Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-10-29/Page creation
Page creation for unregistered users likely to be reenabled
Turning the clock back nearly two years, it appears that the English Wikipedia may again allow editors to create new encyclopedia articles without first registering an account. In an experiment announced by Greg Maxwell, reversing a previous move that was itself billed as an experiment, the change is tentatively set to be implemented for one month beginning 9 November and reevaluated at the end of that period.
Originally installed in the aftermath of the Seigenthaler incident, the restriction of page creation to registered editors has been in place since December 2005. The change was carried out by Brion Vibber at the request of Jimmy Wales and applies only to encyclopedia articles themselves, not other features like talk pages. It was announced by Wales as an experiment, partly in response to comments from new page patrollers that newly created articles were often nonsense, and that unregistered anonymous editors in particular were the worst offenders.
Predicting admin elections; studying flagged revision debates; classifying editor interactions; and collecting the Wikipedia literature
26 March 2012
Studying German flagged revisions, French library agreement, German court case
12 April 2010
Financial statements, discussions, milestones
8 March 2010
BLP deletions cause uproar
25 January 2010
Flagged revisions petitions, image donations, brief news
28 December 2009
Vibber resigns, Staff office hours, Flagged Revs, new research and more
28 September 2009
WikiTrust, Azerbaijan-Armenia edit wars
31 August 2009
An extended look at how we got to flagged protection and patrolled revisions
31 August 2009
Misleading media storm over flagged revisions
31 August 2009
Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
24 August 2009
New board member, flagged revisions, Eurovision interviews
25 May 2009
End of Encarta, flagged revisions poll, new image donation, and more
30 March 2009
Commons, conferences, and more
9 March 2009
Flagged Revisions, historical image discovery, and more
16 February 2009
Wikipedia in the news: Wikipedia's future, WikiDashboard, and "wiki-snobs"
8 February 2009
Wikipedia in the news: Flagged Revisions, Internet Explorer add-on
31 January 2009
Jimbo requests that developers turn on Flagged Revisions
24 January 2009
News and notes: Flagged Revisions and permissions proposals, hoax, milestones
10 January 2009
Sighted revisions introduced on the German Wikipedia
12 May 2008
Page creation for unregistered users likely to be reenabled
29 October 2007
Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
2 April 2007
The Seigenthaler incident: One year later
4 December 2006
Wikipedia in the news
2 October 2006
Single-user login, stable versioning planned soon
7 August 2006
Since then, the move has been debated a number of times. One repeated criticism was that despite being cast as an experiment, it was not accompanied by any evaluation process or criteria for success, making it seem more a hasty reaction to the negative publicity surrounding Seigenthaler's article. And with the passage of time, it might appear that the change was ultimately destined to be permanent.
The prevailing view now seems to be that the restriction has run its course and is no longer desirable, if indeed it ever was, as the generally positive response to Maxwell's announcement on the English Wikipedia mailing list suggested. Some people have looked to the introduction of a MediaWiki feature for stable versions or flagged revisions as a step that would allow article creation to be reopened. However, like the similarly long-awaited universal login for all Wikimedia projects, progress in developing that feature remains unclear (a planned test on the German Wikipedia has yet to begin). The occasion did prompt some renewed debate about which version, stable or live, should be displayed as the default.
Addressing concerns about the validity of the previous experiment, Maxwell indicated plans to compile data during the one-month trial and called for volunteers to participate in a quality study. The strongest argument against the planned trial came from Todd Allen, who cited the abysmal success rate at Wikipedia:Articles for creation as evidence that very few of the additional contributions would prove worthwhile. Others countered that few unregistered contributors likely choose that option, preferring to actually register an account or work on existing articles instead. Discussion on the village pump, meanwhile, pointed to the large volume of new pages that get deleted even now, with several people arguing that it should not be opened up to even more people.
More of the criticism was directed not at the substance of the plan, but the nature of Maxwell's announcement. While he happens to be Wikimedia's Chief Research Officer (an unpaid volunteer position), Maxwell avoided saying that he acted in any official capacity. However, his confident tone and use of "we" in the announcement confused some people about who was behind the decision, and also brought complaints about failing to discuss the possibility beforehand. Board chair Florence Devouard said the experiment had not been ordered by the Wikimedia Foundation, indicating that she considered it purely a matter for the community to decide — although she expressed happiness about the decision. (The original experiment, at Wales's instigation, presumably falls under the powers he "reserves" as a project founder rather than his formal Wikimedia role at the time.)
In response, Maxwell argued that public discussion had already taken place earlier, and in fact his participation had helped disrupt "nearly unanimous" agreement to reverse the original experiment. In addition, he pointed out that no new information had come up since then, nor could it without a new experiment to see what unregistered article creation would produce. So after a discussion with Sue Gardner, Mike Godwin, and Kat Walsh, he had "decided to step up to move this forward."
Discuss this story
It might be worth pointing out that while the response on the mailing list may have been somewhat in favour, the response on-Wiki (on the Village Pump) when Gmaxwell posted the announcement was somewhat (in fact, very much) against the change. Neil ☎ 12:52, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think you can say the response was "very much against" this, although it may have been more mixed than on the mailing list. A number of people were quite positive on the village pump, and being so naturally they don't spend as much time arguing over the plan. I don't want to turn this into a debate over the relationship between the mailing list and the wiki, but I think Greg's participation in both discussions makes clear that he at least considers the input from both venues equally.
For the comprehensiveness of this article, I did tend to use more of the mailing list discussion, which is easier to link to, and especially because it covered a wider variety of issues, as opposed to the village pump which focused heavily on Special:Newpages. But I've expanded the article with a bit more material to take that into account. --Michael Snow 04:21, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The article states that the restriction "...applies only to encyclopedia articles themselves, not other features like talk pages." I think this is a bit misleading, since the only pagess anons can start are talk pages, afaik (not project pages, categories, templates}. Perhaps this could be clarified to state that anons are currently allowed to create talk pages, but not pages in any other namespace? --24.20.79.17 08:34, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree with the decision as I think it will further encourage the creation of articles about garage bands. However, I guess it is worth a try. Wikipedia does need to step up its efforts though to educate teenagers that articles about their band are inappropriate. If it leads to the New Page Patrol being overwhelmed with rotten articles, then it can be repealed in a month. Life, Liberty, Property 14:55, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]