UserPreferences

JeremyGray


Contact Information

jeremy@jeremygray.ca

Current Status

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On Wiki Anonymity (Summer 2003)

First, a general comment. Privacy is an important right, one that must never be forgotten. There are many situations where privacy is required. There are many situations where 100% anonymity is the simplest guarantee of privacy. In a number of situations, anonymity is the most practical approach to achieving some degree of privacy.

However, 1 time out of 10, anonymity is used to ensure privacy. The other 9 times it is used as a shield behind which people freely partake in questionable activities, activities they wouldn't pursue without said anonymity.

Wikis need a degree of privacy for their users, but anonymity is generally not required, and further, is most often used counter-productively, or at least in a way that is un-supportive of the wiki process.

On a wiki such as this one, the difference between authoritative information and one individual's comments is critical. As issues are discussed and resolved, agreement is reached and a decision (and the information detailing it) becomes authoritative. Such authoritative information is often presented in an un-attributed fashion, as it is essentially a statement made by the wiki's contributorship as a whole.

Of late, this wiki has become progressively more and more polluted by contributors who are editing wiki content without a) logging in such that their edits can be attributed to a user and/or b) attributing their changes to an on-wiki identity that can be used to tie together their various pieces of input.

Why is this such a problem? It is a problem because this anonymous input has started showing up in places where it could easily be mis-read as authoritative content that has resulted from the collaborative process. The truth of the matter is that many such edits are not in any way a result of the collaborative process.

When anonymous input isn't mis-interpreted as authoritative it is still disruptive to the wiki process as anonymous posters can troll, flame, mis-lead, ballot-stuff, etc. to their heart's content without any opportunity for other contributors to know who has provided what input and without any opportunity for an anonymous contributor to be held accountable for their edits.

It is truly sad that the wiki has begun to degenerate in this way, but completely unsurprising. The internet is full of children who love to have their special brand of fun from behind a shield of anonymity. It was only a matter of time before they found their way here.

Wiki Contributions

  1. AtomArtwork . . . . 32 matches
  2. PropertiesVsRoles . . . . 14 matches
  3. EscapedHtmlDiscussion . . . . 9 matches
  4. AggregatorApi . . . . 6 matches
  5. AtomNameDiscuss . . . . 6 matches
  6. CarrotVsOrangeDiscuss . . . . 5 matches
  7. ElementsVsAttributes . . . . 4 matches
  8. RelatedDiscussion . . . . 4 matches
  9. AggregatorApiArchived . . . . 3 matches
  10. EchoFeedWithAuthorRefs . . . . 3 matches
  11. NameFinalVoteArchive . . . . 3 matches
  12. ProjectNamesTopVotesSoFar . . . . 3 matches
  13. TimestampVsCreationDateTime . . . . 3 matches
  14. XmlRpcDiscussion . . . . 3 matches
  15. AtomNameUsage . . . . 2 matches
  16. AuthorElementDiscussion . . . . 2 matches
  17. ContentDiscussion . . . . 2 matches
  18. EchoRenamingProposals . . . . 2 matches
  19. EntryContentDiscussion . . . . 2 matches
  20. NameItEchoConflict . . . . 2 matches
  21. NamespaceDiscussion . . . . 2 matches
  22. PermaLinks . . . . 2 matches
  23. RestEchoApiOneUriForEachEntry . . . . 2 matches
  24. SchemaPatterns . . . . 2 matches
  25. WhatIsAtomFor . . . . 2 matches
  26. AlternativeRepresentation . . . . 1 match
  27. ApiFacets . . . . 1 match
  28. CarrotVsOrange . . . . 1 match
  29. CommentEntryExample . . . . 1 match
  30. EchoSchema . . . . 1 match
  31. IetfVersusW3cVote . . . . 1 match
  32. InfoSetDiscussion . . . . 1 match
  33. IrcChannel . . . . 1 match
  34. IsaCommentAnEntryDiscussion . . . . 1 match
  35. JeremyGray . . . . 1 match
  36. MementoVsTimestamp . . . . 1 match
  37. MultipleSyntaxDiscussion . . . . 1 match
  38. NameFinalVote . . . . 1 match
  39. NameItProposals . . . . 1 match
  40. NumberOfAuthorsDiscussion . . . . 1 match
  41. ProjectNameGuidelines . . . . 1 match
  42. RSSVote . . . . 1 match
  43. RdfAndEcho . . . . 1 match
  44. RelativeLinks . . . . 1 match
  45. SuggestionBox . . . . 1 match
  46. VersionNo . . . . 1 match
  47. WhatIsEntryId . . . . 1 match