people, most of whom do nothing but tinker at the margins.

Or get banned. Don't forget if admins don't like your Idea and they love the topic you intent to edit then you get banned even if you are removing misleading information. That just happned to me at French part of wikipeda but I dont care any why.