Topic on Talk:WikiSquad

Sometimes ago, I changed the rights for anonymous people (aka those who don't have an account on this wiki) that let them edit the wiki. But as Valérie told me, she wasn't aware of this change, and thus I guess others didn't notice this either.

The idea behind this modification was to make it easy for people to ask questions through the Flow boards (the new structured discussion feature). This wasn't a definitive decision, though, but more a "let's test this and see where it takes us". You can see the thread regarding this decision here

However, I agree that this change isn't a small change. For instance, it would mean that we don't know who is the person making change to a page.

So, what are your thoughts ? Do we keep this change, or do we revert back and allow only confirmed users to edit ?

Also, I could try to find an alternative, where anonymous can only write messages in the Flow discussions (but last time I checked, it was quite complicated...), but then I'd like to be sure that everybody agrees with this.

If pirate party have some goals respecting at least it's own basic text, I believe anonymity on this wiki is in contradiction with «evidence base».

Anonymity does not help transparency on this particular platform.

Example ... who am I who posted this message?

Using nicknames is already «something» for the none experimented user. Using bots and sockpuppet even more confusing, even if bots are useful for wiki maintenance and improvements.

So I suggest we keep registration mandatory for this wiki and if «pirates» are not willing to provide their email address to receive an activation link because they «wish to stay under the radar» there are probably other ways to create and validate some accounts, a least through the user table on the database directly.

This is my personal point of view.

(I think it's remarkable that HgO uses an anonymous account to have a debate with himself).

I also agree anonymity does not bring added value to the debate. Furthermore, if someone anonymously posts something on the wiki that goes clearly against our values, what would we do about it, as we're practically unable to have a conversation with that person to solve the problem.

Finally, it might also be a source of confusion : if I'm not logged in (because I'm using another computer/browser or my cookies are deleted), I might make (several) edits without even noticing I'm currently anonymous.

(I think it's remarkable that HgO uses an anonymous account to have a debate with himself).

Come on, everybody knows it's tierce ! :D

(I agree with what has been said so far, except with the first line of Renaud's message)

For my part I think the Wiki of the Pirate Party is not the Wikipedia, so I'm not sure to see why anonymous edition is needed here. It's a cooperative tool for the Pirates, not for the whole planet.

So I'm in favor of keeping registration mandatory on the Wiki.

Until the whole world becomes pirates.

Just to balance, we can be anonymous in the pads, and yet this doesn't seem to be a real problem ^^

Yes, but pads are not indexed by any search engine and have a javascript UI. It's not the case for Wiki, and I'm concerned about spamming bots (I hope the protection is strong).

In the past I have lost some contents on a Wiki because of spamming bots.

Also, we need to have a reliable notification system to monitor page changes if anonymous can edit the wiki... and it's not the case at this time (since you'll have to go back to a watched page to receive further notifications).

On Wikipedia, they used (I don't know if it's still the case) an IRC channel to monitor all the changes made to the pages. This takes time.

As for the pad, anonymity can be useful, but when co-creating something, this can be really annoying not to know who has done what : a lot of "Auteur inconnu" on the pads (see my mails on the mailing list for the OLLN citizen list about this issue).

It's not the case for Wiki, and I'm concerned about spamming bots (I hope the protection is strong).

The protection is the same as the one used for registrations, so I wouldn't worry much about this. Because if a spamming bots can edit the wiki anonymously, it could also register to edit the wiki...

Basically pads and wiki have a different purpose. Anonymity is a problem on the wiki as the wiki holds the building blocks and are our history.

So, I think the decision is clear about anonymous modifications on the wiki.

Now, regarding my question on whether we allow anonynous people to post on the Flow boards or not, I really think this could be useful : for instance, someone wants to ask a question but is a complete noob. In short, I had the idea that Flow discussions could be an alternative to pads as a discussion tool.

OK for the flow discussion as long as there are people to answer on it :)

What HgO said in his last post (which was also the reason why the anonymous editing was enabled in the first place)

Ok, I made the change : anonymous cannot edit the wiki (as this was the case before).

I'll look for a solution to let anonymous post on the Flow boards, when I have time ^^